Hi, I’m Dave (Who’s Dave?). I’m also known as ShootingDave, a photographer from London that now lives in Venice, California.
A couple of weeks ago during the COVID-19 lockdown, I was starting to notice changes in my mood. I was getting depressed and uninspired. To try and alleviate that I would go out for long walks or skates around my local area to try and get into a different headspace.
On some of these walks I started noticing some pretty cool classic and vintage metal parked outside of people’s houses on the streets. Initially this seems to compound my frustration as I was feeling down and had no way of contacting the owners. These cars were so nice, I knew I wanted to photograph them.
And then it hit me: Why don’t I just light paint them where they sat? There was no guarantee that the cars would still be there at night, but I planned to go out for a walk once the sun had set with my camera gear and hope that they would be.
To my surprise and relief, they were all still there, so I got to work photographing them where they sat. I had to be quick as these were not organised shoots and I could run the risk of aggravating some of the residence.
Thankfully, not a single person came to ask what I was doing, although secretly I did wish that at least one person would want to know what was going on.
After I got a few under my belt I got hungry for more and went on more and longer walks in pursuit of subjects to photograph. I genuinely started to feel much happier and it was almost exciting going out with my camera bag not knowing what I might find.
If you’re interested, I made a video of the process here. I am going to continue this project as long as lockdown is in effect here in Los Angeles, you can follow the project on my Instagram, linked below. I am also wearing a mask and making sure I stay away from anyone whilst shooting this. Especially Jordan Butters, but I normally avoid him anyways.
Dave Cox
YouTube: Shooting Dave
Instagram: Shooting Dave
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