I’ve had a passion for cars for as long as can I remember. My first toy was a Hot Wheels ‘Jeepster’, which I still have it, and two years ago I bought the same diecast in its original packaging from a Hot Wheels collectors club.
Photography is a newer passion for me, but to be able to combine it with car culture is even better. Where did I get my car photography start? With Hot Wheels, of course.
I was in high school when photography came into my life. At that time I really wanted to shoot modified cars, but I didn’t have the experience, nor did I know any owners of such vehicles in my local scene here in Mexico.
Faced with that situation, I thought it was a good idea to start practising photography with my Hot Wheels collection, putting the scale cars in different places around my house and various other landscapes close to home.
Given that most of us are now spending an extended period at home because of the global health pandemic, it’s the perfect time to shoot some more Hot Wheels. I don’t think you need a perfect landscape; you just have to work with you’ve got and use the environment and natural lighting to your advantage. Creativity has no limits.
I learned so much photographing diecasts for a year before I began pointing my camera at real cars, and these are some of my favourites, all shot at home.
If you too like shooting Hot Wheels and other scale cars, I’d love to see some shots in the comments section.
Gregory López Lucio
Instagram: greg_lo_photo
Facebook: Greg Lo Photo
How To join the IATS program: We have always welcomed readers to contact us with examples of their work and believe that the best Speedhunter is always the person closest to the culture itself, right there on the street or local parking lot. If you think you have what it takes and would like to share your work with us then you should apply to become part of the IAMTHESPEEDHUNTER program. Read how to get involved here.
Much needed! Nice work!
I love this post. We all could use a little bit of inspiration right now. My DSLR hasn't moved from it's case in weeks, I think I might have to go and dig up my old hot wheels cars and give it a go myself!
I appreciate it, Thanks! Happy shooting!
Here's my lot.
I also have Hot Wheels & Tomicas in my drawer. I tried to test out some photoshoots.
sweet...hope you do tomica since this year is their 50th anniversary
Very cool shots! No way am I taking my Hot Wheels out of the packages to join in, though. However, after years of mild daydreaming, this boredom did finally get me to pick up a "real" RC car. If only I could drive and shoot at the same time, I could get some killer action shots out of it.
JDM meet!
I'm not at all ashamed to admit I got way more excited than any grown man should at seeing a 22B Hot Wheels on a store shelf.
Same here. Especially when I once owned a GC8-R myself
Big bro brought the Lil' one to ice skating with new buddies
#Big wang gang
Awesome landscape!
Be stance or not be stance - that is the question ...
A shot from the train set I built incorporating an AFX slot car set with bridge from LeMans I also built.
As we're all on lock down, I've been doing the same thing by adding to my growing collection of Hot Wheels and M2 Machines. Got the bug when I started buying them to give to my young nephews. Now I'm hooked and I trade back and forth with them. But will I take them out of the box? Probably not. But what they offer today is pretty sharp looking.
I had a collection that looked like that, they sat in a box and my then 4 year old son found them and opened them all up and played with. I was upset for a second, but then I just sat down and played cars with him.
Oh yeah. This is a good article and I hope to see more like these from Speedhunters. As we all love the real thing, I guarantee many here also collect scale and Hotwheels cars and more. As for me, I got back into it again after giving Hotwheels cars to my nephews on a regular basis. And while we're all under stay-at-home orders, I've added even more to my growing collection. Between Hotwheels, M2 Machines, and others, the offerings for diecast are quite good these days.
Inspirational Greg. Love this image. Thanks for sharing this story.
Thanks Ben, I appreciate it!
Best way to spend your time at home
Hot Wheels never gets old!
Man photography skills are amazing!
Hot Wheels cars is a great start!
I’ve been speed hunting from home to. Next article on my slammed Ford Expedition
Here a little part of my collection , the wood truck is made by hand!
And the rear
Front
This is something I really enjoy too!
Can I play?
Excellent post - thanks for that.
Thank you!
If only 962 was available for sale here in Russia...
Awesome idea, great inspiration!
Great way to experiment with new techniques while we're all stuck at our homes.
Great idea, much needed inspiration!
Just when the quarantine started i was so dissapointed that the car season was canceled so i took out some hot wheels to photoshoot for my page as well.
Had the same idea when the quarantine started. I was so dissapointed that car season was canceled and wanted a car to do a photoshoot.
Had the same idea when quarantine started
Ya que no podemos sacar nuestros juguetes escala 1/1 a la calle, tendremos que jugar con los juguetes de nuestros niños.
Ya que no se puede salir a jugar con nuestros juguetes, pues habrá que jugar con los de nuestros hijosn
Ya que no se puede jugar con los nuestros de verdad, hay que jugar con los de nuestros hijos. Jajaja.
I also take a shot my hotwheels.. but with my phone
Speedhunting at home
Just to be mildy pedantic, Hot Wheels are not 1/64 scale, they are 3 inch "fit in the box" - i.e. the scale varies. These are 1/64, with Banana for scale.
Damnit worng photo
Really nice photo's. Some of them look like real cars.
I've been photographing my collection aswell for over 10 years.
Here's one of my favorites. 1:43th McLaren F1 GTR in the Gulf race transporter.
Here's my lot.
A joke scene I threw together over a few minutes while on the pone years ago with a close friend of mine after moving to a new state.