How I Wear It: Amy Shore, Brought to You By Farer Watches

For our second How I Wear It, we turn to another very intriguing Farer Watches ambassador. It’s easy to understand why watch-people also really enjoy cars and photography. They both involve design, engineering, history, aesthetics, mechanics, collectability as well as other commonalities. Well, today’s subject is a photographer of cars, who wears watches, and her name is Amy Shore.

Amy is quite young, but you wouldn’t know it from the focused aesthetic of her work nor the esteemed subjects she shoots. Self-taught and based out of Leicestershire, UK, Amy began photographing at 15. Her father, an artist as well who worked in the automotive industry with the likes of Lotus F1, doing restoration and more, taught her “how to ‘see’ light… We’d walk down the street and he’d point out images and moments to me.” Clearly it worked.

She kept up with it, getting into wedding photography, eventually falling into automotive photography. “Friends of ours (RM Wilson Engineering) built a replica Ferrari P4 that they wanted photographing for reference. I had never photographed a car in my life and didn’t really know what I was doing but took a shot at it and photographed it how I would a person. I have always been a believer in Richard Branson’s wise words of say yes and then learn how to do it later! It turned out pretty well as following that shoot, Petrolicious, Classic Driver and Goodwood all began to hire me for shoots within 4 months.”

A quick glance at Amy’s photography reveals there’s a lot more to it than simply photographing gorgeous vehicles. Her style is soft and moody, creating a much more atmospheric, natural photo than what one typically finds in the automotive world. It’s less about the crisp, sterile details of the vehicle, rather revealing character and narrative. Amy’s inspired by the immediacy of photojournalism, and checking out some of her favorite photographers, Sebastião Salgado, Harry Benson and Henri Cartier-Bresson, you can see how her style has emerged from portraiture and figurative studies.

It’s not often we get to chat with photographers, so I couldn’t help but find out a bit about Amy’s gear and get some tips. Her rig and process is minimal, which I admire, including 2 Nikons (D750/D600) and four prime lenses ((24/35/50/85mm). “No flash, no staging, no multiple shot compositions. I don’t actually even own a tripod…” To Amy “the location is just as important as the car. Shots of cars at a car show don’t stand out, even if everything about the image is great… Also, lighting. Winter light is beautiful all day but in the summer, try and aim for an hour after sunrise or before sunset.”

Amy wears the Barnato with predominantly black attire, making it stand out. Then, she dresses for a job where, as she puts it “I ruin so many clothes on shoots (as well as watches) by kneeling in oil in a workshop or brushing past a greasy worktop that I buy clothes that allow me to do my job to my best ability.” Below, we put together an outfit inspired by Amy’s style and occupation, with an eye towards useful accessories, the color black with a few accents, and simple, rugged items that can hold up to abuse. That said, we stuck to menswear as it’s what we know, but the concepts should be fairly unisex in the end.

For more Amy and Farer, be sure to check out their site and follow them on Instagram:
amyshorephotography.com
@amyshorephotography
farer.com
@FarerUniversal