The Need for (Shutter) Speed

Larry Chen’s twenty years as one of the world’s most successful and influential automotive photographers have been as much a vocation as a career. A lifelong Angeleno immersed in Southern California’s car culture since his teens, Chen captures performance vehicles in action like no one else, while also exploring the surrounding subcultures that make these vehicles so much more than just machines.

His distinctive, emotional images have graced countless magazine covers, while he’s today best known for his extensive work with the Hoonigan and Hagerty automotive lifestyle brands.

From his very first camera, Chen has been accompanied on his creative journey exclusively by Canon equipment and is today an official Canon Explorer of Light. All of this is embodied in his first book, Life at Shutter Speed: Two Decades of Larry Chen Photography: a stunning 14x11” gathering of his favorite images and the stories behind them.

SoCal Car Culture
Growing up in Santa Monica, Chen and his buddies would attend the LA Auto Show and hang out along the Pacific Coast Highway to spot luxury cars “in the wild.” In his first car, a hand-me-down Volvo 740, he’d travel to events at Irwindale Speedway and Fontana’s Auto Club Speedway, but also enthusiast meets at local strip malls, cruises, and auto fairs.

Chen knew that he wanted to make this car culture his life, and his talent for photography was already evident even on a borrowed point-and-shoot. “I combined the two passions. Because anytime we were at the racetrack people, even though they were enjoying the same moment that I was enjoying, would comment that they can’t wait to see my photos,” Chen recalled from his West Covina home. “I realized that people wanted to see how I saw things. I just took that and ran with it.”

In 2003, Chen spent his entire savings on a Canon Rebel XT – a leap of faith that handsomely paid off as he honed his composition skills, use of light and, crucially, an instinct for key moments with more than a million shutter actuations over the following four years. His images rapidly evolved; he acquired pro Canon gear; and went from being a Speedhunters blog contributor to a full-time staff editor for that automotive site. A big break followed in 2012, when Chen became official series photographer for the Formula Drift franchise.

“I feel like it would not have happened if I didn’t grow up in Southern California,” said Chen. “Hot rodding in general started here … and it really is, in my eyes, still the center of car culture.”

Photographing both cars themselves and their owners and fans, Chen has since captured almost every aspect of automobile sport as well as studio shoots for model launches and commercial campaigns. More recently, his YouTube content – Hagerty’s “Capturing Car Culture” and his own, behind-the-scenes channel, “AutoFocus with Larry Chen” – puts him on both sides of the lens.

Methodology & Style
While Chen and his Canon loadout work in all manner of circumstances and settings, from dusty off-road races to manicured studio shoots for major automakers, there are throughlines to his style and method.

“The first half of my career wasn’t really solely focused on the beauty aspect of these machines – it was more focused on the people behind them,” he explained. “Over time, it became more about the art aspect. What makes a beautiful picture? What kind of composition and lighting? And then also it gets to advanced techniques and unique, decisive moments.”

Chen’s approach is immersive: he speeds alongside off-road racers in his supercharged Toyota FJ Cruiser or 500-horsepower Toyota Tundra; captures the thrills of the Long Beach Grand Prix in his Toyota Supra; rides shotgun with builders and pro drivers or crouches trackside with his Canon EOS R1, the fifth model he has helped launch for the storied Japanese brand.

Unsurprisingly, Chen is a major “car guy” himself, his collection also including a beloved, much modded 1970 Datsun 240z, and his teenage dream car, a 2003 Porsche 996 Turbo. He participates in amateur races for fun, but also to remain connected with his subject matter (“I like to participate with everyone else, not just photograph it from the outside”).

(Larry Chen)

Canon & Creativity
Chen’s career-long loyalty to Canon is down to its products’ technical prowess, long-running user-friendly menu interface, and – for someone often shooting in the most demanding of outdoor circumstances, from desert to snow – ruggedness (not to mention outstanding support if repairs are required).

“No other manufacturer has such fast autofocus lenses,” he explained. “I love shooting wide open … plus, most of the time we like to shoot with ambient and natural light, so it’s always nice to have more light-gathering capabilities.”

Currently, Chen’s professional go-to body is the Canon R1, which he helped launch for Canon USA last summer. “I utilize it for the speed, the dynamic range, the durability, and also just its image capturing ability with video,” he continued. “It’s essentially two cameras in one … and basically everything that I wanted in a professional camera.”

Otherwise, he may use a Canon EOS R5 when a commercial shoot requires its huge 45-megapixel resolution. And his everyday, everywhere choice for photography and video is an EOS R8 (“The image quality is really good, the low light is incredible, but its small enough to carry with me.”)

Chen uses an array of Canon lenses for his diverse needs, but he does have his favorites. “If I had to carry one lens for the rest of my life, it would be the Canon RF35mm f/1.4 VCM. It’s wide enough for most situations, but with a fixed focal length,” he said. “If I had to carry two, it would [also] be the RF135mm F1.8 L IS USM, [which] can completely separate something as large as a vehicle from the background, but you can step in closer to get details, textures, portraits, everything.”

When he needs lighting to help freeze a subject, like the champagne pop on a winners’ podium, Chen turns to the Canon Speedlite EL-1 with its convenient and eco-friendly rechargeable battery.

Another major plus of sticking with Canon is the consistency of their cameras’ intuitive menu system, which is essentially the same across the entire model lineup and over many years. For amateur photographers, he recommends Canon’s entry-level EOS R10, in part because, like all Canon R Series bodies, it is compatible with a wide variety of Canon lenses, a wide variety of Canon lenses, including RF-S/RF lenses, or EF/EF-S lenses using the Mount Adapter EF-EOS R.

Life at Shutter Speed
Shot entirely on Canon gear, “Life at Shutter Speed: Two Decades of Larry Chen Photography” is available for preorder now and in stores and online in June. ““Twenty years of shooting; 2,500 photos, 400 pages – It’s pretty much my life’s work up until this point,” said Chen.

-Paul Rogers