Instead of making smalltalk to your coworkers about how out of control Black Friday deals and behaviors are, again, why not while away the last of the week’s working hours with some pictures of vehicles and places you can use to inspire your weekend ahead instead? Indulging in the increasingly bottomless well of high-quality car photography on Instagram is something we at Petrolicious get to write off as “time spent hard at work,” but we won’t tell your boss if you’re slacking off and want to join us—here are some of the accounts we’ve been into lately:
The nature of an Instagram user’s influence is pretty nebulous. You can find accounts that are tracked by hundreds of thousands of people that offer nothing more than super-shallow depth of field shots of supercars sitting outside of London’s posh shops, and then some like this one with only a few hundred followers. I truly don’t understand what’s interesting about the umpteenth Aventador with color-matched wheel lips parked somewhere in Knightsbridge, especially when you could be looking through the diverse collection of images from WabiSabi Media. It seems like most of the work is from Andrea Mombelli, and the subjects fall right into the wheelhouse of what we—and by extension, we hope, you—love to look at: gorgeous cars on race tracks.
If you’re into ’80s touring cars, the DTM, or M cars with box flares I’ll bet that you’re already familiar with Jonas Granath to some extent. He’s been working on completing a very thorough Group A/DTM-spec BMW M3 in Sweden (we’re hoping to feature more on this car in due time), and along with the documentation of his progress in the build there are some very nice photos of things that don’t consist of an orange car in a garage. Nostalgia pervades, whether it’s a travel candid or an array of old Motorsport pieces lined up on the floor, the collection looks like someone scanned a bunch of film photos into an Instagram account—a sort of retro-modern take on the typical build thread.
This account, moteurflottant, which translates to something close to “floating car”—an apt description of the numerous Citroën DS models that appear here—is not really focused on high-quality automotive photography as much as it is about being a perfect representation of French cars and French car enthusiasts. It achieves the former by way of inclusion (everything from turbocharged Alpine GTAs to Citroën ambulances are featured in their period-correct brochure glory), and the latter by way of obvious passion. You just don’t amass this much historical material alongside contemporary images without having a very active interest, and it shows in the depth of content on this fascinating page.
We’ve featured Dennis Noten’s work in the past, and the talented snapper doesn’t need to rely on gimmicks to get noticed, but with that said we do enjoy his for-fun “Nosehunter” page. Instagram is not the best platform to showcase more than a shot or two from a photo session that might result in a hundred so-called keepers, but it does lend itself toward thematic portfolios like this one, which is pretty self-explanatory: these are photos of car noses. It’s a playful way to view our favorite cars from a new perspective, and the consistency of the framing makes it fun and easy to compare and juxtapose.
Robert Ogilvie shoots, as he says, “film photos mainly from San Francisco.” Said photos predominantly consist of cars parked on the street. So far so boring, until you actually take a look at the collection of images he’s put together from his walks and drives around the city. The unique texture inherent in a photo on film lends nearly any scene from life no matter how mundane a bit of extra profundity, or some other hint of a deeper meaning. Combined with Robert’s knack for finding creative ways to compose otherwise pedestrian views into compelling portraits of cars and the spaces they live in, this account is what you might call artsy in a good way.
If you’re looking for more, the official Petrolicious Instagram account is always being restocked with fresh shots from our friends around the world.
