There's an anual Atlanta Police Department car show and they wanted a pic of my Chevelle for a pamplet. I have a lot of pics already, but I don't think there in a good location. I might be able to get some pics at the Atl. Airport with the planes in the background. Do ya'll have any ideas about where I should take the pics?

Is there a business park nearby? Usually their parking lots are empty on weekends and if you can find a spot next to a building with few or no windows you can use the building as a noncluttered background. Try to avoid photo locations which show the car with light poles or trees in the background so they won't appear in your photos as if they are sprouting from the roof of the car.

If an uncluttered location is hard to find, use a step ladder (6-8 footer is good) to gain a little perspective and shoot down on the car slightly to move the distant objects and horizon right out of your photo.

You can get creative with the background if you want, but don't let it be too distracting.
Some of this may be basic, but I'll throw it out anyway:
-Cars look better on pavement. Don't shoot it parked in the grass.
-Make sure the sun is at your back. Don't be lazy. If you want to shoot all sides of the car, get in it and move it around.
-Don't shoot at high noon. The light looks harsh and makes the photo look flat.
-Shooting on a partly cloudy day can be awesome. When a cloud covers the sun it diffuses the light and makes things look great.
-Don't just stand and take the picture at your normal height. Get down on the level of the car (one knee), or even lay on the ground. Try some different angles. It ads visual drama.
-A complete side profile shot of a car is almost never very dramatic.
-A 3/4 view at the front is great.
-Look at the colors in the background. Do they complement the car, clash, or totally blend in with it? Try and find something that makes your car pop out from the background.

Easiest thing to recommend is for you to look in lots of car magazines and observe what they have done. These guys do this stuff for a living and shoot hundreds of rolls per year.
What kind of camera do you have? Can you change the aperture (lens opening)? If you can, stop it down to the smallest opening that you can for the given lighting situation and notice how it makes the background less distinct. This places more attention on the subject.

For the background specifically, the airport might be good, but it would depend on how you can frame everything. I'm wondering if you'd be able to do much more than simply having them very small in the background.
I saw a pickup truck that was shot in front of a wall of very large wooden shipping crates. The truck was yellow with dark brown behind it. Very nice, as the brown made the yellow pop more, and the interlocked design of the crates and grain of the wood added visual interest to the background. An old brick wall works well, especially if you can find one with subtle patterns on it. Graffiti would be bad unless the car made an extremely strong visual statement (blower, loud paint, etc.).

I'm rambling a bit, but I hope this helps.

Do it with a nice background, but not an active background. Also make sure that whatever you park the car in front of and take the picture, will not make the car look like it has something growing out the top of it when printed.

Basically don't photograph in front of trees or poles that the car will cut off the bases of.

I took some really neat pictures of my 69 parked at an angle to an all block wall of a building. Dark colored cars parked in front of lighter colored walls make for interesting pictures. If I recall your car is a deeper color blue? That would look good in front of a grayish colored wall. Also walls with graffitti, obviously not obscene, will make a car stand out as well.

Have fun, take a lot of diffrent pictures, and get down low and up high to take the pictures. The height diffrences will make your pictures diffrent than all the other stand and click pictures.

Good luck and let us see the one you use,

Jeff

Lighting is everything, if you have bad light you have bad pics. My best shots were taken at dusk. You can see some of them in my profile. Try using "fill" flash too to help even light out.

Tilt the camera different ways, straight on shots are boring.
Shots from low looking up make the car look aggressive.
Avoid reflections of other things and YOU
If you do everything just right the background will matter very little cause the car will take up virtually all of the shot...unless you just want some longer shots.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v477/thunderstruck507/carhome037.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v477/thunderstruck507/carhome030.jpg

take pictures with windows up and windows down for comparison!

Most people take only windows down pictures..... not saying its wrong or bad.. I just think windows up pictures sometimes look a little more formal and classy! IMHO

Thanks for all of the advice and nice pics. When I get some good ones I'll post them on here.