On-Staff Photographer - Automotive/Motorsports/Product, Bay Area (California)

Do you enjoy photographing cars just as much as driving them? Are you subconsciously scouting new locations ideal for a shoot anytime you’re driving around? Wish your work involved a steady stream of awesome cars and visits to the track? Combine your artistic and automotive passions by joining our team.
Apex is known for going above and beyond to create informative technical articles and guides. Going forward, we want more of our educational content to be photo and video based to quickly and clearly explain things without requiring people to sift through walls of text to find what they need. Work will be a mix of artistic shoots, product photography that is clean and consistent, and technical photography that clearly communicates instructions or dimensions.
You’ll be responsible for significantly increasing the amount of photo content we can post. Almost every day you’ll be meeting with a volunteer to try on new prototypes, a customer to highlight their cool build, or a dealer to feature their shop and cars. Your people skills will matter just as much as your photo skills, as you need to be a friendly host to the enthusiasts taking valuable time out of their day to stand around while you work. Your mechanical skills and attention to detail will be put to the test, as you’ll be responsible for swapping prototype wheels on and off test cars. You'll do this in remote locations while volunteers look over your shoulder to make sure you don’t nick their carbon ceramic brakes, and that you torque their lug nuts perfectly to spec. You'll be responsible for all post-production, so you’ll need to be proficient with Adobe Photoshop or equivalent. Experience with Indesign or similar software is ideal to get more involved with helping the marketing team turn your images into actual print and digital ads.
Typically, while you’re taking photos someone else will be filming at the same time. They’ll need your support and coordination to maximize the limited time we have with each car. Bigger video projects will require you to step in and assist wherever needed. Depending on your skills, that could range from simply holding a boom mic to being a second camera operator or editing your own mini projects.
This job is local to the Bay Area and requires routine visits to our Pleasanton office for in-house work or to pick up prototypes, tools, and the company truck. Although a professional photography background is always preferred, we’re open to amateur photographers who clearly have serious talent. A fantastic portfolio plus the right work ethic and attitude will go further than long work history and poor character.
Before formally offering this full-time position, we will hire top candidates for 1-3 photoshoots on a contract basis to act as a final assessment and a real-world test of skills. These shoots will be billed at your contract rate.
How to Apply:
To be considered for this position please answer the following question in your cover letter. Besides your automotive photography, what have you done that proves you're an automotive enthusiast?
As Our Automotive Photographer you will:
Use our social media &
forum presence to seek out vehicles we need, and work with their owners to schedule shoots.
Travel all over the Bay Area and beyond to interesting, unique locations.
Ensure that our brand values are effectively communicated through photography.
Be a courteous and professional host, making our volunteers feel comfortable, appreciated, and glad they reached out
Talk with vehicle owners during shoots who may or may not already be customers. You’re comfortable explaining the technical aspects of our wheels while helping promote our brand.
Help take our website, forum threads, social media, and technical articles to the next level with crisp, stunning visuals.
Work closely with our sales and marketing teams to deliver photos that clearly articulate the intended concepts in our guides and tech articles.
Make fast, precise edits as needed, such as changing a wheel color, lowering a car, removing rock chips/vehicle imperfections, removing/adding stickers, etc.
Work with the marketing team to help create digital and print ads.
Upload photos to our host with the appropriate tags, titles, and descriptions so that they can be easily found by customers as well as other members of our team.
Install prototype wheels on to client's car and properly torque lugs to spec when putting the original wheels back on.
Help keep track of our sample wheel and tire inventory.
Help sell off sample wheels and tires by creating sale listings and meeting with potential buyers.
Assist our video team in many ways such as setup/teardown, lighting, driving the camera car, keeping our presenters on-topic and following the script, monitoring audio levels, etc.
During off-shoot time, contribute to and work through a catalog of projects.
Seek out and arrange your own photoshoots within guidelines.
Positively contribute to ROI by utilizing your time and skills wisely and recommending areas for change.
Proactively propose, seek out, and organize creative projects to achieve and consistently maintain a full-time workload.
Achieve and maintain high performance and quality standards while maintaining productivity and budgetary expectations for your assigned projects.
Track your time and effort going into each project so that we can determine which projects have the highest ROI and biggest customer impact.
Opportunities for additional video work as skills develop and are proven.
Requirements
Must be a huge car nerd and motorsports enthusiast.
Professional/commercial photography experience preferred.
Passionate about car photography, and interested in the world of video.
Can demonstrate their experience and talent by providing a meaningful portfolio of automotive photography.
Fluent in the fundamentals of photography:
lighting, depth of field, framing, polarizers, etc.
Able to produce both artistic and technical interpretations of the same concept.
Great at being mobile and can produce consistent results in any given location with various lighting conditions.
Continuously leveling up their photography education. Always learning new things and engaging with other photographers.
Streamlined with their organizational workflow. We may need you to re-edit a photo months or years after it was taken.
Well-versed in creating effective visuals for social media posts. You never forget the vertical.
Willing to get their hands dirty and use tools, not just their camera.
Your own main gear:
24+ MP camera, tripod, off-camera lighting. We provide specialized gear.
Must be able and familiar with the safe and proper procedure used for lifting a car and removing/installing wheels.
Videography experience is preferred but not required.
Experience running a youtube channel, facebook/instagram page preferred.
Graphics design experience preferred.
Benefits
Full-time position $25 - $34 per hour depending on experience but flexible for the right candidate.
Employee Medical, dental, and vision benefits are 100% company-paid.
Company contributions towards spouse/partner and dependent Medical benefits.
401k with employer matching.
Paid vacation and sick leave, and paid holidays
Support your track addiction with reimbursements for HPDE and autocross event registration fees.
Dedicated track car available for staff to drive at HPDE events.
Full access to our shop with lift and tools to work on your car.
Eligibility for the SEMA college grant and loan forgiveness program.
Casual dress environment where T-shirts, jeans, and shorts are welcome.
Get employee discounts and freebies on APEX products and schwag.
Participation in company activities including karting, track days, VR sim racing, and more.