Scotland’s west coast doesn’t play by the rules. One minute the road is lit by soft evening sun, the next you can barely see the bonnet for rain and mist. It’s dramatic, unpredictable, and just about the perfect place for automotive photography.

That’s where I found myself recently with Toyota, shooting a content collection that brought together three very different machines: the unstoppable Hilux, the all-electric Lexus RZ and Toyota bZ4X. The job was to capture them in motion, at rest, from the air, up close – the whole story of what these cars feel like in the wild.

The Hilux was exactly what you’d expect: rugged, built for the rough stuff, chewing up gravel roads while mountains loomed over us. It photographs like it drives – strong, no-nonsense, a bit of a show-off without even trying. The Lexus RZ was the complete opposite. Silent, futuristic, gliding through ancient landscapes like it belonged there all along. Shooting it felt almost meditative – that quiet hum against the roar of the sea.

Automotive photography is part choreography, part patience. The motion shots meant leaning out of follow cars, timing the shutter with the rhythm of the road, and hoping the weather gave us half a chance. Drones added another layer – pulling back to show how small even a big Hilux looks against the sheer scale of Scotland’s coastline. And then the detail work: the flash of chrome, the sweep of body lines, the way light plays across glass and paint when the clouds break just for a second.

What makes the west coast such a brutal but brilliant place to shoot is that you can’t control it. One moment we were chasing light across single-track roads, the next we were pulling gear out of puddles and laughing because that’s just how it goes. But those sudden shifts are what give the images their edge. Rain on the tarmac, mist curling across the hills, shafts of sun breaking through at just the right time – you couldn’t plan it if you tried.

The best moments weren’t always the obvious ones. Sometimes it was catching the Hilux powering through a stretch of dirt with spray flying, sometimes it was the Lexus parked up quietly as the weather rolled in around it.

This wasn’t about glossy showroom shots. Toyota wanted real, lived-in images – the grit, the drama, the sense of movement. That’s what automotive photography is at its best: not just how a car looks but what it feels like to be out there with it, pushing through weather, chasing the horizon.

Looking back, the set feels like a journey more than a collection. Toughness in the Hilux, quiet progress in the Lexus, nostalgia in the GR86 – three very different stories tied together by a stretch of coastline that refuses to sit still. It’s the kind of shoot that sticks with you, not because everything went smoothly, but because it didn’t. The weather fought us, the roads tested us, and the cars rose to the challenge.

That’s Scotland for you. That’s why I love this kind of work. And that’s why automotive photography isn’t just about cars – it’s about the places they take you and the stories that unfold when you get there.