Most unusual cars we photograph are unusual in ways we already know how to handle: rare paint, aggressive bodywork, aftermarket wheels, a wrap that changes the entire character of the car. This Maybach 62S was different. Almost every visible surface had been hand-painted by Alec Monopoly, including the interior, and it was being photographed for an international Collecting Cars auction listing.
That changed the job completely. We weren’t just photographing an expensive car. We were photographing a piece of artwork that happened to be built around a stretched Mercedes-Benz Maybach.
Who Alec Monopoly is, for anyone who doesn’t already know
Alec Monopoly is a pseudonymous street artist best known for reworking Rich Uncle Pennybags, the Monopoly board game mascot, into a recurring character across his work, in a style that blends graffiti with pop art. That background matters here, this isn’t a generic wrap design, it’s the work of an artist whose visual language is instantly recognisable to anyone who follows street and pop art, applied directly to the body and interior of a car.
Shooting for Collecting Cars means the photos have to do more explaining
This car was shot for a listing on Collecting Cars, the same international auction platform we’ve covered before when it comes to what UAE sellers need to get right for overseas buyers. With a normal car, photography is proving condition and covering the expected angles. With a car like this, the photos are also doing the job of explaining what the car actually is, since nobody scrolling past a stretched, hand-painted Maybach has an existing mental category to slot it into the way they would with “another 911” or “another G-Wagon.” Every image has to carry more of the explanation itself, because the description alone won’t do it justice, and a buyer bidding internationally, sight unseen, is relying entirely on what the photos show them.
This isn’t a wrap, it’s paint, and that changes everything
The first thing worth being clear on: this is a hand-painted car, not a vinyl wrap. That distinction matters more than it sounds like it would. A wrap has a flat, consistent surface and a printed finish that reflects light predictably, the same way panel to panel. Hand-applied paint and graffiti-style linework doesn’t behave that way. There’s texture, brush direction, layered color, and areas where the artist’s hand naturally varies in pressure and coverage. Lighting that would flatten a wrap into something readable instead needs to preserve that texture here, because the texture is the point. Shooting it like a normal wrapped car would have ironed out exactly what makes it worth photographing in the first place.
We shot the whole thing outdoors in Dubai, timed for sunset, working entirely with natural light rather than bringing in strobes or diffusion. That timing wasn’t incidental. Low, warm sunset light is softer and more directional than midday sun, and on a hand-painted surface, harsh flat light would have hidden the texture we were trying to preserve instead of revealing it.
The interior is where it actually gets difficult
The exterior is bold, but the interior is where the design gets genuinely overwhelming, color, text and detail packed into every surface with almost nothing left plain. Photographing a normal interior is about clarity, showing the seats, the dash, the space clearly enough that a buyer understands the layout at a glance. Photographing this interior is closer to photographing an artwork with seats in it. Every panel has something happening on it, and the challenge isn’t finding detail to shoot, it’s choosing which details to isolate so each frame reads as something specific rather than as visual noise.
Why the 16-35mm did most of the interior work
For the interior, we leaned heavily on the Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 GM. A car cabin doesn’t give you room to step back, and a space this densely painted needs a lens that can fill the frame with a single panel from close range without losing the composition around it. A door card, for example, has multiple painted elements arranged across it, a character, some text, a block of color, and shooting it with the 16-35 close up meant we could hold the whole composition of that panel in one frame rather than only grabbing a fragment of it, which is what a longer lens would have forced in a space that tight.
Where the 85mm f/1.2 earned its place
The 85mm f/1.2 was primarily for the exterior artwork and exterior detail shots, switched to from the 16-35 once we moved outside the cabin, run on the same Sony A7 IV body. Outside the car there’s room to work with a longer lens, and shooting wide open let us isolate a single painted element on a body panel, a character or a piece of linework, and let the rest of the panel fall softly out of focus around it. We also used a circular polarizer on every exterior frame. The circular polarizer mattered more here than usual. The painted surfaces produced reflections differently from a conventional factory finish, so controlling glare helped keep the artwork’s color, texture and linework visible instead of allowing bright reflections to wash out parts of the frame.
This is a car that has to be seen to be believed
Words can only do so much with an interior like this, it genuinely has to be seen. Every image below is a different panel, a different piece of hand-painted work, and none of them repeat.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Alec Monopoly? Alec Monopoly is a pseudonymous street artist known for incorporating the Monopoly mascot and other pop-culture characters into graffiti and pop-art work.
Was the Maybach wrapped or painted? The artwork was hand-painted rather than applied as a conventional vinyl wrap, which affected how we approached lighting and detail photography.
Why use a 16-35mm lens inside the car? The wide-angle range allowed us to photograph larger sections of the heavily painted interior while working within the limited space of the cabin.
Why use an 85mm f/1.2? The 85mm allowed us to isolate individual painted details with shallow depth of field, separating them from the surrounding artwork.
Why use a circular polarizer? The polarizer helped control reflections on the painted surfaces, keeping the artwork’s color, texture and linework visible.
What gear did you use for this shoot? A Sony A7 IV with a Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM for interior work in the tight cabin space, and a Sony FE 85mm f/1.2 G Master for exterior shots and exterior detail work.
Was this shoot photography, video, or both? Photography only.
Why does it matter that this was shot for Collecting Cars specifically? International auction buyers are bidding sight unseen, so the photography has to carry the full weight of explaining the car, especially one this unusual, where there’s no familiar reference point for a buyer to fall back on.
Do you only shoot conventional modified cars? No. Whatever makes a car worth photographing, rarity, condition, or in this case, genuinely one-of-one custom artwork, is what we build the shoot around.
A car this unusual is a good test of what a shoot actually requires. Most jobs are faster because the car is familiar; this one was slower because nothing about it was. That’s the range we shoot for, from a standard listing to a one-of-one piece of rolling artwork bound for an international auction. The approach changes with the car, but the objective doesn’t: make sure the photographs show exactly what the buyer needs to see.
We shoot car photography across Dubai for listings, private collectors and international auction platforms alike. See our car photography and videography services or get in touch about your next shoot.