HYUNDAI N
IONIQ 5 N
KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE
An international automotive campaign, photographed across one day in my home city.
For this Hyundai N assignment, the work began with a car, a city, and the need to build a coherent campaign across both daylight and night. Commissioned through J4D, a South Korean creative agency, I photographed the IONIQ 5 N in Knoxville, Tennessee, producing ten campaign photographs for Hyundai N’s international social channels.
Knoxville changes considerably between daylight and dark. On Gay Street, brick storefronts and architectural lines give way to illuminated signs, reflections, and pockets of shadow. The Tennessee Theatre becomes a different photographic environment when its sign is lit. Those changes became part of the way I developed the series.
The principal photography took place during a single production day. Creative development, scouting, vehicle coordination, and planning came before it; substantial post-production and collaborative review followed. The campaign was published in September 2026.
Client: Hyundai N / Agency: J4D / Photography: Vincent Matta
A car and a city with character
The IONIQ 5 N gave me a strong starting point. Its angular bodywork, distinctive lighting, and orange paint could hold their own within a busy urban scene. Photographing it well meant paying attention to the relationship between those features and the surroundings: where a building’s lines supported the car’s shape, where reflections clarified a surface, and where the background started competing with the subject.
Gay Street offered architectural detail and the texture of an active downtown. The Tennessee Theatre gave the series a recognizable Knoxville landmark, while Knoxville Wire & Rope introduced an industrial setting and a different set of shapes and surfaces. Moving between those environments allowed the photographs to change in mood without losing their connection to the city.
Working close to home did not make location selection automatic. Familiar streets still had to be considered as working photographic locations, with attention to vehicle position, sightlines, available light, access, and the time needed to move between them. Knoxville’s value was in the range of environments it offered within a considered production plan.

The work before the shoot
With one principal photography day, scouting had to do more than produce a list of attractive backgrounds. I needed to understand how each location would function with the car in place, which angles were worth pursuing, and how the sequence could accommodate both daylight and night photography.
That meant evaluating light, architectural composition, visual distractions, parking, and access alongside vehicle availability and scheduling. A composition could look promising during a scout and still be impractical once positioning and production time were considered.
The planning gave the day a workable structure. It also gave me room to make photographic decisions on location, rather than spending that time resolving questions that could have been addressed earlier.

One day, with room to adapt
The production brought the photography and logistics together. I was coordinating the vehicle, keeping track of the schedule, and making decisions about positioning and light while moving through multiple locations.
Weather and parking or access constraints required adjustments to the plan. Those are ordinary realities of working in a functioning city, but they have consequences when daylight, vehicle availability, and the remaining schedule all matter. The task was to adapt the plan while protecting the purpose of the photographs.
A shot list provided direction; judgment determined how to use the time available. Planning and flexibility had to work together throughout the day.

Following the light
The daytime photographs use the structure of the city to describe the car. A broad streetscape establishes its proportions, while closer architectural compositions emphasize the bodywork and lighting details. The orange paint remains a visual connection between the different settings.
At night, the relationships change. Illuminated signage, street lighting, vehicle lights, reflections, and darkness all become part of the composition. Around the Tennessee Theatre, the surroundings contribute as much to the atmosphere as the car itself. The challenge is to retain definition in the vehicle while allowing the location’s light and color to remain present.
The interior photographs create another connection between vehicle and place. The cockpit detail brings attention to the car’s controls, while the composition looking outward toward the theatre sign brings Knoxville into the view from inside. Together, they give the series a change of scale between the wider exterior photographs.

From capture to publication
The photography day was followed by substantial post-production and review. Image selection, color and tonal development, automotive retouching, and refinement had to bring different locations and lighting conditions into a coherent series.
Reflections and surface definition needed particular attention. The car had to retain its shape and material character, while the city remained a believable part of the photograph. The daytime and nighttime images also needed enough continuity to sit together without flattening the differences that made each environment useful.
That process involved detailed communication with J4D’s creative team in South Korea, incorporating feedback and revisions before final delivery. J4D subsequently made additional finishing adjustments to the published images. The photographs presented here are those final published versions, reflecting my photography and post-production contribution alongside the agency’s subsequent finishing.

The finished campaign
The result was a ten-image campaign spanning daytime streetscapes, architectural details, interiors, motion, and night photography, published through Hyundai N’s official international social media presence.
For me, the significance sits in the complete assignment: developing the locations, coordinating the production, adapting on the day, and carrying the photographs through review and delivery. Knoxville gave the work its setting and character. The IONIQ 5 N gave it a distinctive subject. The work connecting them extended well beyond the time spent behind the camera.

Project credits
Client / brand: Hyundai N  
Commissioning creative agency: J4D  
Photographer: Vincent Matta  
Location: Knoxville, Tennessee, USA  
Creative development, location scouting, production planning, vehicle coordination, scheduling, photography, lighting, post-production, revisions, and delivery: Vincent Matta  
Additional finishing of the published images: J4D  
Deliverables: Ten finished campaign photographs  
Published: September 2026

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