Sometimes the little guy wins.

Former colleague Troy Lyman’s research into failing passenger seat air bag sensors on Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky vehicles like his own led the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to open an inquiry.

On Lyman’s referral, I received a call from Steve Massie, design director at Automotive News, late on a Tuesday afternoon, then made this and several other photos on Wednesday night and delivered them via email in time for inclusion in the following week’s issue early Thursday morning.

With Lyman’s car out of commission, we were limited in where we were able to make a picture. It’s seen here on jack stands in his garage, where he and a friend struggled to complete repairs and order a pizza for themselves despite my insistence on his full attention for the making of the pictures.

Nuts and Bolts: I used a single Nikon Speedlight in a small softbox as my main light and three additional Nikon speedlights with CTO gels, all fired via the RadioPopper PX system, on other parts of the scene, captured with a Nikon full-frame DSLR and Nikon 24-70mm f 2.8 zoom lens.

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