brasherphoto/blog

Inspired - Wynn Ruji

2010-08-02T13:12:00.002+10:00

Came across this BTS clip. Just goes to show how important location plays in a shoot.

Jaguar XJ | Behind the Scenes from Richie Thomassen on Vimeo.

still drooling

2010-06-21T13:31:00.003+10:00

Few Out-takes/Behind the scenes of the Lambo Superleggara shoot I just completed, the car is 10x more impressive in the flesh than any Top Gear segment or Magazine article would suggest. It's just simply amazing, no other words can sum it up. I'm in the process of retouching the images now, some went better than others but overall a solid shoot but not without difficulties.

Me in deep thought, probably thinking of what's for dinner rather than the task at hand.

Cool snap Brad got of my LCD display, as you can see I used lightpainting to light the car, it's both a blessing and a curse with black cars so attention to detail is vital, every shot was scrutinized and changes to the lighting made for the next shot.

Another goofy candid, as you can see it was very dark, the lantern was a godsend.

Motor Magazine - July Issue

2010-06-09T19:14:00.004+10:00

The new issue of MOTOR is out and I have a couple of features in it. The first been 20 Years of Clubsport. The article was a look at the models that have shared the "Clubsport" badge from the VN right through to the current VE E2 series. It was interesting to see how far the lineage has progressed over the years from a the rather crude Taxi like VN right through to the modern and European rivaling VE series which I personally love.

20 Years in one photo, I quite like this one. Lots of colour and vibrance

This Rigshot was done right at the end of the day in near darkness, I have never been so cold on a shoot in all my life.

The afternoon sun was quite soft, I caught some rays peeking through the trees.

The E2 R8 is a tough car, Personally I want one!

VT and VE Clubbies making mince meat of the climb up towards Golburn.

Who knows what the HSV guys were smoking when they designed the VS's wheels.

The second article was about the New 911 Turbo, the goal was to run a 10.xx second Pass in a stock car and hence get it banned for not running a rollcage as per ANDRA rules. We tried all the tricks in the book, Cleary even skipped lunch to try and scrape a couple of hundreths out of the ET. We added a bottle of Octane booster, ran virtually no fuel in the car and even resorted to mucking around with Tyre pressures. Alas is was not to be, Cleary ran a stonking 11.025 at 127Mph which is amazing for a stock production car literally driven from the Showroom floor.

The New 911T is a stunning car, it drew attention like nothing else.

Sussing out the Launch control, Press button, foot on brake, Foot to the floor and GO!

Get a look at the Launch! Even on the prepped track it still spun all 4 wheels, I have a feeling that 10's would be acheivable with more time and a better track prep.

Proof is in the Pudding, 11.025 @ 127mph (205.4kph) Not bad for a stocker huh!

Speedhunters.com - JDMST End Of Month Meet

2010-06-04T12:06:00.003+10:00

Speedhunters have put of some coverage of the JDMST end of month meet, Charles Kha (former Autosalon Editor) and myself covered the event.

You can check out the full article with more images here. http://speedhunters.com/archive/2010/06/03/jdmst-end-of-month-meet.aspx

Perfect S15, they look great wingless and on black rims.

Biggies 180Sx, got the hellaflush treatment going on, don't know how you can drive a car on Sydneys roads with fitment like this! Absurd.

I'm so artistic :)

JDM Yards Tough as nails Civic, Yeah I put civic and tough in the same sectence!

Sunday... Sunday.... Sunday!

2010-06-03T20:49:00.001+10:00

Sunday brings up probably one of the most important shoots of my short career, a Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggara. Shitting myself about it.... yes, am I excited..... YES!

So many ideas and concepts are running through my head i'm finding it hard to sleep. Wish this rain would go away in Sydney though, It's been raining for the last 2 weeks!

World Time Attack.

2010-05-25T21:35:00.003+10:00

The inaugural World Time Attack championships took place Last week in Sydney at Eastern Creek Raceway. It was a huge success! Although time attack racing is relatively new to Australia I have a feeling it will be around for a long time to come.

I was there shooting the event for MOTOR magazine who were sponsors of the event, it was a cool assignment and a bit different from the normal car comparo's. As this was a world class event, cars from the USA, Japan and New Zealand took part. As well as some of the fastest home grown cars. In the end it was Tarzan Yamada taking the win with a blistering 1min 30.5sec lap! To put that in Perspective to the Australian Readers, thats faster than a V8 supercar (from several years ago mind you) Not bad for a essentially road based semi slick!

Apologies for the lack of images, once the story is published in the August Issue of MOTOR I will post some more.
I hope to see Time Attack racing back bigger and better next year.

Deadlines...

2010-05-18T20:27:00.002+10:00

The only bad thing about editorial photography is the constant deadlines... Chained to my desk, processing photo after photo, decloning rigs, fixing sensor dust, tweaking this and changing that. The end doesn't seem in sight!

The Final AutoSalon issue.

2010-05-10T16:55:00.003+10:00

Just finished reading the final ever issue of AutoSalon Magazine, sad to see such a great publication go for what seems to be another victim of the digital media of today.

Although I never got to work for ASM, it was one of the few publication I did wish toshoot for. The layout and design of this magazine was on a completly different level to everything else in Australia. Photography wise Mark Pakula seemed to just raise the level every issue and the shoot of the JDM Concept Integra by Felix was top notch.

Get it now at your local newsagency, it's a pretty special read. This is one mag issue that won't be going to the tip.

JDMST End of Month Meetup

2010-05-01T18:24:00.005+10:00

JDMstyletuning had their traditional end of Month meetups last night and it was a big one! Cars from all genres, era's and fiscal values be it a Nissan Micro with pedobear stickers or Porsche GT2.

Pair of Nice S15's, love the Nismo Stripe.

JType Ninja's in force.

Godzilla, in all it's glory

Big turnout to this meet, well in excess of 50 cars I would guess.

This Soarer had amazing BBS rims, would have been atleast 11 inches wide!

VTEC-YO!

Nissan Cube and Suzuki Cappacino, two oddball JDM imports. Love the cube.

Kula's Track inspired MX5, The stripped paint look is the in thing.

Great vibe, great cars, great meet.

City Ride

2010-04-25T10:09:00.003+10:00

Yesterday my mate Andrew and I went for a ride around the city to take some snaps of our bikes, Andrew had already found this awesome location in Glebe, it's the old Tram sheds that has been abandoned for years and a haven for graffiti and other shady activities.

The bike was lit with a single Sigma Flash fired via radio trigger, as we were riding we had to carry the bare minimum of gear but I think the result came out pretty good.

I couldn't make up my mind if I like the colour or Black and White combo more...

Italian Stallions.

2010-03-10T18:25:00.006+11:00

Hitting the Shelves today is the April Issue of MOTOR, I was lucky enough to shoot the Ferrari California and Ducati 1198S, both epitome's of Italian Design.

The shoot was hindered by bad weather but we had to make do with the time we had with the car and Bike, using the magic arm and a superclamp I was able to get a cool bike to car shot of the two going down a tree lined alley.

I used a Monotone processed look to the shots to further emphasise the vehicles, in print it does look rather spectacular.

Here also, are two buildups that show the flexibility of the 5dmk2 files, below are straight off the camera, and then pulled to expose for the parts of the car correctly. With a slight noise cleanup the images are totally transformed.

I process each file for each part of the car, then merge later in Post, I also tried a few lightining techniques that turned out rather cool. Just simple touches you wouldn't know existed unless told.

Spotted - Speedhunters

2010-03-03T21:47:00.003+11:00

Dale's S15 made Speedhunters, well deserved!

Evo IX

2010-03-02T16:49:00.003+11:00

I shot Georges car some time ago and only got around to finishing up the processing yesterday, this is the same car that was used for the JDMST calendar I wrote about in a previous post.

Georges car runs a 300+awkw forged Cosworth motor running on E85 Ethanol fuel, not only is it a high performer, it also looks amazing with Advan RS rims and full custom interior. George is another owner that makes taking photos of peoples pride and joy enjoyable, his laid back attitude and freedom for me to try new things was refreshing.

Once again I went with the Fluoro ballast setup powered by a 2 stroke Petrol generator to power the light. The method of painting the car went a bit further than normal this time as I painted the background a bit for this shoot to light up interesting parts of the image that would be hidden if using natural light.

The Interior shot was Georges idea, I think it came out quite well. For this shot I used a long exposure but combined with Off Camera flash I was able to “freeze” the inside of the car and maintain a sense of motion outside the car.

My post processing is evolving a bit more now, I am starting to get a bit more consistency between my images which is something I needed to work on. Having obtained a cool new brush set and some high pass overlaying techniques it brings a gritty look to the images that is quite appealing when applied to the right car and background.

MYS15 Wallpaper

2010-02-22T08:07:00.003+11:00

For no good reason at all, here is a 1680 x 1050 res wallpaper of Dales "MYS15" 200sx.

New Wheels!

2010-02-16T08:38:00.002+11:00

Usually I spend my weekend riding dirtbikes but yesterday I picked up a new set of wheels, something not motorised and to have some fun on while it’s too wet to ride the Husky.

It’s a 2009 Eastern Night Train, it’s a street/Park/dirt jumping orientated bike with an ultra short frame geometry and feather light weight. It’s single speed so essentially it’s like a big wheeled BMX bike with a bit more functionality.

The specs sheet is quite impressive, Rock Shox Argyle’s, Avid Hydraulics and Eastern’s bulletproof 3 piece crank set up make for a sweet ride, I haven’t ridden a bicycle in a few years but after a quick squirt around the shop it all came back to me pretty quick and I was bunnyhopping and manualing on the rear wheel like I was a kid again.

As always, I can’t buy something and just leave it alone and the bike is no exception, I’m already browsing around for lighter tyres/tubes, removing the front brake and replacing the narrow bar setup with some downhill bars with a lot more rise to help bridge the gap between dirtbike and bicycle. Then in due time strip and paint the whole thing matt black and new trick rims.

Should be a bit of fun, or a broken bone or two waiting to happen.

Featured - Australian in front

2010-02-04T07:38:00.002+11:00

Received news that I have had my image buildup of the Blue EvoIX featured in Australian in Front design website. Nice to get noticed every now and then. It's cool to get compared to a great snapper like Easton even though I am trying my hardest to ween myself from shooting such complicated setups.

http://www.australianinfront.com.au/news/article/chris-brasher

Motor Magazine - Feb 2010

2010-01-15T17:09:00.003+11:00

The Feb issue of MOTOR is now on the shelves and I got to do a couple of features on the Past and Present of two very iconic and somewhat "cult cars" the Subaru WRX and the Volkswagen Golf GTI.

Two very different but important cars in modern motoring, not just for their motorsport heritages but for their monumental design breakthroughs over each generation.

We did each shoot in Sydneys Royal National park heading south towards Wollongong via the twisting roads that follow the coast. This was a great shoot to be a part of because it was a weekday so the roads were desolate and the weather perfect.

I particularly love the new Mk6 GTI, the interior is the best I have seen on anycar south of $80k, the quality of the materials and perfect seat/instrument location makes it a joy to drive.

Whilst the 2010 WRX is a great car I dont like the fact that Subaru has just whacked a powerful engine in a more or less bland Impreza. It doesn't have that quality finish that the Golf has but it more than makes up for it with amazing Bang for your Buck motoring. Anyway this is hardly a comparison between the cars, rather a celebration of Evolution in Design.

JDMST 2010 Calendar

2010-01-13T13:35:00.003+11:00

Word is out that the 2010 JDM Style Tuning calendar is now for sale. I have two images in this years calendar which looks to be a good one!

It has killer shots from Mark Pakula, Matt Mead and Felix Alim.

So if you need a high quality Large calendar for this year get yo ass to redbubble and order this bad boy!

Image shamelessly stolen from Justin Fox.

Evo 9 image buildup - JDMST 2010 Calendar

2009-12-24T13:47:00.003+11:00

Seasons Greetings! Recently I did a shoot for George who owns this immaculate and fast EvoIX. This car is well known in Australia as a very extensively modified vehicle, from Suspension, engine, interior and exterior modifications. George wanted a photoshoot of his pride and Joy and this image would also be used in the JDMST.com 2010 calendar run by Justin Fox.

Here is how I put together this image.

The location was a small quiet alley in the southern suburbs of Sydney. I liked the building in the background, it was angular and modern just like the evo and in a moving shot the blur of the background would look good. Lighting was a 200W fluoro tube ballast lightbank I have been experimenting with powered by a 2 stroke 700W Generator.

Several images were taken to form the composite, the rig was mounted to the car and the angle chosen that I liked, been a calendar the car needed to be the main focus so a narrower crop needed to be used. Ideally I would have liked to have used a wider crop.

I got my assistant to do several sweeps of the car only using 1/2 power of the ballast. The nice strip lighting effect given by the fluoro looks great along the lines of the angular Mitsubishi.

Once I was happy with the lighting I did several shots with the car rolling until I was happy with the motion blur and exposure.

The rest is just choosing the best bits of each car and merging together in post processing. For some reason removing the rig from this image was extremely difficult as there was many tones that graduated oddly. But after an hour or so I managed to convincingly remove the boom.

Here are the images I used: (Click for larger image)

And the final Image.

Motorkhana and Bathurst Evo X

2009-12-15T16:30:00.002+11:00

I’ve been very busy lately but a new post. Recently I got to do a couple of cool features with Motor Magazine and AutoAction that got me involved with a bit of motorsport.

First was the Australian Motorkhana championships held in Western Sydney, the story involved me following Team Motor/AutoAction Dylan Campbell in a Renault ClioSport R27 F1 edition as he gave it his best go up against some of the best in the country. For those not familiar with Motorkhana events it basically involves a short 30 second sprint around numerous flags in a designated order, the goal is simple, do the course as fast as possible without hitting a flag or risk a time penalty, the driver with the lowest time after all the courses is declared the winner. It’s a simple but incredibly challenging form of motorsport where anyone with any car can have a go.

The feature required a opener image that would portray what motorkhana’s are all about, speed, aggressive driving and fun. With a bit of discussion with the art director we collaborated to put together a rig shot with the rear wheel leaving the ground under immense cornering load, the Renault Clio is well known for this trait so it seemed suitable.

Actually putting the ideas into practice was relatively simple, I have rig shots down to a bit of a recipe now so the guess work of getting a keeper image is always quite high. I start with a few statics of the car using the polarizing filter at different angles to keep reflections to a minimum, then I’ll expose for the front of the car, side and headlights/grill/plates. The statics ensure I have a failsafe sharp image in case the road we use is a bit rough which can cause vibration during the longer exposures, I can then mix and match the good parts of each image and add them to my main car layer later down the track.

Once that’s out of the way I’ll do an exposure for the background, generally it’s one or more stops underexposed to preserve shadows and I can manipulate that file better than a overexposed one I find. My style generally revolves around a grungy/dark theme so this is what I have become accustomed to. Once I’m happy with the look from the background plate (which Is probably the most important in my opinion to portray the sense of motion) I move onto the car exposures.

I start usually with a base exposure which the meter tells me is correct, 99/100 times it’s way off with all the ND filters and polarizers I run so a bit of trial and error is required to get a starting exposure time. Once that is found I’ll go a stop over and under just to be sure I have all bases covered. Take note all shots are done in raw for further manipulation of the files whilst post processing.

To show the rear wheel in the air we used the small jack that is stored in the clios boot. Jacked the car up and spun the wheel by hand.

Then it’s just a matter of combining all the good parts from each image into the final composite, I won’t go to far into that because It would be one ultra long post. Maybe soon.

In the end the result is quite dramatic, Ideally I would have the sky a few more stops underexposed but the opener required a blown out sky in order to extend for the title text.

The second shoot was for the Mitsubishi Evo X TMR Bathurst edition, this limited edition Evo pays homage to one of the great race circuits or Australia and in fact the world, Mt Panorama which is in Bathurst.

Mt Panorama circuit is steep, fast, technical and intimidating all wrapped into a 6km lap. TMR (Team Mitsubishi Ralliart) wanted to show that it’s fettled with Evo X could handle every part of the track with aplomb and invited Motors Damion Smy to see for himself when he was let loose for 20mins to give it everything he could throw at it.

The TMR Evo X features upgraded suspension, exhaust, engine tune and black painted rims to create a tough looking car that is both at home on the racetrack and can be used on the daily commute for work. The special Bathurst badges and TMR livery sets it apart from other run of the mill evo’s.

Again my goal for the shoot was to emphasise the car at the track, but also have a homage to the Mt Panorama circuit. There is not much more that says “Bathurst” than the famous entrance to the dipper so I utilised the ripplestrips and wall sponsors into a rig shot to show what this Evo does best, and that is go fast!

As with a lot of Press cars, time was limited, and with the circuit also a private road we had to work fast to keep things rolling. I decided on a low perspective that gave a different composition to the shot but also allowed the designer of the page to crop or use the empty space for the title text which is always important to take into consideration when shooting editorial work.

There wasn’t too many difficulties run into with this shot, only the black car and black rims are hard to light correctly but eventually I started to get something I liked. In the end the shoot turned out pretty good.

Performance Imports Issue 114

2009-11-05T13:10:00.003+11:00

New issue of Performance Imports is out, I shot this feature in 2008 and it's only just hitting the shelves now! Stans car is quite unique, not just the fact it's running a single turbo RB26/30DET combo, but the fact it's an Auto creates a lot of headscratching. I shot this feature in 2 sessions, with the possibility of cover I shot a lot of cover options that could fit the bill, instead it was relegated to a normal feature which is a shame as this car is awesome.

I'll be updating more with more Motor Magazine work and a big commercial shoot i'm gearing up for soon.

Sheckler and the Red

2009-10-13T18:15:00.002+11:00

A while back I posted about the Red camera system, now film makers are finding out what all the fuss is about and putting together big budget movies with them, here is a cool clip showing the making of a new Ryan Sheckler Promotional vid for his website. As much as I hate Sheckler, it's pretty cool.

Sneak Peak

2009-09-17T11:14:00.002+10:00

It's been a while since I've done a shoot for a private customer, whilst it's nice shooting for magazines there is additional pressure to constantly produce a high quality of work, so every now and then it's a good break to do a private shoot and try some new ideas and techniques.

Here is a sneak peak of the car in current post production overload…

Here is the result of the shoot at the end of the night…

Hopefully it's repairable.

Hot Tuner 2009

2009-09-15T14:13:00.006+10:00

As I dawdled through Sydney's morning traffic on the way to the inaugural Motor Hot Tuner challenge something bright and green appeared in my rear view mirror, it was a couple of cars behind me but I couldn't quite make out what it was. A few kilometres down the road the mystery green object was right behind me, menacing and low. I knew it was a Porsche and a special one to be in that Kermit Green Colour.

He tails me for a few more kilometres, now on the final stretch to Western Sydney International drag way, In no way did I think this would be one of the cars taking part of the event, I thought it was another rich guy taking it to the circuit next door for a track day.

I pulled up at the designated meeting spot, and so does the Green Machine. Yep the 911 GT2 was part of the story, and best of all it was modified and an absolute animal!

As we said our hello's and introduced ourselves, an automotive smorgasbord joined us, Super snake Cobra, R35 GTR, 911 Turbo's, Modified Volkswagen and a Holden Commodore that had more grunt than a Pig Breeder. Take note these cars are all modified, some more than others but the level of these vehicles was exceptional and a credit to those who built and own them.

The plan was relatively simple, gather 22 of the best workshop modified cars from around the country and test them against each other in a series of controlled test to see who was the Hottest Tuner in Aus. Logistically shooting this many cars in 2 days was extremely difficult but we managed to get the job done.

Day one involved the Acceleration test, 0-100kph, Braking tests and 0-400M thrash, whilst on the other end of the track we had the Dyno running measuring peak power and torque.

To avoid any inconsistencies, all the cars ran the same 98 octane fuel, were driven buy the same driver for each of the respective tests and kept locked up in "parc ferme" overnight to stop any overnight tuning.

Day one went relatively smoothly, Fellow snapper Thomas and I worked through lunch to snag a DPS shot with the Blue SS Commodore and the Super Snake doing a Burnout past the line, it worked out pretty well and gave a good mix of emotion and speed to an otherwise boring scenario. Taking exciting images of drag racing is difficult without having the cars lift the wheels or combust into flames so we had to do a bit of head scratching.

That night, Easton Chang made the trip to shoot the cover options, it was great to see his way of thinking and how he shoots his ultra complicated setups, I learned a great deal and will put a lot of the things into practice in future shoots.

Day 2 was at Oran Park Circuit for the track test, one flying lap on the main circuit and another on the smaller south circuit. John Bowe was the Guest driver for the main circuit and is an Australian Touring car Legend, It was amazing to meet one of my hero's from when I was a kid and he is also extremely funny and quick witted. Luffy took to the south circuit and in true Luffy style ripped it up! Doing some amazing powerslides for the camera's and making it look so easy.

In the end it was the Fitzgerald Racing Porsche 911 Turbo that took the honours over the 911 GT2, also noticeable mentions must go to city performance and their amazing R32 Golf which ran 11's over the quarter Mile and decimated many of the other tests. A lesson that can be taken from the event is that power doesn't nessaceraly maketh the car. Starting with a strong base and making smart and effective modifications is the real winner and a recipe for success.

So that was the 2009 Motor Magazine Hot Tuner event done and dusted, hopefully next year a stronger and even faster set of vehicles take up the challenge and hopefully I'll be there to capture it once again.

Motor Sept 09

2009-08-13T09:05:00.003+10:00

Newest issue of Motor hit the stands yesterday with the Feature I shot with the three Generations of Renault Hot Compact cars, The Renault Clio R27 F1, 16TS and 8 Gordini all have cool bits and peices that make them different from other cars so it was a real pleasure to experience.

The Clio R27 is a great car, I was never a fan of Renaults until I saw this in the flesh, The stickers while a bit of a wank are a typical Renault way of making something different cool, albeit advertising the fact they won the 2007 F1 championship in 2009 is totally ridiculous to me. It's a trackday special that you could drive everyday. I found the seats a bit too racelike for my liking though especially after sitting in them for a whole day.

I also thought the Renault 8 Gordini was particularly cool, 2 fuel tanks, rear engined and a raw driving experience. It reminded me of a Datsun 1600 but with a few quirks. This particular car was immaculate and a testament to the owners love and dedication to the make.

The 16 TS was also very unique, a Colomn shifted manual, rear seats that lifted up and suspension that felt like you were floating on a cloud. This car would have been revolutionary in it's day. Apparently these made succesful rally cars aswell.... sounds scary.

I was happy how the article came out, Cockburns story is both informative and in-depth but I like the way he incorporates humour to break it up a bit. I would have thought the 3 car rig shot would have been the double page spread but the Static Group shot looks sweet when cropped. Overall I am happy how it turned out.

Motor - August 09

2009-07-15T23:16:00.001+10:00

Hit the shelves today, I have 2 major features and 2 smaller ones. Check it out.

bfyb vid

2009-07-09T10:34:00.000+10:00

Ignore the last bit, not onsale yet.

The (Un)Usual Suspect

2009-07-04T13:03:00.002+10:00

I'm this months Motor Magazines (Un)Usual suspect in the letters section it seems....

The Southern Roadtrip

2009-06-19T17:10:00.004+10:00

I've just returned from another Shoot with Motor Magazine, this time it was over a couple of days down south comparing the BMW 335i, Audi S4 and Ford FPV F6.

After picking up the BMW on the Weekend and falling in love with it we drove down to my local area on Monday morning for a breakfast meet up and plan the days ahead, A fuel fill at Engadine and we were on our way south to Kiama through some picturesque roads that snaked there way all the way to Kangaroo Valley.

After doing a few car to car shots and getting some cool angles by risking the camera I jumped out and got some driving shots on a long sweeper that looked like something from a commercial. The sun filtered through the trees and gave a very cool effect.

By now everyone was starving so we continued on to Moss Vale, Ponch chose a quiet little café in the main street because it looked the least suspect out of all the stores, what a poor choice that turned out to be with 3 out of 4 lunches looked like something a dog had thrown up, fortunately my Chicken Burger was somewhat edible much to everyone's jealousy. So with everyone still hungry we hopped back in the cars and made a charge for Wakefield Park for Luffy to put down some hot laps for the article and Ponch to do the performance figures.

Anyone who has been to Wakefield will tell you how cold it can get in Winter, It was literally a couple of degrees above zero and it was only 4pm! Luffy tore the track apart in all 3 cars and on the cool down lap would drift it right past me making for some great cornering shots, he is an amazing driver!

The sun had set but my work was still not over, We needed to get interior shots so I setup my gear and got to work before dinner at the hotel restaurant. Dinner that night got eaten so fast it was ridiculous, everyone was starving from the failure of a lunch and tired from a long days driving… time for bed.

Ponch had the idea that if we got up at 6am we could have some of the backroads to ourselves to get some group shots. After driving for ages I came across a bit of a outlook were I could use a telephoto lens and keep all the cars in the frame. After spending 20minutes to position the cars perfectly and setup my shot we heard a car coming through the mountains, quick as a flash everyone jumped in their cars and drove to avoid a pending accident! And I didn’t even get to hit the shutter! Damn.

We continued on, heading towards Canberra to the Brindabella's line of road to get more driving shots and for Ponch to get a good feel for all the cars characteristics. Midway down the highway I noticed a cool backroad that had plenty of trees lining the road, with minimal traffic. It turned out to be a perfect spot to get some car to car shots but unfortunately the rocks the cars through up broke my good polarizing filter.

It was getting late and Luffy had a flight to catch back home so we called it a day and headed home back to Sydney, once again I grabbed the BMW and loved every second of driving it, the amazing engine, luxurious interior and superb handling make it an excellent car.

Keep an eye out for the 3 car comparo in next Months Motor.

It's all coming together

2009-06-09T14:20:00.002+10:00

Last night I submitted my Shots from BFYB 09, it was a bit of a relief to put that one away after many late nights processing and de-rigging shots. I got a call from the Art Director this morning who was stoked with the shots. That was an even bigger releif.

I was worried about one of the multi car rig shots not turning out too good but that didn't matter, the rest of the shots were enough to clinch me more work.

So next week I'll be spending a couple more days galavanting across the state, this time with 3 big dollar turbo cars

I'm starting to picture the shots in my head now, After completing the last shoot and knowing what can be accomplished with some lateral thinking and photoshop that this could be a very special feature.

I also have not posted a review on the 5dmk2 yet which I have planned to do for some time. But after using it on the last 2 shoots it is definately a very worthwhile investment. Particularly for Automotive photographers.

Back home

2009-06-04T15:58:00.003+10:00

Bang for your Buck 09 is over and it was the coolest photographic experience I've ever had. Whilst still being fun and creative there were many challenges that pushed my limits in both patience and skill as the art directors had some ideas that were definately pushing the boundries of Automotive Photography.

Not only did I get to take some cool unique shots, I also met a dozen or so top blokes that made the trip even better. Everyone was extremely friendly and everyone had a passion for cars.

It was a great experience, and hopefully the start of more long term stories with Motor in the future. But now I have 24Gb of images to sort and process including some very special rig shots and night shots I'll share when the magazine is published next month.

Gearing up

2009-05-31T21:30:00.004+10:00

Here is everything besides the rig, suction cups and light stands layed out.

3 bodies and 8 flashes might be a bit over the top, but in the case of disaster at least I'll have backup.

I'll try to update the blog over the next few days pending internet access. But leave tomorrow in the Renault Megane dCi 175 in bright red no less. Let's see what this thing can do!

Motor Bang for your buck 2009

2009-05-27T17:09:00.002+10:00

Well I have received the brief.... am I shitting myself?... yes, will I nail it?... Hell YEAH!

Heaps of room for creativity, but all the hard work is already thought out. From what I can see it's an varied range of cars, from everyday commuters right through to ball tearing rip snorters! I can't see how some of these are good bang for your buck when they cost a small fortune.

Cool part is I'll be doing some driving, so a good chance to put some notches in my "hot cars I've driven" belt.

Still need to collate some gear and a few miscellaneous things before Monday but right now I'm pretty excited for it.

Goodbye old friend...

2009-05-17T20:03:00.003+10:00

Time has come to sell the 1dsmk2, new 5d2 makes this pretty much obsolete in every fashion, so after been relegated as a backup for the last few shoots it will be put up for sale mid June.

Hardest thing is working out what it's worth... 30604 Actuation's (on this shutter) few dents and scratches but in perfect working order.

It's been the best piece of photographic equipment I've ever had the pleasure of owning, I can really see why people love 1 series bodies but for my line of work the weight is a major negative for rig work.

New Lid

2009-04-03T13:11:00.003+11:00

Got a new helmet the other day, One Industries Kombat series. The paint job is awesome.

Also got some New Smith Goggles and Tearoffs ready for racing to begin.

My Kitchen makes a surprisingly good studio.

Good and the Bad

2009-03-31T21:42:00.002+11:00

Today was my birthday, usually a day for celebrating and having fun. But not today. I found out a friend of mine was horrifically burnt in a Gas explosion whilst at work.

Sydney Morning Herald Story

Unusual for the newspaper, the story is not hyped up at all, infact both are much worse than the story portrays unfortunately.

Get well soon Todd, My own, my family and friends thoughts are all with you at this difficult time, Pull through mate.

Today was a good day.

2009-03-23T12:51:00.002+11:00

Today I got asked if I was interested in shooting Motor Magazines "Bang for your Buck" annual feature in early June for a week. Of course I said yes. On a scale of 1/10 on how stoked I am right now, I would say I am at a 15/10.

Finally...

2009-03-16T17:15:00.005+11:00

Just finished processing a feature car I have spent way too long on, if I added up all the hours it would be some ridiculous amount. Windows media player and Sugar Free Redbull got me through it. My new resolution is no more indoor intricate rig shots, no matter how cool they come out it's just not worth the torture of individually painting pixels (yes it came down to that!)

Time to crack a beer and send the CD off to the editor, I'm taking a break from processing for a while!

Iron Chef

2009-03-01T18:32:00.002+11:00

As you might see in some of the other blogs I read to the right, having baller food is part and parcel with everyday life.... not me. Easy, quick and most importantly eye watering delicious is my priority. If it comes from a can it's all good baby. Take this concoction I came up with, 400g Tuna, Capers, Minced Garlic, Peanut Butter and a splash of Lemon Juice, mixed up this was pretty much the best thing I've ever created. I challenge you to try it.

Astra VXR Nurburgring Motor Feature

2009-02-12T20:01:00.005+11:00

Just received the tearsheats for this issue of Motor Magazine with the small feature I did on the HSV Astra Nurburgring edition, came out pretty good I think. I find it hilarious that a couple of the images used are taken with a $300 point a shoot camera but.

My goal for this shoot was to follow the brief, but to keep a clean and consistent style that is associated with the images in Motor, I wanted to prove my style isn't all grungy dark flash lit shots, but rather something a bit more commercial and appealing to the masses.

Not everything went to plan for this shoot, as I mentioned previously My camera decided enough was enough and fell off the tripod ripping the thread out of the camera in the process, luckily I caught it just before it hit the ground. Kevin came to save the day with a loaner 5D and I was back in business.

I really enjoyed this shoot, it was challenging to meet the brief given to me. I had never worked to a strict set of guidelines before so it was nice to not have to think of every little thing to cover.

Here you can see a pair of my Boardshorts been used as a makeshift rag to clean the exhaust, unfortunately press cars don't always arrive 100% perfect, this car was filthy!

Setting up the rig for the rear shots, I'll be adding another 2 metres to it soon for some Ultra distance shots.

A huge thanks to Kevin for the loan of the 5D and Simon for assisting me.

Big Boys Toys

2009-02-12T09:44:00.003+11:00

If there is one thing I love more than Photography it would have to be riding dirtbikes, the ability to go as fast as you like without fear of getting a speeding fine, exploring new places and just having fun with friends is why I live for riding. So with countless hours researching the new

2009 450 Enduro bikes from all manufacturers I settled on the 2009 Husqvarna TE450 to replace my 2007 Suzuki DRZ400E.

Whilst Japan is on the cutting edge of technology with every facet of life, when it comes to Enduro models it seems they are a little behind the eight ball. Whilst I'm no racer the Husky comes with standard parts that would cost thousands of dollars extra on a comparative Japanese model, with the inclusion of Electronic Fuel Injection on the Husqvarna it made my decision even easier.

My favourite thing about the bike is it's sharp looks, white plastics with slimline seating position and very flat seat give it a purposeful racing look, the parts list alone is enough to make any rider weak at the knees, I'm going to have a hard time tricking this bike out because it's pretty much the king of bling already! Parts include:

Arrow GP pipe

R&D Husky Race chip

Brembo's Front and Rear with Oversized Rotors.

Magura Hydraulic Clutch

Cemoto Handgaurds

Marazochi Front Forks, Sachs rear shock

Black Excel Rims

Flex Levers

First impressions is that this bike is set to kill mode from the factory, power is instant and torque is immense. Keeping the front wheel on the ground is a serious issue as it rockets it's way into a eye watering top end, the brakes are unbelievable, one finger is all that is needed to haul it up, the clutch feel is light and very smooth with an easy pickup point which is very important in tight technical terrain. When cracking the throttle there is a slight hiccup however but this may be the old stale fuel left in the bike from delivery, with riding time I hope this will rectify itself.

I can't wait to have my maiden offroad voyage on it this weekend, Whilst photography is a fun and relaxing hobby, nothing comes close to ripping through the bush on a dirtbike!

CGI the death of Automotive Photography?

2009-02-09T08:16:00.003+11:00

Recently on my weekly visit of the Fstop mag I came across this interesting piece about photographer Darren Rees. I found one part of the article particularly disturbing.

"The digital revolution is a mixed blessing for automotive photographers. Never mind the global recession or the turbulent price of gasoline: Photographers working with automotive subjects have a different problem: CGI. “I don’t think traditional car photography will ever be the same again, mainly because the car industry is changing,” he says. “Five out of ten campaigns are CGI because it does save on prep and lugging cars around, which is very expensive. Plus, [the company] can advertise a concept car without actually having to make it, which costs millions.” When asked if car photographers were worried, he replied in the affirmative: “Big time."

Could CGI be the end of Automotive Commercial photography.... seems like it unfortunately. And with Print media slowly declining the need for Automotive photographers drops each day, oh well... time to take up 3D modelling then.

Summer 09

2009-01-25T22:08:00.006+11:00

Been a while since the last update, but Sydney is having an awesome summer this year so I've been out and about as much as possible trying to make the most of this awesome weather. The last week I got to see one of my favourite bands "bullet for my valentine" play at the university of New South Wales roundhouse and also at the "big day out" which is probably Australia's largest Music festival. To see them twice in one week was amazing so that has been a highlight of the summer for sure.

Also recently I had my first ever shootfor Motor Magazine. Motor is one of the top Auto magazines in Australia so I was very excited to receive a call to shoot the new 2009 Holden Astra VXR Nurburgring edition. Unfortunately the shoot had it's fair share of Drama's, My camera's tripod mount thread ripped straight from the camera leaving a bit of a dilemma. With the brief calling for plenty of Rig shots I was left to delay the shoot for a couple of days while I could source a replacement camera. Thanks to Kevin I had a 5d and 16-35 ready for action.

The second shoot went really well, I was very pleased with the overall images. The art director at Motor has also given me some handy hints on what they are after in a photoshoot in such a high profile magazine, they are very specific in what they want but with good reasoning. It was a great experience and hopefully I will get more opputunities to work with them. Check it out in the March 09 issue due out mid February.

yo tyte threads homes...

2009-01-07T18:52:00.003+11:00

Went to my favourite shop today called "lowdown" at Cronulla which is a cool little skateboard store down near the beach, I actually still skate a few times a week with my friends but the drive to do stupid stuff diminishes with work responsibilities.

For some reason the store always has a sale on, so 2 shirts for $50 was a good deal not to pass up. I'm particularly diggin the 'Creme de la Creme' shirt, fancy yet ever so trashy at the same time. The Kr3w one is just a rehash of one I already have in black that I have thrashed over the last year.

Oh yeah... 5D2 tomorrow!

Godsilvia?

2008-12-30T17:50:00.005+11:00

What has more power than a Mercedes SLR McLaren, Weighs several hundred kilograms less and can be seen on the odd occasion cruising the streets of Sydney?

Well that would be Brad and Andrea's Nissan S14a 200sx, True car enthusiast, and in no way newcomers when it comes to fast cars these are the people which make taking photos of peoples pride and joy worthwhile. You see, this car is not just a big dollar workshop slap together that runs big power on the dyno, this car was largely built by Brad and Andrea, every part meticulously researched for form and function rather than all show and no go. There is a reason why every modification was made to this car was done in a particular way or order, from the baffled and gated sump right through to the King Kong sized brakes, it was built with one purpose in mind, to go fast!

As a Performance car Mechanic by day, Brad gets to tinker with some pretty impressive machinery, but when you open the bonnet to this one of a kind 200sx you realise that this is no ordinary SR20, it seems a bit longer. 2 cylinders too long?

Yep, Underneath the somewhat unassuming refrigerator white exterior lies a 450+ Rear Wheel Kilowatt Nissan RB26, Trust T76 Turbo, A larger fuel supply than Iraq and a small fortune worth of braided lines. Brad rattles of the list of mods as I snap away, you sense a feeling of pride of what he has accomplished here, and rightfully so, every facet of the engine exudes quality and fine workmanship, welds on the pipe work are so perfect you would swear it was done by some sort of higher being, but I am assured it was all done by hand.

So now in complete awe of this machine, I somehow had to do it justice and take some photos worthy of representing such a fine car. Cars like this are so neat and tidy it's hard to find an ugly part of the vehicle to avoid, it just makes my life a little bit easier.

Like in my previous post, I stated how I was scouting for locations via technology, and this is one of them, located under the M7 motorway in Sydney's West. The location was an access road for the motorway and hence had no traffic at all, only a couple of curious onlookers passed by so the rest of the afternoon was smooth sailing. I tried to use the pillars supporting the overpass as a border for the car, but with a fence right behind my back framing the car perfectly between two pillars became a contortionist affair.

Lighting was kept rather simple, this time a few changes to my setup, a bit more formality by using 2 of the same flash for once! One day I might actually use 3 or 4 of the same.. Unlikely. This was the first time I had used my new Vivitar DF4000MZ's I picked up from the USA, these cheap and cheerful units pack some serious power, fully adjustable in power/tilt/swivel and can be triggered by radio transmitters or optically slaved, I'm convinced they are the new cult flash. Gear bag also for that day contained the ever faithful Sigma 500 Super, Canon G9 for video/behind the scenes and another use (keep reading) and a freshly charged Canon 1Dsmk2 (got new batteries finally)

As usual, I kept to the bread and butter shots first, Front on is always a good warm-up as they are usually the easier ones to do. Unfortunately the overpass did not completely cut out the sun, it was late afternoon so a large shadow was forming on the ground. Rather than try to "kill" it off with flash I got low like that crappy Flowrider song and avoided them that way.

With the front end done, onto the engine bay. At first I spent 5 minutes just drooling at the exotica under the bonnet, but I snapped out of that quick enough and got to shooting again, lighting changed a bit here, less power and deflected off the underside of the bonnet for a diffused look, this didn't work at all! So back to direct flash, never a good idea in an engine bay but with no soft box available I gave the polarizer a good twist and set off, rule of thumb for feature cars is to just snap everything you can as fast as you can, but this was a private shoot so I could concentrate on the amazing pipe work, the huge turbo and the braided lines that adorned the engine bay.

After spending way too long talking rather than working I noticed how dark it was becoming outside, I had to get my act together and do the quarter shots, these are my favourite as they are the "hero" shots of the car if you can put it that way, They are the more difficult but rewarding to get right and I like the challenge of been able to nail as much of the final image in camera as I can, so a lot of re-shuffling of lights, adjustments to power settings and playing with balancing ambient light with flash. After a bit of trial and error, I was starting to see some results I liked, so then I try to just get some slightly different compositions so I can make my mind up later as to what shot I like the best, the worst thing about the 1dsmk2 is the horrible low res screen, this makes viewing shots on location a bit of a pain, this would have to be my only criticism of the camera.

Next the interior, By a sheer act of Brilliance, I left the 17-40 at home so the 24-70 would have to do for today. As a rather tall guy contorting myself into a Bride Bucket seat is not an easy affair. Getting into the rear of a Silvia is even harder. After hearing every joint in my body crack in protest I managed to start snapping. The steering wheel of this car is totally awesome, so simple but has that race look and feel to it. I want one for the daily.

As mentioned before, I took the Canon G9 with me as it's a relatively small but very feature packed digital compact, with 12mp and built in Image stabilisation It makes an ideal tool for when using the big DSLR is both inconvenient or in this case dangerous to use. In previous post you might have seen various contraptions I had made to get rolling shots of cars, this was stooping to a new low.

Mini Tripod + Glass Holder + Packing tape and zip ties gets you this...

Rather than sacrificing the 1dsmk2 to the gods, I screwed the G9 onto the rig and slapped it on the door. Ingeniously canon has implemented an inbuilt ND filter in the G9, so long exposure in broad daylight is possible (Good Idea Canon) Set up the self timer and with an exposure time of 1second and first shot provided a pleasant surprise.

And that was a wrap, good afternoon of shooting and catching up.

Here is a Montage video of the shots taken and the final edits at the end.

Special Thanks to Matt Mead for assisting me with the shoot and providing the behind the scenes shots. (I owe you $4 for the Toll road too!)

What are you doing NYE?

2008-12-30T17:14:00.004+11:00

I never make a big deal out of New years Eve, just another night usually... I mean I'll go out and have fun but never have I done something so extravagant, stupid or expensive as this year.

After talking with some mates, we last night decided to just go all out. So onto the internet to check flights, accommodation and entertainment for the night. 2 hours later we had paid, booked and confirmed the most ruthless 24 hours known to man.

- Depart Sydney Airport for Gold Coast NYE at 1pm
- Party at private shindig for the night on Cavil Avenue Surfers Paradise.
- Leave New Years day at 10am back to Sydney!

This could be the most epic journey ever, or the most idiotic thing we have ever done... Either way I can't wait!

Splurged on some new kicks today, I have OCD when it comes to shoes but these SB's are pretty trick!

R34 Timelapse

2008-12-22T21:21:00.004+11:00

Stan who is the owner of this R34 I shot recently put together this awesome timelapse video of my shoot. Very cool!
Just watching it I can see how lazy I am, I do absolutely no setting up for my own shoots.

More about this car in an upcoming post.

Till then, Merry Christmas.

5Dmk2.... Not yours

2008-12-18T21:24:00.003+11:00

The quest to find a Aus Delivered 5Dmk2 in Sydney continues, Massive "fuck you" to CameraHouse Caringbah for stuffing me around for the last 2 months. I'll pay whatever it takes... just give me one already.

In the mean time I'm processing shots from a shoot on Sunday, One of the longest shoots I've ever done but the owner was really cool about it. The car to say the least was a surprise that's for sure. I have the next 3 weeks off work to catch up on some sleep and do some stuff I've been wanting to do for a while so I might neglect the blog for a bit.

later...

Hitler and the D3x

2008-12-08T18:54:00.001+11:00

I laughed my ass off at this one...

Portfolio Update

2008-12-04T18:37:00.002+11:00

Been ages since I did anything to ye old online folio, I've always been a fan of Hard Copy Print Folios but alas it's not always practical to send a 2+kg package overseas only to never see it again. By the way, critique these as much as you like.

Automotive Folio

Motorcycle Folio

One day I'll get around making one that doesn't look like a 5 year old made it (me) So if anyone wants to help me out with one... wink wink.

Chillin in the white room

2008-12-01T21:45:00.008+11:00

Every now and then I get to shoot in the studio, it's a nice change from location shooting, but a frustrating and often long day. When done properly, studio lighting can show the true beauty of a vehicle, it's shape and form without the distractions of a background.

Techniques used are a lot the same as a location shoot, but often the logistics are much more complex, the car needs to be in top condition, as a studio will show every flaw of a vehicle. But things like PC for tethering, food, water, assistants and lighting all need to be organised along with the vehicle itself.

To start the day, the lighting and flagging needs to be setup, this can take the best part of an hour to do depending on the complexity required to get the desired effect. Flagging is dark fabric used to create a reflected line on the body of the car, the idea is to accentuate the lines of the vehicle to show it's character. Flagging can be placed on the floor or on stands depending on the angle the car is to be shot. The flagging is then modified to suit each angle shot.

Lighting, like flagging is done on a "per angle" basis, depending on the lighting source used this can be a rather simple or more complex task. There are two main types used, Flash and continuous light sources. Flash is faster, more effecient and my preffered way to work, shutter times with 3 x 500Ws heads is around 1/60th @ f8 at ISO100, this allows for handheld shots with a nice solid aperture to maintain clarity. The downside to flash is it is not a "what you see is what you get" situation where the flash output needs to be set via trial and error or light meter. This is where continous has the advantage. Continous, allows for the photographer to take a very controlled and precise look at their lighting in real time, you can see the way the light hit's the vehicle with your own eyes. I really like the control you can have with continous light sources but there are signifigant downsides. First is the shutter speed required, anything up to 10-20 seconds at f8-10 so a Tripod is nessasary. Secondly the heat expelled from a continous light source can become extremely overwhelming especially in a small enclosed studio.
The light is usually bounced, and not fired directly into the car. The studio is a curved white room so light can easily be reflected onto the car, softening it's intensity but maintaining it's spread. The use of Softboxes is often used but can create large hotspots on the vehicle. Large octoboxes are also commonly used. Here you can see the flagging, along with the large sheet used for a softbox above the roof, this is controlled by a motor connected to the roof so it can be adjusted for height.

The vehicles are positioned by using small trolleys called "go-jacks" they allow for the car to be placed in the required shot without marking the delicate white floor. However at the end of the day the floor is repainted ready for the next day of shooting.

When all done correctly, post processing is virtually non-existant. Small increases in saturation and contrast is about all that is required. Blemishes on the vehicle are also cloned and re-touched. In the end the final results are worth the long days work.

CB Gone AWOL?

2008-11-26T12:50:00.000+11:00

Long time since I last updated, but there has been a reason… I've just been too busy! Last 2 weeks have been hectic, both photographically and personally. It's just a shame the two have to overlap like this. Take the last weekend for instance, 3 cars shot, over 400km travelled, around 600 RAW photos and a 2 week deadline to deliver them. Basically I'm a slave to Photoshop at the moment and nothing seems to be going right! My usual deal of using the same RAW settings for dozens of shots is giving inconsistent results and just other small things that have me losing sleep.

Again I get to travel a bit more this weekend when I head for Sunny Queensland to do a few shoots for private customers. Leave work Friday Afternoon, jump straight on a flight and then start shooting literally an hour after I arrive! All the while I still don't have a location sorted or a return flight for that matter but that's the least of my worries at the moment.

Hopefully, by the time I get back I should receive the news that my Canon 5Dmk2 has arrived and I can start playing around with that. In the meantime I'll try to update with some archive stuff with a bit more behind the scenes shots and a few shots from my QLD adventure.

The future is Red

2008-11-14T12:20:00.003+11:00

With the crossover between film and still camera technology now amongst us, Red have released their full line of Ultra High Resolution still and video camera's to somewhat dwarf with the Canon 5dmk2 and Nikon D90 in both features, and Price.

I'm not even gonna type much about this, it's so bad ass you just need to read the link!

Sneak Peak

2008-11-11T22:50:00.002+11:00

The illusive RB26DET S14a of Sydney, I'll post more later about this car.

Australian Supercross Championship

2008-11-09T17:25:00.004+11:00

Besides Photography, Dirtbikes are a massive part of my life, I ride a bike (badly) and it's a great way to escape the hassles of daily life. So when the Supercross was in town I slapped down a bunch of cash for "platinum" tickets and was in for a night I won't forget in a hurry.

Put together by World Supercross champion Chad Reed, The Australian Supercross championship has been a massive success, well promotoed and with International riders and decent prize money it's a well needed boost for the Australian Off Road Scene.

Watching Chad Reed ride in person was worth the admission alone, he is the definition of "smooth" almost looking slow he is that perfect. But when put against other riders, Reed is another level completely. Totally dominating the event, there is no question that he is both the worlds best, and obviously pisses on the Aussies. Notible performances by Dan Reardon and Jake Moss in the Pro Lites class with very fast laptimes.

I took the Little G9 camera with me for some crowd perspective snaps, shooting the Supercross from the Media spots is something I'll be looking into for next year definately.

Nutter Freestyler

Loving the Rim Tape

Motocross Legend and Suzuki Team Manager Roger DeCoster

Ohlins Forks worth more than your car!

Carnage!

Pit Lane

No Expense spared! Pyrotechnics

Scared the crap out of me

The amazing sunset

R34 GTR Vspec

2008-11-05T21:13:00.008+11:00

It's not everyday you get to shoot a car you idolised when growing up, and when I got the chance to take photos of Brett's 1999 R34 GT-R V-spec I jumped at it. Like most males in their early 20's, Gran Turismo was not just a game, but it was pretty much responsible for my obsession with fast cars. As soon as I got enough credits I always went straight for the R34 GT-R In Bayside blue no less, and here I am taking photos of a car I digitally drove around Tsukuba racetrack countless times trying to shave a thousandth of my virtual PB. To have this car right in front of you for a whole afternoon and then be taking it for a spin was something I won't forget in a hurry. Although not exactly rare in Australia, R34 GT-R's are somewhat mystical, if you see one you stop what you are doing. well I do anyway.

Brett's R34 is a V-spec model but has a few extra "herbs and spices" to give it 350kw at all 4 wheels, hardly massive power for a GT-R in Australia but it's the way that the power is spread in this particular Skyline that makes it the ultimate street car, No lag, No wheelspin just relentless neck straining acceleration. How fast? Brett has managed an 11.008 @ 127mph. With 10's easily within sight there is not much on the Streets of Sydney that will trouble this blue beast.

Some specifications:
Built Motor, Pistons, Rods, JUN Oil Pump, Big Baffled Sump, Ported Head, Poncams, Power FC, HKS GT-SS Turbo's V-Spec 2 Bonnet 19inch Volk GTC's..... Impressive!

The shoot was relatively straight forward. The location was something I wanted to try for months but never found a car that suited the dark surroundings. This spot was located by the water it gave virtually no reflections onto the car but provided an interesting background to do the shoot. After unloading the car I heard the distinct rumble of a cammed RB series engine from streets away, it sauntered down the street, it's front lip nearly scraping the ground. As I got a closer look I noticed how amazing Nissans Bayside Blue is, the paint is very deep and unique, this car for an import was in amazing condition. It looked like it had just been driven off the showroom floor rather than something that is nearly a decade old.

Equipment was again budget off camera flash setup but with a bit of the dark side blended in. I used two Nikon SB600's triggered by Radio Transmitters and my trusty Sigma 500 Super using the trustier inbuilt optical slave. After a bit of technical problem solving (one receiver was out of batteries so I did some mcgyver style electronics with some AA's) I like to shoot in a bit of a methodical order for some reason so nothing changed this time around, Front, Back, Side, Front Quarter, Rear Quarter and interior/detail and finish up with rolling/rig shots. Camera as always was the old beast Canon 1DsMk2 and 24-70 + 70-200 2.8L Combo.

Take note, these shots are all one exposure, no HDR or bracketed exposures, I'm too lazy to do that sort of work :) so some basic RAW post production methods of adjusting curves/levels and colour balance are the only tricks here, I also must note, save your RAW workflow for one shot and use it multiple times, First up, front on. as it was still quite light outside 2xSB600's at full power @ 24mm aimed at each quarter panel from high up and the Sigma from the rear of the car to provide a sort of none existent accent light. The same was done for the rear and side profiles aiming the flash into the wheel wells to avoid unsightly bright highlights to the image and to accentuate the big guards. (insert setup shots) Front quarter shot is a bit trickier than the others as you now have the front of the car to light evenly but by giving plenty of distance (and power) between the flash and the car gave a nice even spread of light. This time the flash was aimed into the grill on a downward angle to give the bonnet a bit of light. I always shoot low to the ground to avoid light spill over and at a long focal distance (around 200mm) to get a nice undistorted look to the car and from down low the car appears a bit more menacing.

One of the major payoffs of taking photos of high performance cars is a lot of the time the owner will give me a ride/drive of their pride and Joy. Brett was no exception and I was genuinely excited to ride shotgun in one of my childhood hero cars. I snuggled butt into the bucket seats, a whirr of fuel pumps and then the RB26 fired into life. The twin plate clutch takes a bit of a tricky sidestep to master, a few blips of the loud pedal and we were off, first thing I noticed is how sedate and easy the car appeared to drive slow, often hi-po streetcars are hardly friendly to drive at low speed but this was an exception. As the water temp rose so did the rpm... then before I could ready myself I was pinned to the seat! (Private Raceway Mr Police) My head was Glued to the headreast as we launched from a standstill to warp speed in no time at all. The revs just didn't seem to end and neither did the power, 2nd, 3rd, 4th still into it! The noise, the feeling of complete helplessness and the rumbling of my bowels about to turn into a brown mess all over immaculate recaro's! I returned back to my car, you could not wipe the smile from my face, all in a days work. Thanks to Brett for been so co-operative and for letting me take a ride in his weapon, also thanks to Simon Ziarkowski for assisting me on the day.

Review: Canon G9

2008-11-03T13:14:00.006+11:00

Recently I went on a holiday to Indonesia, so instead of lugging around an expensive, heavy and cumbersome DSLR setup I looked into getting a digital compact camera to take on my travels, After reading several reviews on different compacts and their inheriting strengths and weaknesses the Canon G9 stood out as a clear winner, for both image quality, features and creative control. With the Arrival of the New Canon G10, the Price of G9's has fallen considerably over the last few months, and whilst still an incredibly capable camera the deal was too good not to pass up.

The thing I like most about the G9 most is the fact it has nearly every single feature of a camera 5 times it's price, and has a lot of features that DSLR's do not have, 1024 Video mode been the most impressive of these features.

Whilst tiny in comparison to my DSLR setup, the G9 is hardly a featherweight, too large for a pocket but perfect for a small bag or around the neck, it's weight may be a hindrance to those who like to travel light but for those who like something with a good ergonomic feel and rangefinder looks then the G9 is perfect. Large textured rubber grips, brushed/spun metal accents and chrome finishing really make this camera exude class. The Shutter button also has a familiar DSLR feel to it as well with a very smooth action and half press focussing. The dials and buttons are very easy to read and use, and can be operated whilst using gloves (handy for those riding dirtbikes/mtb/snowboarding etc) Rounding out the exterior is a solid looking hotshoe mount, rare for a compact camera but for those with a creative mind a godsend.

Composing and taking an image is easy with the large and clear LCD screen, all relevant information can be viewed either through the viewfinder or the LCD with plenty of room to compose the photo. Handy features such as Histogram and sliding exposure scale shown in real time make nailing the perfect exposure that much easier. The G9 also has a very effective image stabilisation feature that allows for clear and crisp images in low light, I was amazed at how slow of a shutter speed can be used when IS was turned on.

The G9 like a lot of compacts nowadays allows full manual control over ISO, Aperture and shutter speed but can also be put on Auto Mode and give exceptional results, one major pitfall with Compacts is the small sensor size, which in turn can produce grainy photos in low light when the ISO/Sensitivity is increased, and the G9 is no different, ISO ranges from 80 to 1600 where only up to ISO 200 resembling a clean clear image, this would have to be one of the only downsides of the camera.

Files produced from the G9 in daylight rival most DSLR's on the market, it is scary how similar the files are to my 1dsmk2, it makes me wonder why the huge fuss over DSLR's these days when compact cameras are this good. The G9 as full RAW functionality, so processing images is as easy as can be, the files can be pushed surprisingly a long way in both shadows and highlights to recover any blown out or lost shadow detail, Chromatic Aberration (purple fringing) is also barely recognisable at 100% view so it is a testament to the design on the canon lens. Zooming is neither wide angle or telephoto, whilst not the widest zooming compact around, the G9 is wide enough for most purposes, Canon sell an optional wide angle convertor and a teleconvertor to give wider/longer zoom. Focus speed Is fast and accurate, in low light the G9 launches a green laser light to help lock onto focus.

As mentioned before, the G9 has an inbuilt hotshoe, allowing for the addition of a hotshoe based flash with ETTL compatibility, or the ability to allow for off camera flash. One inherent problem with DSLR's is with a mechanical shutter, flash sync can only be set to a maximum or around 1/250th of a second depending on the model and manufacturer, the beauty of Compact cameras means that because their shutter is electronic, any sync speed can be obtained! The ability to sync at 1/2000th, with enough lighting power is a great asset to have.
Another brilliant feature of the G9 is the movie mode, which captures in 1024 resolution with decent sound. The video files produced are very large however so it pays to have a large capacity SD card handy. Small inclusions such as inbuilt ND Filter, Custom white balance and scene modes make the G9 both a pleasure to use for beginners and those more advanced.

My intended purpose for this camera now that I am back from holidays is to just enjoy it for what it is, a smallish but extremely capable camera that can rival a DSLR and in many ways trump it with features. I plan to use the G9 on a photoshoot to prove that it does not take a DSLR to get exceptional results. Rather with some creativity and some carefully planned execution the compact digital camera is a force to be reckoned with.

Gimme 5

2008-10-29T19:32:00.007+11:00

It's that time of the year for Australian Photographers, the Canon photo5 competition was held again this year, and again I forgot to enter. 2 from 2, 100% complete failure.

More information about the Photo5 competition can be found here -

It had been a while since I have taken a photo purely because I enjoy doing so, with some spare time this afternoon I had a look at the little brown box and tried to do something with it besides throw it in the bin, I came up with an idea, something I had seen on the cover of the New York Times a while back. I decided I would use the blue crayon that was inside my box and put it to good use.

I went down into the studio (you may have one in your home too, it's called a white wall) and setup shop, couple of bare flashes powering into the wall.

I needed a model, so I focused on the tripod and then left the focus as is, I thought if I stood in line with the tripod I would also be in focus... it worked. Starting to look like something here.

Seconds after the photo was taken, My arm hit the tripod and.....

RIP Vivitar DF4000MZ - You will be missed.

So now I needed a background, so I got out my pen and some paper and just drew random crap all over it. No I was not drunk.

Time to get photoshopping and merge the images into a composite.

This was rather straightfoward, I did an exposure for me, the wall, a bunch of crayon shots (same crayon just relocated) an exposure for the floor and one of the paper.

After 5 mins or so a final image.

Pak's S15 Nightshoot

2008-10-18T17:52:00.006+11:00

It's nearing midnight… a suspicious skeletal framed man staggers down the alleyway. Ahead he sees a wide body Yellow S15 blocking his path… he speeds up. "Here we go!" I think to myself as I grab a rig pole ready to lay some junkie smackdown, he see's us… pauses. The look of on his face is a mixture of fear and confusion, 3 guys standing in a dark Surry Hills Laneway with metal poles, cameras and a car blocking the road. I would have been scared too. Then ever so carefully, he tip toes around the car like a toddler. I look at my assistant Matt, he smiles, I laugh out loud, it was hilarious.

Yep, In one of my stupider moments, I conducted a full scale shoot out the front of a city methadone clinic… Why? I'll never really be able to answer that one. Maybe because it was a cool location, maybe because it was close to my car…. Maybe I wanted to live dangerously and have all my gear stolen, in Hindsight it was not the best place to be.

Pak's car is just plain awesome, Cwest widebody, Black Volk TE37's, Perfect Yellow paint and a healthy 240rwkw SR20DET. I knew a night shoot would be the perfect way to make this car stand out, but I wanted to try some new techniques that night, so it was a trial and error affair. It had been some time (almost a year) since I had done my last night shoot, using a tripod again was a shock to the system. The time it takes to do a shoot was also greatly increased, 4 hours in total in the end, 30 second exposure times mean a long time between shots, luckily I had company.

Gear for this shoot was a bit different to the normal, As usual the Canon 1Dsmk2 and G9 for backup/video usage, but no multiple flashes this time around. With long exposures I had the ability to just handhold a single Nikon SB800 and use it to "paint" the car with light, this worked rather well at low power not giving off any hotspots or nasty reflections. Lens for the whole shoot was the Canon 24-70 2.8L with circular polariser. Also used for the shoot was a camera rig setup for rolling shots.

My system for shooting was to pick an angle and stick with it, been night time with such long exposures the ability to light each part of the car completely was a bonus. Using a very small aperture as well to obtain total clarity from corners to the centre of the image. But all the shots were done as one exposure rather than a tricky composite later on. Finding the right mix of light painting and not keeping in the frame was tricky. As this was a very dark location, Finding focus was also difficult. My assistant shined a torch on the car to make finding focusing easier.

After completing the front and rear shots, we moved onto the rolling shots, this involved placing a large boom onto the vehicle and moving the camera in total unison with the vehicle to create a unique movement effect. The use of Suction cups, poles and clamps is used to hold the rig onto the vehicle. The car is then rolled very slowly with a long shutter speed to give the impression of movement. When done correctly it can have very striking results. The rig is then cloned out of the image later in post processing, this is a very long and dangerous task that can take hours, so it is imperative that as possible is done to minimize this work by making sure the background and lighting is going to be suitable later in post production to fix.

After packing all the equipment back into the truck and driving home I was tired, hungry and it was by Then Monday morning. 4 hours was long for a shoot but I think it was worth it. At least the junkies didn’t steal my gear.

Big Thanks to my Assistant for the night Matt Mead - http://www.matthewmead.net/ and the Cars awesome owner Pak for been just a nice guy and providing such a hot S15.

Shhhhh.... It's a Secret!

2008-10-10T15:02:00.000+11:00

The reason I started this blog was to give a bit of an inside look to how I go about taking photos of vehicles, plain and simple really. If it helps someone that’s great, if you chuckle at how dodgy I do things that’s also fine by me, but lately as get more and more feature car work you see the somewhat secret squirrel lives that are Automotive Photographers.

I remember when rig shots started becoming more and more popular in Australian Magazines like Wheels and Motor and wondering "how the hell did they do that" these were not the usual whole car in frame shot either, just a simple wheel shot or even an interior view. I researched Google for what seemed like hours and found the original "stickypod" product sold in the USA and thought it was pretty cool. Anyway… time passed on and soon I was witnessing guys on Photography Forums using the same technique, people were asking from every direction "how did you do that" or "is it all Photoshop" only to receive a reply from the Author saying "sorry it's a secret" oh c'mon… stick some poles out a car and push it, hardly rocket science.

As more and more of these shots became common place, the techniques for capturing them soon became well known, Hobbyist photographers were producing work that often put to shame "professional" old school Automotive photographers and there was starting to be a shift in trends as Generation Y photographers took over.

Complex composites, Intricate lighting setups and just plain creativity were now ruling the roost, and as a willing and eager youngin myself I was on a mission to do the same. I'd try and replicate the styles of the more creative photographers, dissecting their techniques through trial and error. I met some cool people along the way who made comments and criticism's on my work and it drove me to keep at it.

Around 2.5 years ago emailed a certain Australian photographer based in Sydney (name withheld lol) and asked him a few questions about how he goes about his work, how he almost has no reflections, how he finds locations etc. The reply I got from him was in Summary "piss off kid" This bummed me out something bad… all I wanted to do was learn, I wasn't out to take his job or steal his clients, I was just a young kid with a passion for cars and camera's and this brings me to the meat in my rant sandwich.

Whenever possible, I try and take someone with me on a shoot, someone who is like I used to be, keen and committed to learning. If they learn one thing from the day and put it into practice then my job is done, wether it be a simple thing like positioning of the car or something on a different tangent like location scouting or logistics then that’s good. I'm not playing my own trumpet here saying I'm this world renowned guy teaching guys Automotive stuff like I'm Jesus, I'm still a small fish in a big pond in the grand scheme of things but I'm a fish who is willing to teach other fish to get bigger.

About a year ago, Mark Pakula Autosalon Magazine http://www.markpakula.com/blog/ invited me down to a Photoshoot he was doing for a Cover car, in those 4 hours I spent with him I learnt more than I had in 2 years of trial and error on my own! No kidding my head was literally filled with information and ideas to put into my own work. It's this kind of stuff you cant learn from reading a photography website, you have to be there… why is something done like this, why is that reflector there, why did you turn the wheels to exactly 39.99 degrees, no forum can teach that.

That's why I commend guys like John Jovic, who is showing how Pro Stuff is done - http://rigshots.com.au/howto.htm

So for those of you out there that do know what you are doing when it comes to using a camera, whether it be taking photos of cars or smokin hot chicks… Grab a youngster and teach them something, show them the ropes, make them carry your gear and get your lunch but most importantly… remember how hard it was for yourself starting out.

And as for the guy that told me to "piss off" all those years ago, well I received an email from him asking for advice on using small flashes not too long ago… how the tables had turned.

Location Location

2008-09-17T13:30:00.000+10:00

Half the battle of Automotive photography is not only finding potential feature cars or clients, but rather locations to do the shoot. In fact of late I have had more car's scheduled than locations to take them, so in a bid not to double up on previous locations I spent a day travelling around Sydney for some new spots.

Although there is no set rules as to what location suits a particular vehicle, I tend to pay attention to how they relate. The overall theme of the shoot can be determined by the location, think carefully about how the location compliments the vehicle, do they have a fitting connection?

Some examples of a vehicle and suitable locations are:

Race car on a racetrack (wow captain obvious)
Long time Project Car in a workshop
Japanese Sports car near a Japanese Garden, or under a cherry blossom
Midnight Street Racer under a dark highway overpass
Elegant Luxury car in the driveway of a mansion
Those are just some ideas off the top of my head.

So getting back to the original story, I scheduled a day just to find some fresh locations. It was a nice day so got in the car, blasted the stereo and just drove…. No particular place in mind, just a end goal of finding some new spots for upcoming features.

What a battle that turned out to be! I spent maybe 4 hours driving only to find 3 average spots. Nothing that really impressed me.

I like a location that first of all is interesting, yet not too cluttered to detract from the car. It needs to suit the vehicle but right now I had no real cars in mind just on the hunt for locations. But another point often overlooked is the accessibility for Lowered cars. Security, Traffic and bystander rate also needs to be taken into consideration when I choose a spot. Often the best places are illegal to be seen in as I found out early on in the piece (hello Balmain Cement works remember me!)

This is where Mr Technology comes into play.

My mobile phone, a nokia 6110 Navigator has GPS navigation on it, if I find a new spot whilst on my travels, I simply add a point of interest to my maps and done, longitude and latitude co-ordinates and ready for future scoping out, I'll check it out on a weekend afternoon (when I do most shoots) and if it meets the criteria of low traffic, easy access then it's a keeper ready for the next car that suits the theme.

Perhaps the biggest tech breakthrough for finding locations is Google Maps, and more specifically it's "Street view" function. This is simply better than sliced bread in my opinion, I don't even need to leave my house to go location scouting. Just browse my way through the country clicking random streets or industrial estates, double click the street and voila… I'm given a 360 degree photo of the street.

A helpful hint, look for major roadways, but more specifically look for overpasses and access roads to these major Highways. These access roads are open to the public but lead to nowhere so often there is a suitable spot there.

I'll update soon, With a Shoot the spot was found via Google Street view!

Rant

2008-09-02T14:09:00.000+10:00

One thing that bugs me is when people ask "what settings were you using" when in Photography there is no real right or wrong settings for a particular situation. I have rules I tend to abide by but that is just personal preference when I shoot. I have relatively steady hands and almost always shoot handheld so I tend to run as low as 1/60th combined with the flash to get a sharp result. For aperture I like to stick around the f8/10 range as the car remains in focus and optically my lens/camera excels here. I always use a circular polariser, if you do any car/bike photography then these are a must as it controls and often completely cuts out unwanted reflections on metallic objects so I make sure I always have my CPL handy. Other than that it's often just a case of trial and error, I run the flashes flat out at full power for the sole reason I can place the flashes further away from the car and obtain a wider spread of light, recycle times are increased but If you cant wait 4 seconds between shots you need a lesson in patience. No light meters, Umbrellas, 10,000W strobes with diesel Generators, 20 man production teams or professional photo retouchers here I'm afraid

Superbike Showdown

2008-05-26T21:31:00.000+10:00

A friend of mine has been bugging me for a while (sorry Ben) for some pics of his CBR1000RR. So while I was doing that, I thought may as well make a day of it and bring all the boys bike over for a Photoshoot.

All the Big 4 1000’s are there, a real Superbike showdown and a lone blue Kwaka 600.

4636cc’s of Japans finest in under 3 hours, I had my hands full.

The contenders of the Superbike battle are;

Ben: CBR1000 “LITRE”

Luke: ZX10R “Wheelie King”

Kirky: GSXR1000 “600’s are weak”

Tommo: R1 “The Yellowbird”

Proudly Supported by Vukie in “Blue diamond”

Finding a location was a stroke of luck, after a bit of a drive around what I thought was a closed industrial estate (the place was packed) we come across a small substation with a semi interesting background, time to get shooting.

I set up my trusty poor mans lighting setup consisting of a single 2 strobe setup, A SB600 camera left at full power (thanks Tommo) triggered by PT04 Radio Transmitter and a Sigma DG500 camera right full power triggered by Optical Slave.

As it was full sun, I had to really use every bit of power from the strobes, both were set to full power with the sigma zoomed to 70mm for a bit more punch. The placement of the strobes was really close to the subject so to not lose any power.

The whole point was to overpower the sun and give a nice dark moody sky, the old “sunny 16 rule” was tried first (1/125 @ f16 iso100) it gave a pretty good starting point, dropped it down to f11 and I was in business.

The good thing about doing a bit of a production line of bikes was the lighting setup barely changed at all, just move the bike in, snap away and move it away, rinse and repeat. 5 bikes in a bit over 2 hours was a good effort, time for some rolling shots.

My main man Steve hopped in my Ute (jealous of the power) and I layed in the tray, Ben followed in his red rocket and I snapped away, using the age old rule of speed relating to shutter time, we were going approx 35-40kph so I used a shutter of between 1/60^th and 1/3

0^th to get the shots I wanted. After a quick u-turn I explained to Ben we are going to have to act this one out a bit and I got him to tuck down like he was doing mach 10, the sad truth is his bike nearly overheated from going so slow.

And that was it, 5 bikes in a day. Not a bad effort.

Check my flickr stream for all the images:

http://flickr.com/photos/brasher/

Some out-takes for your enjoyment. (Thanks to Ben Lehner)

2008-05-21T17:15:00.002+10:00

Nissan S15 Silvia

2008-01-31T17:30:00.000+11:00

This was a follow up location shoot for the same S15 which I shot in the studio a few weeks back

http://flickr.com/photos/brasher/page2/

(check my flickr page for higher resolution photos from this shoot)

A very tough looking S15 (Jap Import) with HKS/Veilside Widebody, Impressive responsive SR20DET with good power and a stylish yet purposeful interior. A very nice all round car, show and go!

Once again, Sydney's summer has resembled that Crappy Kevin Costner movie "Waterworld" and proceeded to rain on the day of the original shoot, we rescheduled and yet again a severe storm erupted just as we arrived at the meet up spot. It was now or never, so we decided to just look for an undercover spot and make do.

My friend Michael who was helping out for the day is a local to the area, so we went for a drive to find an undercover location, Out of nowhere; Michael slammed on the brakes, did a U-turn and said "I know the perfect spot!" 2 minutes later we arrived. He wasn't wrong.... this place was pretty good!

We pulled into the driveway, a loading dock for some sort of industrial centre. It was a Sunday so not a car or truck to be seen. The Silvia entered; its lumpy cams sent an echo through the loading docks reverberating from the roof and walls. We got to cleaning up the car, Chamois to the rescue, and I got to setting up my dodgy poor mans lighting setup.

The owner wanted a side on shot first, so the car was driven up the loading dock ramp and positioned to centre the car in front of the garage door.

As with a lot of the location shoots I do, I used small off camera strobes to illuminate the car and highlight the stunning Work Rims and flared guards.

For this Photoshoot, I used:

- Canon 1dsmk2

- Canon 24-70 2.8L

- Canon 70-200 2.8L

- Cactus PT04 V2 Flash Trigger system (poverty wizards - the fact they work every time impresses me)

Sigma DG500 super - Optically slaved, I placed this flash behind the car to illuminate the blue roller door behind the car and separate it a bit from the background. (1/4 power)

Achiever TZ250 - Full Power (sliders all to the right) camera left (aimed at wheel)

Sunpak 3000 - Full Power camera right (aimed at wheel)

Once I got underway, I realised the strobes were a bit too low to illuminate the car, but there was no choice. Unfortunately I do not have proper light stands, rather I use old Tripods and prop the lights on top. Even at full extension, they were not high enough.

And the final shot:

shutter speed - 1/30
aperture - f4
focal length - 70mm
ISO - 100

Making do with what I have, I tried to stop down the ambient light by approximately 2/3rds a stop below my metered ambient light and let the strobes do the rest of the work. As it was still quite bright even under the roof I really used every bit of power I could from the small strobes. Perhaps an upgrade is in order.

I particularly like the smooth line produced wheel arches, I used a circular polarizer to control the reflections.

To make the day even more confusing, the rain had stopped and the sun peered through the clouds, we decided to venture to the original location we had decided on while the rain had stopped.

After driving into the narrow laneway I decided it was best to have the sun behind the car and to backlight it a bit, this proved to be a major hassle as the owner had to skilfully perform a 20point u-turn in such a tight spot.

This time, I really wanted to kill the ambient lighting off to emphasise how dark and stormy the clouds looked, off the top of my head I set up my shutter speed/aperture to be nearly 1 2/3rd stops below ambient. As the sun was rapidly setting I had enough power from the strobes to easily illuminate the car. To avoid the look of light spill over on the ground I got on my stomach (the ground was still wet damn!) Using the telephoto lens to get a good distance from the subject and a very undistorted view of the car.

As you can see, there was still plenty of available light, using the strobes you can precisely control the highlights/shadows of a scene with a bit of fiddling about.

And the result:

shutter speed - 1/180
aperture - f4.5
focal length - 95mm
ISO - 250

A bit of a curves adjustment and colour balance to emphasise the reddish glow the sun gave through the clouds was the post processing involved. I also cloned out the small highlights the strobes give off when fired bare into the car. The drainpipe was removed from the building to clean up the image a bit more.

We ventured back to the original location to do the rear shots. I decided to use the grungy looking brick wall that climbed right to the roof. Once again the strobes were placed around the car (2 on the side aiming at the wheels, one at the back) and got to work. Ambient light had really diminished now so some very extreme hand held shots had to be taken with the poise of a military sniper.

This shot looks pretty cool, like a light shining from heaven or something supernatural.

Eventually, I ended up with this.

shutter speed - 1/15
aperture - f3.5
focal length - 105mm
ISO - 250

Again pretty much straight off the camera with a few blemishes cloned out.

For a bit of fun, I did a rolling shot and experimented with the colour balance later in photoshop, for some reason I really like the shot, sort of evil in a wierd way.

shutter speed - 30sec
aperture - f4.5
focal length - 16mm
ISO - 250

Thanks to the car's owner Tony, here is a bit of a behind the scenes video clip he took while I was snapping away. Also a big thankyou to Michael Vettas (http://mvettasphotography.com ) for showing me around the local area and assisting me.

Thanks for looking.

VW Golf R32

2008-01-18T16:46:00.000+11:00

A friend of Mine asked me to Grab some shots for his Father's Golf R32 to get some large formate prints done. It's a very nice car, amazing sounding aftermarket exhaust, Coilover suspension etc.

After arriving at his house, we set off. Of all days to do a photoshoot it was a cold rainy summerday in Sydney. After driving for 10 minutes or so to find a suitable location, we spotted this one in an industrial area. The crates were used for a windscreen shop and made for an interesting (yet cluttered) background.

As soon as we arrived, it started to rain, then stop, then start again. Finally the decision was made and I made a start setting up my gear. For this I used:

Canon 1dsmk2, Canon 70-200 2.8L
Gadget Infinity PT04 Trigger/2 Receivers
Sigma DG500 Super (optical slave setting)
Acheiver TZ-250
Sunpak 3000

I propped them all on tripods and got to work, all setup it looked like this.

Without the flash, it looked flat and boring

The whole point is to adjust my aperture and shutter speed to kill the ambient light but still capture the flash on the car, take note the shot below was taken in broad daylight (well overcast)

So I got in my flattering ground humping position.

And came up with this:

1/90th sec @ f8
ISO 200
105mm

Post processing was the clouds in background and removal of the downpipe on building, basic levels and a bump in saturation (1ds in "normal" colour mode is very flat, but accurate)

Looking back, not bad but not good. Biggest concern is the reflection on the bonnett of the car, even with the polarizer set at full tilt, the reflection remained. Background is also still a bit too busy.

In the end though, my mates father was stoked with the final image which is what really matters.

Thanks to Ben Wood for the behind the scenes shots.

New Camera

2008-01-11T22:18:00.000+11:00

Bit of time since I last updated here, anyway... continuing on from my last post. I did get that camera I was lusting for, It is full frame.... but it's not a 5D.

Yes, I scored the deal of the century, no wait.... the millenium, on a second hand Canon 1dsmk2.

Most amazing peice of photographic gear I have ever had the pleasure of holding, huge bright veiwfinder, amazing detail in the images and perfect colour representation. They say once you go full frame you never go back, and I can see why. This camera is the equivilant of holding god in your hands.

Another day another flash.

2007-11-01T15:36:00.000+11:00

My sick obsession with buying cheap manual strobes struck again yesterday when I recieved the delightful Achiever unit and a Hoya Pro1 Circular Polarizer.
This brings the flash count up to 10, double digits finally! Nothing to celebrate except I can now be classified as an addict... help me.

First impressions, like all old strobes it's built like a tank. The filter set thrown in is a welcome bonus, CTO and CTB filters will be put to use, as will the included Sync cord which was a surprise.

Connected to the Catcus V2 and switched on it worked first time and every time, for something that cost as much as a decent lunch these cactus things are worth thier weight in gold (with a bit of fiddling of the antenna of course)

The polarizer was cheap, again found on ebay. From the couple of shots I fired off with it on it looks like a good peice of gear. Finally a bit more dynamic range back into my outdoor shots!
I have some a big project coming up soon that I will divulge in a bit later, it involves as usual cars and photo's but this time it will involve a new camera (the 30D is going to be retired) and a move to full frame 5D finally is on the cards.

Composite Work

2007-10-31T13:30:00.000+11:00

Came about this interesting article on my Daily Flickr read.

http://www.thefstopmag.com/?p=27

Some interesting concepts here. I always knew commercial work was a process of highly complex composite images but this is taking it to new levels, nothing really is shot together rather been mashed up later in post. Definately some inspiration to be had here to try out for future work.

The Rodeo

2007-10-28T20:13:00.000+11:00

This Holden Rodeo was certainly an eye catching car, bright paint, big chrome wheels and dumped to the ground, the owner is also a very good friend of mine so when he bought the car he wanted to get some prints of his new pride and joy, of course I will willing to oblige. The whole objective of this shoot was to try some new stuff, I could re-shoot the car at any time because I see him most days during the week.

We decided after seeing a few examples of "rig shots" in magazines and online we would give it a go ourselves. Between myself and a two other friends we set about designing something that would give us the effect we were after. The whole concept of the rig shot is to keep the camera and car in perfect harmony as the car moves, the camera is fixed to the car to appear sharp and in focus but the background and wheels appeared blurred, this creates an exciting image that can not be replicated by post processing to the same degree.

After a bit of trial and error we had the first basic design complete, a rudimentary pole that just attached to the tray of the car, nothing fancy but it was solid and it worked, so we went out to the local car park, strapped it on and went about replicating what we had seen in the magazines. The idea is to have the car barely moving (walking pace) but to leave the shutter open long enough to give the concept of movement, so I dialled in 2.5 seconds and let the camera figure out the exposure and ran with it, No sooner than about 2 minutes later and I had snagged this one.

I was suitably happy with it when it appeared on the LCD of the camera and it looked even better on the big LCD monitor at home.

Post processing for this was nearly none at all, Adjustment of contrast and a boost in Saturation with some sharpening was all I needed for this one. Because not all the car is seen in the image this allowed the rig not to be seen in the frame at all and hence did not need to be cloned out.

Still, we were not completely satisfied with the shot, this time we wanted the front of the car in frame and the whole thing this time, this was going to require some lateral thinking. After some research we found there is 2 main ways for the rig to be attactched to the car, one been underneath the car to the chassis somehow, either by magnets or by direct bolting to the rails and the second method been suction caps.

We went with the Chassis mount, this both been cheaper and easier to clone out in post processing, so after a trip to the local hardware store and a few dollars later ($12 Australian) we had all the aluminium lengths, some screws and some tie down straps. We were ready for construction.

After a few beers and some messing about we connected it all up, we used an old tripod head and attached it to the aluminium pole. The pole was hinged in the middle by a large screw and then tension was kept via the tie downs, the tie downs looped through the holes in the chassis and then were tied back, checked and double checked, the result was this monstrosity!

Now for testing, with the sun setting very quickly I strapped the camera to the rig, said a quick prayer for the camera's safe return and fired the car up, set the timer and a shutter speed of 5 seconds, it was now or never. Much to my surprise the camera kept near perfectly still, it was a success straight away much to our surprise. Before it got too dark I came up with this one.

Boring composition, boring angle but the concept works, now to build on it and improve the rig for more length. The beauty of our design is that it will fit any car with a hole in the chassis which makes it extremely versatile. The main problem been installation was rather tedious and time consuming at about 15 minutes to make things were secure.

Post processing of this shot was rather intensive and a lesson learnt, stupid me had one of the Rig's arms covering the headlight, I had to clone and airbrush the parts of the light in as best as I could, it took a couple of hours but it was done, one aluminium bar gone, one headlight cloned and the shadows filled in.

Some more shots from the Rodeo Shoot:

Petes Skyline

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This was for a friend of mine who wanted some shots of his new daily, a very clean R33 Nissan Skyline GTS-T. The plan was to meet up about mid afternoon, find the location I had scouted whilst browsing Flickr and get some shots to be home for dinner time, things did not exactly go to plan after the first location was way too busy to stop the car let alone to get photos, so we drove around for what seemed like an eternity till we found this location in Marrickville Sydney. The location was amazing. I was literally stuck for words as we slowly drove down a long alleyway littered with amazing Graffiti Pieces, I knew we had found something special here but the problem was it was still a relatively busy one way lane so time was of the essence so to speak.

The owner parked the car as close to the kerb as possible as to not completely stop the traffic flow, a bit to close to the background for my liking but we had to make a compromise, I wanted to take photos straight away. The sun was quickly setting and the sky was an awesome bright orange (Sydney Pollution perhaps)

It was still quite light, light enough to hand hold the camera and enough to get some ambient mixed in with some off camera flash, for this shot I used the following.

30D+Grip
Canon 10-22
Manfrotto Tripod/Head supporting Sigma DG500 Super Flash with eBay softbox
Mini Tripod supporting Sunpak Auto3000 (this flash is so cool, more power than a nuclear weapon it seems) with no diffuser.
EBay Transmitter/Receiver triggered the Sunpak, the Sigma fired optically from the Sunpak using the optical slave function.

The Sigma was placed to the left of the camera, aimed around the Hood/headlight area to illuminate the front at 1/32 power, the Sunpak was aimed just behind the rear door as a sort of cross light at 1/2 power.

I set my exposure time based on the car, and then dropped it back a third to get a slightly underexposed look but relied on the flash to give the car some "pop" so to speak and to separate it from the background.

This left me with the following settings.

ISO 100
1/30th @ F4

And the final shot:

Post processing was pretty basic, some burning of the ground around the front of the car where the flash had some spill over, I enhanced the colour of the sky a bit more than what was actually captured. I cloned out a few of the hotspots created by the cross light which is never fun job and then a quick pass with Unsharp mask and a bump in saturation. Nothing too fancy or difficult.

Reflecting back on the shot, it's not one of my best but I chose it because there were a few problems I had to overcome with the location, lighting etc. There are definitely problems with the shot though, and I'm the first to admit that, namely the aperture been too wide open and made the rear half of the car slightly out of focus, simple stupid mistake. I also think the cross light was was too bright and direct. The background though is what I really dig about this shot, it's really full on and combined with the sunset gives it a cool look. If I was to do the shoot again, I would definitely used more lights, especially around the roof area and a strobe to illuminate the graffiti of the wall and under expose the background even more. But alas there is always next time.

Here are a couple more from the shoot.

Welcome

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Oh hi, you found my blog.

I'll post photos, notes, thoughts and other random stuff in here.

Basically, there are a few major parts to my life, these been my friends, family, photography and cars/bikes. I live for these things and it's what makes me happy.

Bit about myself, Im 21 years old, live in Sydney Australia. Im an Engineering Officer by Day and Photographer/Male Stripper come night time.