Motor Magazine - July Issue

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

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!

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.

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...

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.

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

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

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.

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

Dale's S15 made Speedhunters, well deserved!