A very, very quick shoot with a good friend Albert and his Audi. Wanted some evening shoots – tripod and a 70-200 and that’s about it. Had flash dreams but dead batteries – c’est la vie. He wanted dark, super dark, I tried.

12 shots all together, conveniently no interior and very little engine bay shots.. Parking in the middle of the road makes it a little awkward to set flashes up to do it right so natural light and whatever angles I could get without falling into some really questionable water ended up producing a “this is what I got” set.

Plans are in the works for some night shots, light trails and flashes.. Rolling shots, safety concerns thrown out the window to hang out in the bed of a truck or something.. And perhaps a dusk shoot prior to the night shoot to get some SB800 and SB600 action going on..

Hopefully a Camaro makes a cameo on my blog soon, as well as a re-shoot of a certain Supra.. A Talon should grace the blog shortly as well.. We’ll see.

Met up with a gentleman named Mike today with a boosted, 400+ whp S2000 that was in desperate need of a photoshoot.. Here’s a sneak peak of the shoot – too late to edit everything, so enjoy the preview.

Some repeat uploads, but a good start to finish idea of the steps it takes to do an HID backed projector retrofit on a 2001 Ford Focus.

Output shots to follow, when an order of Morimoto parts comes in to replace the DDM garbage powering this setup.

This is not photography related at all, much like most of my posts on this blog are not photography related at all.. I just figured I’d share that little disclaimer first off.

Lets take a little cell phone picture tour here. Before and after shots, and then in series.. All because I had this bright idea to do what? A 35w 5000k MH1 retrofit with cut down Panamera shrouds. On a bone stock Focus?

… Of course. I did a retro on my truck and it made a huge difference in terms of night time safety. Knowing this car is my fiance’s and her safety is important to me – I figure why not retro her car? Hone some skills, try some new stuff (refinishing headlights etc..) and at the end of the day, have a cool modification most people won’t know the deal with. This is an “in progress” post – more to come when the new lights are actually in..

Dusted off the old D300 and Siggy 70-200 2.8 for some crisp -10c ice racing action. Some good friends put together an AE86 with a JDM 20v 4age and sharp studded tires to go out and try and hang with the big boys.

Feels good to be shooting something again, definitely not my best work or my best attempt, but I’m a little rusty. Hopefully the next few races I’ll be able to get out there and get trigger happy again. Spray and pray I guess.

More shots of other racers to follow in my next post (which wont be 3 months later like my current theme of posting is)

I’d like to stop and take a moment to talk about lights. Not photography related lights – automotive. I’ve always had a pretty strong interest for high performance lighting but I fear I took an interest a little far the past few months.

I started out with my headlights

Morimoto Mini H1 projectors, 35w ballasts, 5000k bulbs, and mini gatling gun shrouds. All well and good..

Mixed in 6 KC Daylighter replica lights with 35w 7000k bulbs..

And then I decided to take a few steps back as the overall end product wasn’t exactly what I wanted – that and my truck needed the work and I needed the money to fix it, so on the next agenda is going to either be halogen projectors with clear lenses and HIDS, or – a bi-xenon aux light idea I have floating around in my head as well as some low mounted fog lights – 3000k fogs..

One of the main reasons I’m so interested in this at this point in time is I got a job a month or two ago where I wake up at 5:30 in the morning and drive in total darkness, in the middle of no where, in deer/wolf/bear country and find the ability to see important. Now the focus is on “off road” lighting with a mix of on road performance. What I have planned will be safe to use on the road in the situation of “in an emergency” (Funny story that… After doing my original retrofit I was using cheap ballasts that kicked out as I was driving to work. No street lights, lots of corners, and I nearly ditched my truck.) So if that should EVER happen again I’d have a backup high/low beam projected HID setup that wouldn’t be a danger on the road to other drivers.

6 forward facing HID’s would be a little excessive on a day by day basis, but with fog lights for foreground (my truck is higher than stock and I have a lack of light directly in front – makes night time off road navigating sketchy) combined with my headlights would be a great daily driving combination that looks cool – but also serves a purpose for making it easier to see me, and easier for me to see everything around. The problem I have with my projectors is yes they’re bright, but I’d like it to be brighter – especially off road where slow speeds make the glare easy to live with – compared to driving with lots of lights where the glare (that I see, not that I cause) can be dangerous as your eyes don’t like adjusting to the lower light output of headlights after all the offroad lights are turned off.

So there you have it, the past, present, and future plan for my other interest that’s almost as fun as photography.

I find it actually a little funny, I was being sarcastic calling myself a slacker last month thinking I’d be right back at posting new, updated, fresh content from the burned in images on my sensor.. however I’ve barely picked my camera up. New job, school starting again for my fiance, dog training, off road adventures and fixing my truck (and upgrading) and I’ve just found it hard to pick up the camera in a creative sense.

That being said, those around Thunder Bay might see some of my (poorly done) work on some signs for an October show at the Apollo..

However, most of my photography related shots have been aimed towards an HID and projector retrofit I did on my truck.. Cool experience but harder to get a good shot of the outcome than it was to do the project in the first place.. I promise I’ll throw something new and cool up soon..

So it turns out I’m a huge slacker. I start a blog, thinking I’ll actually update it and not make it savagely boring, and then ignore it for a week or two … Weak. As it turns out I began a new job – gone are the days of late night shifts making pita’s, now are early mornings working in a non-prophet organization.. Down side is waking up crazy early (for me)..

However. At least this way I can shoot after work and on weekends ! Keep a very lazy eye on this blog as I want to try a few “stitch” photos.. Something like 30 shots at oh.. I dunno.. 70mm /2.8 and shoot above,  to each side, and below the main subject and stitch it all together. A something effect, some dudes last name – makes it work for wedding photos and does a fantastic job.. Limited depth of field (which I love) wide angle effect (which I also love) with no distortion (siiick) and big enough to print and cover an entire wall with.. My poor laptop will probably catch fire.

Another shot I want to give a go with is a layered polarised shot. Polarisers when used kinda-right only really cut glare/reflections on a part of a subject, they’re never perfect and never seem to get the side of the car – the roof – the windows – everything in one go. Another shot I saw was a sick Porsche on a hill and a photog stacked quite a few shots at different polarised degrees and it turned out phenomenal … I’d love to say I’m extremely creative and can think of things like this on my own – however I’m not, so I’ll just copy other shots in my own way and go from there.

Obviously I don’t mind sharing how I did something, or why, or how I want to do something – anyone reading this /should/ know a little about me and know that I love sharing my process because that’s how I learned. Asked the right people who were okay letting me know their little secrets of success.. I have a philosophy with photography and a belief that everyone who picks up a camera can shoot as well as any fantastic pro of the past (or present) – or should at least want to. I want to evoke emotion in my shots and I want whoever picks up a camera to do the same, as that – to me – is what photography is all about.. So please if I can help you in any way, or you can help me – please comment. I want my “competition” per se to be better than me, so it pushes me to be better than them .. Step the whole game of photography up !

I’ll post either another rant, or some actual photography soon enough.. When I stop being such a lazy douche bag and actually pick my camera up..

The rest of take 1 .. Night shots of the same Supra should be coming up soon..