Audi Urquattro – Feature
Earlier this year I had the chance to shoot this beautiful Audi Urquattro just outside of Oslo. Having production number 296 out of 898 produced in total the car is rare it self, but what’s rarer is the condition it is in.
Fully rebuilt with OEM parts, most parts under the car powder coated and the exterior paint wet sanded twice the car is absolutely immaculate. Sitting on H&R springs and Bilsteins shocks and rolling on 16X9 Schmidt Revolutions the car has maintained it’s rally heritage. Also, the 1994 Audi RS2 engine swap doesn’t hurt neither the heritage or perfomance. Beeing a most trustfull guy the owner gave us the keys, told us to have fun and left us with the car for hours. I won’t tell you how fast we went in it, but let’s just say it wasn’t the car that chickened out and let of.
This set was shot for Treffpunkt magazine and got both the cover (with the most cheesy composite sky ever) and a 4 page spread. All exterior pictures are shot with natural light and the Canon 70-200 2.8 IS and the interior and engine ones are lit with 2-3 Canon flashes. I hope you enjoy. And do browse to the bottom, there’s a bonus picture for you guys there ;)
There are some more pictures on flickr, you get there by clicking either image. Larger ones can also be viewed there. Hope you enjoy them
Hello Mini
Pewh! I’ve gotta tell ya, since returning from Austria I’ve been swamped in work. But between editing shots for several editorials, writing articles, doing “real” work and having a fire at my apartment I found time to shoot this nice little Mini Cooper S.
The car belongs to Nina Marie, which you might remember from this post and is, although not dressed in a very masculine color, a really nice piece of machinery. Equipped with a supercharged 1,6 litre engine the car is quite fast, and you just gotta love the sound of the supercharger when you accelerate. And even with stock suspension and those powder coated stock 17″ rims the car handles surprisingly well also!
I’m really pleased with these shots. I’ve been wanting to to the high key thing for some time now and think I pulled it of nicely. The car was consequently lit with 3 canon flashes triggered with the Elinchrome Skyports.
Unfortunately I had no time to do any interior shots, which is a shame, because the interior is just as good looking as the exterior. But I shot these pictures all the for the guys out there which might not like the Hello Kitty inspired exterior color ;)
I don’t really feel the last two pictures suit the set, and would have loved to shoot them on the first location to tie them closer to the others. But I hope you enjoy them anyway.
A couple of extra shots can be found in this set over at flickr. You can also access the full size shots directly by clicking on them and choosing “all sizes” .
Audi A4 Allroad – Road Test for Treffpunkt Magazine
I know I should have put these pictures up earlier, but I’ve been swamped lately and haven’t gotten around to it before now.
Anyways, in addition to taking pictures, I sometimes write articles as well. Earlier this year I had the pleassure of having the Audi A4 Allroad for a week or so to do a road test for Norwegian VW- Audi Magazine Treffpunkt. As always, I had planned the location for the pictures in advance and everything was looking to go down smoothly. But again, the weather managed to put sticks in my wheels and the day of the shoot clouds rolled in and made everything into one dull gray mass. Shooting in the snow is hard as it is, add the boring clouds and the way they make everything really flat and dull looking and you’ve got yourself a real challenge. Still I feel I pulled the pictures off nicely.
Most of the pictures were lit with 2-3 Canon flashes placed of camera and triggered with my skyports.
The article ran as a 4 page spread which I’m pleased with. Even made washing the car 5 times in a weekend worthwhile :p
There are a couple of more shots in this set on flickr
Audi A5 featured in Treffpunkt
You’ve seen this car on my blog before, but I’m finally able, and pretty proud, to post the full set from the shoot last September. I was sitting on these until they were published in Treffpunkt Magazine this week. (Ok, so I might have posted them at a photography site last year to get some feedback on them, but don’t tell anyone… ) As before, the car is a Caractere kitted Audi A5 3.0 Tdi S-line. I think the owner checked all the options on the list and then some. With the Caractere kit and rolling on a set of staggered 20″ Petrol Traviata rims the result is awesome!
Treffpunkt is a quarterly magazine published by VW-Audi Club Norwegen and distributed to around 6000 members of the club. Treffpunkt has recently received a big change layout-wise, and I’m actually stoked about getting these images in the first issue with the new layout. Mag looks really professional now! Even made the cover, yay! Make sure to visit Red Rabbits, the design company behind the new layout to see some of their other awesome stuff!
But I digress, back to the shoot…
I’m usually not to happy about my own work, but these I like. Sure, there is a ton of stuff that can be improved, but I really feel they work well together as a set, and the location suits the car. Seeing them on print in the 4 page article in Treffpunkt made me like them even more, even though they had to be cropped a bit to suit the layout. I might even go as far as to say they are my best work to date…
Also, I’ve gotta give a huge thanks to Andreas, the owner who was extremely patient and put up with all my directions and swearing during the shoot. Here’s a bonus shot just for you!
Hope you all liked the pictures, check them out on flickr to view them larger by clicking on them.
Blown Out of Proportions…
This summer I was approached by the good guys behind Australian magazine AutoSalon and asked if I could do some shoots for them. The first car up is this white Subaru Impreza Wrx built and owned by A nice chap named Bjørnar here in Norway. Being an ex-Petter Solberg company car Bjørnar sure didn’t put the cars racing pedigree to shame as he took it from a nice weekend track car to the full out race car you see here.
I met up with Bjørnar at his buddy Auduns workplace where we were to shoot the car early in September. The location was really awesome and even had an indoor train…
The car was consequently lit with three canon flashes triggered by Skyports and fired through either umbrellas or diffusers. For the most part I used two of the flashes to light the side of the car and one on either the front or rear depending on what angle I shot from. On this shot though, One was placed inside the car and the two others on either side of the car.
Never tried to shoot this car without modifiers on the flashes, but I may have avoided some of the umbrella reflections you see here had I tried.
As I said before, this car has evolved to a full blown race car over a short periode of time. This might not be all that obvious from the outside, but this picture with the rear door out of the way shows what I’m talking about…
I’m really pleased on how the pictures came out, and it looks like AutoSalon was to, as they ran several of them in a 8 page article in their December issue.
The pictures ran with little or none postprocessing in the magazine, but I gave them a quick edit each before I uploaded them to flickr today. You can check out the pictures on flickr by clicking them, and I you do happen to live in Australia you can probably pick up a copy of the magazine at your local newsagents.
I’ll try to get a link to the cars project thread from the owner and post it here later, so be sure to check back in here if you’re a Scooby fan.
Red Rabbit
More snow here today so I went through some more shots from when I did Cato’s incredible VW Mk1 Golf, or Rabbit as it is called stateside. The car started out as a 1,5 LS in 1978 but now has a carbed 16v engine in it. So the little thing both moves and looks great!
All these shots are taken with Canon’s 24-70 L lens on my Canon 50D and are lit by three flashes. More info on that on flickr. You can get there by clicking the photos.
I have several other decent shots from this shoot, but I feel they don’t really work together as a set because of the difference in ambient lighting. Just take a look at the picture below. It’s taken just 30 minutes before the two shots above and no more than 20 meters away. Despite being lit the exact same way with flashes it really has a lot harsher lighting to it. I did exaggerate it a bit in the post processing, but still…
I might post up some of the other shots later, until then these are available on flickr in higher resolution if you want to take a closer look.
Passing time
Just passing some time editing one of the A5 shots from earlier this year and thought I’d share it here.
The photo is taken with the Canon 50D and a Canon 10-22 lens. Car is lit with two Canon 430EX’s on the rear and the sun on the side. Click the photo to view it larger on flickr.
Detailed
Berhard who’s great looking Passat I shot some time ago is as I mentioned a professional detailer and does all sorts of cool cars. He called me up last week and had a small assignment for me. He was detailing a B5 Audi RS4 and wanted some pictures taken of it with it’s owner. Having the owner in the shot might sound peculiar, but take a look at the pictures below and you’ll probably figure out why ;)
The RS4 in question was black and I had an idea of lighting it bouncing the light of the roof in the workshop, but that didn’t work out so the car is basically lit the same way you would light a non black car. Worked out better than I had imagined actually.
I had a hard time doing detail-shots as I had not brought my 24-70L and the 50mm prime I had inteded for the detailshots was busted after my backpack dropped from a height the other week. That left me with the 70-200 or the 10-22. Beeing confined in the garage limited the use of the 70-200 and the 10-22 really isn’t ideal for those kind of shots. Here are two taken with the 70-200 though.
Now for the owner shots Bernhard wanted… This car shots with people in them is really new to me, but Nina Marie was a great sport and really fun to work with so she made my work easy. Great practice and great fun :)
As I told you in my last post, the snow has started falling here in Norway so outdoor shots are kinda limited at the time, you can see why below. But Nina Marie and I agreed to do a new shoot with the RS4 come spring, and I think we’ll shoot her pink (!) Mini Cooper as well, so stay tuned.
All pictures opens on flickr when clicked where they and several other from the shoot can be viewed in higher resolution.
Dub Wagon, Rolling On Dubs
First of all, sorry for the recent lack of updates. been really busy moving houses and swamped with work so I’ve had almost no time for shoots and other fun stuff.
This weekend things calmed down a bit and seeing as I had talked to Bernhard about a shooting his car for a while we made some hasty arrangements to do a shoot.
As you can see, Bernhard rolls around in a family friendly Passat Wagon which fits both his kids and girlfriend. How they feel about the not so family friendly 20″ TSW Holstens I’m not sure about. What I am sure about though is that the wheels really sets Bernhards 1.8t Passat apart from the crowd. Paired with a millimeter perfect lowering and subtle modifications this sure is a nice ride.
Oh , also one can’t miss just how shiny this car is, which is because Bernhard passes his spare time doing detailing jobs on cars. I don’t know how many coats of wax this car has received during the season, but it might just be more than other cars sees in a lifetime ;)
Enjoy the pictures. Check them out in higher resolution on flickr by clicking them or visit my photostream to see even more ;)
Cato’s 1978 Golf LS
Today I had the pleasure of shooting this extremely clean 1978 Mk1 Golf for the calendar I wrote about a couple days ago.
We went to a total of three locations and this shot is from the last one. Just wanted to share ;)
The photo can be viewed larger on flickr by clicking the image and choosing all sizes.
For the strobists out there, lighting information can also be found on flickr.
Audi A5 3.0 Quattro
I’ve been meaning to shoot this car for quite some time now. I manage to squeeze in a couple of shots of it at the trackday mentioned a couple of posts ago, but never got around to do a full shoot with it.
When the calendar opportunity came up the owner and I made a deal to do a proper shoot to see if it could get accepted there.
Below are two of the shots that wont be purposed to the calendar :)
The top one is shot with two flashes in reflective umbrellas either side of the car while the bottom one was a 8 second exposure with natural light only.
Both photos can be viewed in higher resolution on flick by clicking them.
Chevy Again
Just a quick post to say hello and tell you I’ve been super busy and show you another picture of the Classic ’55 210 Chevy I shot last month.
I wish I had my Skyports for that shoot, because everything is so much easier with them. My lighting improved the moment I started using them, and together with some new studio gear that I bought the other day lighting cars is suddenly “easy”. Looking forward to showing you some more shots with taken with the Skyports and stuff, but I have to wait until the pictures are published first.
Anyways, the client picked up his Chevy shots today and was really pleased, and I hope you liked them too.
Cheers.
Finally, Skyports!
Last week I finally got my Skyports. I had been waiting for the supplier I use to get both the Set with both transmitter and receiver and the separate receiver in stock I decided I couldn’t wait any longer and bought two sets with transmitter and receivers.
I even got myself a dedicated Suitcase for all my Strobist gear . Still need to cut out some more room for the rest of the stuff, but I wanted to share anyways :) The china triggers have no cutout as they just double as hotshoe mounts at the moment. New stuff is on it’s way from FlashZebra and should arrive sometime next week.
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With the weather being bad and heavy rain pouring down every night since I got the Skyports I got the chance to test them yesterday. I was out shooting the launch of the new Polo for Treffpunkt magazine and VW Audi Club Norwegen, and stopped on my my way home to test the Skyports. Not having any pictures of my own car since I lowered it another inch i decided to take it to a location I had scouted several weeks ago. Normally i wouldn’t “waste” a good location on my own car, but I’m glad I took it there, because although I thought the location looked cool from a distance, it just wasn’t that exciting when I got there..
Although not quite pleased with the location I went to was delighted with how well the Skyports worked. The range is greater than can see my self needing any time soon and the best part; -they fire the flashes every single time! After struggling with the unreliable china-triggers I can now focus on getting the lighting right, not just getting the lighting to light. The picture is available in higher resolution on flickr. Get ther by clicking the image.
White Scirocco
Did a quick photoshoot with this beautiful Candywhite Scirocco tonight. With just a handful tastefully selected modifications this car now looks insane. The front looks so aggressive you just want to pull over and let it pass instantly when you look at in the rear view mirror like I did on our way to the location of the shoot. Now, I’ve seen this car on several occasions since it belongs to a friend of mine, but when we arrived I still had to take a minute to admire it.
Having finally sorted out some parts problems and fitted the huge Porsche Cayenne brakes behind those exquisite Porsche 997 19″ wheels the car has reached a new level and is by my standards Norway’s best looking Scirocco.
Check the pictures out in higher resolution on flickr and judge for yourself.
1955 Chevy 210
Had a nice Friday afternoon outside shooting this really good looking 1955 Chevy 210 with a client today. Had to move some concrete barricades to get to the location, so we were clearly trespassing (again). But security was cool about it when they found out and let us stay there and finish the shoot without having to rush.
Anyways, here are two of the pictures so far:
Also, the owner of the car was kind enough to supply me with a “behind the scenes” shot. I’m posting it here as I do get a lot of questions on the flashes I use. Three flashes was used in both shots above. The picture, where I graciously kneel and pray to the photography Gods to let me make the shot, is the setup used for the rear shot of the Chevy.
You might notice the blog plug on the pictures. I really do not want it there, but I’ve had a lot the images I’ve posted here and on flickr pop up all sort of places without my knowing.
Now, I don’t mind my pictures being hotlinked and ending up in a thread on a forum or two. But when they start popping up in advertisements and whatnot without my permission I suddenly mind. I’m glad people enjoy my images, but please, do not use them without my permission. And if you can’t be bothered with asking me, at least link back here when you post them elsewhere.
With the above in mind, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but both images are available in higher resolution on flickr. Just a click away…
The perfect photoshoot ?
Today was the day everything was going to go down well. The shoot I did with the Audi A5 Cabriolet today was scheduled booked in in good time, the weather forecast had been consistent in showing a slight overcast with the sun promising to peek out from behind the clouds. I had scouted the location way ahead of time and checked all my gear before I went to bed last night. I had even sketched some of the frames I wanted on paper including lighting diagrammes. What could go wrong? Nothing, right?
Well for starters, (and I know I should have learned by now) the weather forecast can’t be trusted. Sure enough, the slight overcast had transformed into rain and the sun was nowhere to be seen. Fortunately the location was an abandoned parking garage so I decided to go ahead with the shoot seeing as we could stay inside. I told the client to stop by the car wash adjacent to the parking garage and packed some microfiber cloths and some detailing supplies before I headed out there.
I arrived on scene ahead of schedule and started setting up my lighting gear only to find out I had forgotten the batteries for my main camera… A bit bummed out about that, but really happy I had brought a backup camera I decided that the old 400D would have to do. Apart from this the shoot went down pretty good, and when I opened up the pictures on the computer some 4 hours later I was delighted to see that the 400D indeed had performed well. Seeing as how the shot below is one of the outtakes from the shoot you might agree ;)
Strobist information can, for those interested, be found on flickr by clicking the picture. You’ll also find a larger version of it there :)
A friend stopped by with his Mk3 Golf when I was shooting the A5 and I couldn’t resist snapping this shot when we walked down from the above parking level where we had wrapped up the A5 shoot. I think it really shows of the cars insanely good looking stance with it’s FK Coilovers and Porsche D90′s. 7 and 9 inces wide front and rear respectively.
Some flash work was involved, details of which can be viewed by clicking the picture and accessing it on flickr. Wallpaper sized version is also avalible there for those die-hard Mk3 fans out there.
Firestarter
No smoke without fire, right? Well actually you can have smoke without fire. Enter the incense-stick.
Took a break from editing wedding shots from last weekend and had a go at the classic smoke against black background shot yesterday. I’ve seen this on numerous blogs and several great photos of it around the web and thought I’d give it a go. The setup is simple; incense stick, snooted strobe and a black backdrop. Then all you have to do is sit around waiting for the smoke to make some interesting abstract shapes.
I spent about 15 minutes on this as it was getting late, but spending a bit more time is probably wise as you can experiment a bit more with composition. Also, the smoke is quite unpredicatble so you might get some pretty amazing shapes there. I love the spirally thing in this image, but I’m not content with the top part of the image.
This image was shot with Canons cheapo 50mm prime and I urge you to check out the picture in 1280×800 on flickr to see some great details in the smoke. The sharpeness in this lens is amazing.
The slight blue/green hue in the smoke is courtesy of Lightrooms split toning tool but I’m sure you could accompllish something similar with gels on your flash.
I also did an inverted version of this which gives you a great image against white background, but i went a bit overboard with some color overlays on it so I basically ruined it :p
Scirocco shoot
I’ve managed to edit some of the shots from Fridays session with the Sciroccos today. Forgive me for not beeing Consistent with the “style” and feel of the pictures, need to try out some stuff and did so on these pictures. All pictures are available in 1280×853 by clicking them and then choosing “all sizes” on flickr.
First out, some rolling shots. For those curious, these were taken at about 60 km/t with me hanging out of the trunk of my car. Lot’s of failed shots, but at least some of them came out decent :D
Then some group shots with all the cars. Had been out scouting this first location when the deal was made to shoot the white Scirocco. Fortunately it was big enough to accommodate all four cars. White car is a bit blown out, but not easy to avoid when you try to expose the Maroon Black car properly.
Then some from another location I took them to. Had stuck a polarizing filter on my 10-22 Canon lens for the rollingshots. Somehow it had stuck and I didn’t manage to get it of for these shots which made focusing really hard.
After some of the group shots we set up the strobes and shot a couple of individual pics. The Vipern Green and Rising blue Sciroccos really popped when lit by the 430′s.
Then for the hard part, the Maroon black (at least thats what I think the color is called) Scirocco.
A small hell to light being black and all, so after a bit of trial and error I settled on this one.
The Candy white Scirocco is the same as the one I’ve posted before and the one I had been out scouting locations for. To bad he didn’t find time to slap his new Cayenne brakes in between those brand new Porsche 997 rims before the shoot.
I’ll leave you with the pics for now. Have a ton of work to do from last nights wedding shoot ;)
Tomatoes
In the about section here on the blog I state that I don’t limit myself to automotive photography. But looking at the posts from the last couple of months you might think otherwise seeing as almost all of my posts have been related to cars in one way or the other. About time to put my money where my mouth is and show you guys something else then.
From time to time I wander over to David Hobby’s Strobist Blog for both useful lighting tips and inspiration. Some time ago he had this article on Food photography which inspired me to give it a go. When I tried it the first time shortly after reading the article I failed miserably, and the shots went straight to my recycle bin.
Not content with this I had to give it a go again and yesterday I bought some tomatoes and set up my DIY-studio at home. The result can be viewed below. Not exactly the same as David’s shots as he has a nice shine/highlight in the acrylic his tomatoes sits on, a shine I struggled quite a bit to get rid of. (note to self: read instructions one extra time before venturing into something new). But although a bit different from David’s shots I still feel my shot came out good.
The small picture here really doesn’t do the tomatoes justice so please View Large On Black.
Picture is shot with a Canon 430 EX positioned high above an directly behind the subject.
For the Norwegian Strobists out there, who might have the same hard time I had sourcing the acrylic background, it can be found and bought at Plastkompaniet in Oslo
Durty dub
Ok, so I said I’d wait with the other shots from yesterday but I managed to sneak away to edit one of them. as for the title, I thought the car was clean, but the flashes proved me wrong. Not happy about the highlight on the B-pillar, but overall i find this to be a decent shot.
Check it out on flickr by clicking the image.
For the stobists out there, the car was shot with two Canon 430EX’s on light stands at full power zoomed to 35 mm.
Bug(s)
So, it’s been a while since my last post, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. After the making of the event posters I’ve made some layout/design suggestions for a magazine i write articles for now and then. Personally I think the layouts came out great and I’m exited to see if they’ll ever make it into the magazine. I’ve also had a couple of shoots lately but I’m not at liberty to post the images here.
Other then that I’m enjoying the summer and the fantastic weather. With the temperatures being high and the sun shining I’m really looking forward to my vacation next week. I’ve wanted to practice my strobist skills lately, but the sun doesn’t set until after 22:00 and even when it does, it really never gets dark outside. But, after I had washed my girlfriends 59 Volkswagen Beetle I decided it was dark enough and brought out the flashes and their stands. I had hoped to catch some more of the setting sun, but my China triggers has some kind of bug and does not want to cooperate. So by the time I had them dialed in, the sun had disappeared over the horizon. Still, I like how the shot came out.
Clicking the picture will take you to the flickr-page where a higher resolution version is available.
I also decided it is time I invest in some Elinchrome Skyports and will be doing so shortly. Also, I know that my pictures appear a bit dark on some screens so I’ll finally be getting my monitor recalibrated within a short while.
Sneak Preview
Here’s a little sneak preview on a project I’m working on. A client saw one of my earlier pictures of a Jada Toys die-cast Volkswagen pickup and wanted something similar to frame and use for his sons bedroom. He supplied me with another Jada Toys 1/24 scale Volkswagen bus and told me to have a go at it. I’ve since then acquired yet another model and will be shooting the three of them separately for framing.
I set up the studio yesterday and brought out the models. Here’s one of the outtakes.
The color on the red bus is a bit off and I’m still not happy with the way it looks against the black backdrop. So I will be shooting it again tonight.
As always, clicking the picture will open my flickr photostream where the picture is available in high resolution