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
Static Awesomeness
As I told you in my previous post I have some trouble taking decent show pictures. I’m way more comfortable with a proper photo shoot where you can control the surroundings to a greater extent. Fortunately I got the chance to do some of those when in Worthersee. I met up with Russel from KlutchOnline and was lucky to tag along to shoot this insane Audi RS6. I had seen it driving around around the lake an couldn’t help being blown away by it’s presence. But seeing it up close and realizing the drop over those huge 21″ AMG wheels was static made the car even more insane.
The French owner and his friends were great guys, but the task of producing images that would do the car justice seemed quite impossible. So impossible I’ve even put of processing the pictures for a long time. I just didn’t know how to do them. But watching a movie the other day I knew how they had to look. The RS6 is just like the main character in the movie Book of Eli featuring Denzel Washington- Understated, yet immensely powerful! I knew I had to do more post work to them than I usually do and If you’ve seen them movie you can tell me if you think i succeded in recreating some of the mood from the film.
More pictures in the KlutchOnline Feature and on my Flickr and clicking the pictures will make you able to view them larger.
Norwegian Wood
This weekend I attended what must be Norway’s biggest Vw & Audi meet at Vålerbanen in the middle of the Norwegian woods. Not as big as the infamous Gatebil events, but still a great turnout with more than 100 cars doing their thing at the track, even more attending the show and shine on Sunday and lots of great people just hanging out and enjoying themselves.
I was really more occupied catching up with old friends, working on my tan ( which resulted in a massive sunburn) and generally having a good time. I still need to work on my panning skills, but I managed to squeeze of some hundred decent shots.
I have a huge backlog of pictures from Austria so I don’t know when I’ll be able to go through the frames from this weekend, but I’ve managed to upload some shots to this album. More will be added later. but not sure when.
Either way, no post without images so here they are.
At the See
Just another quick post from Wörthersee to tell you guys we’re having a blast. Posting a couple of pictures and writing a few words here doesn’t really do this thing justice. But I’ll give it a try anyway… Just imagine everything you guys like, then put it all in a beautiful surroundings, multiply the amount of fun you think you can have by 10 and you’re close.
Shell Velden, probably the most “famous” meeting point here gathers thousand of people from early morning to late night and is just crazy. Words can’t even describe the feel you get when you pull into there long with insane cars from all over Europe.
We’ve also been to Schiefling a couple of times which is almost as crazy as the Shell in Velden. Modified cars litter the streets and parking lots there and everyone is just enjoying themselves.
Audi even stopped by the other day showing of 7 of their new A1′s, each on modified by the factory. Imagine that…
Yesterday we met up with the guys from www.klutchonline.com and shot some amazing Dutch cars. The Mk1 Cabrio is one of the cleanest one I’ve ever seen, And the Mk3 with the R32 swap was just insane. Check out www.klutchonline.com for more pictures soon.
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.
Playing an old tune
With the snow falling outside I can’t help myself longing for the summer. seeing as it’s only december and the snow won’t disappear until say March/April this might just be a long winter…
Anyway. I keep going back to the photos I took of the silver A5 that I’ve posted several shots from here already. This was my first time shooting into the sun and some of the shots came out really good. And some not so good of course. This one I initially rejected, but I’ve developed a taste for shots like this lately and sat down with it today. There isn’t much editing done to it really. I just bumped the contrast on the car a bit, the rest is the result of pointing Canon’s 70-200 2.8L lens into the sun. Not to sure about how I like it so I’d be happy if you guys left a comment on what you think.
Check out the photo in 1280X853 on flickr by clicking the picture.
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.
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.
They See Me Rolling…
Or should I say they see me hanging out the back of the car in front of them.
This weekend saw the last official Volkswagen Audi Club Norwegen show of the season. Held at Rudskogen Raceway we had a great time with both Show & Shine and two full days of track action.
I was asked to do some rolling shots at the end of Saturday, and seeing as how I do need the practice I jumped in the back of a Golf MkV Wagon and started shooting. Done in a hurry with 7 cars to shoot in less than an hour I did manage to catch a few good frames.
I’ve got some more pictures uploaded on flickr, so head on over there if you want to see some more :)
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.
Catching up
Before I went to Austria for the Wörthersee-treffen I really had tons of pictures to go through from various shoots. Add the twelve hundred and something pictures I took in Austria and you can imagine I’ve spent some time at the computer post processing pictures the last week.
But I’m finally up to date, including processing the pictures I took at a shoot yesterday. Yay for me!
The pictures from Austria came out mostly looking like snapshots, which they also were, so I won’t bother you with them here. For those of you who are really interested you can visit this link and have a look. Once there you’ll find some of the pictures and a travel log of sorts. Unfortunately, it’s in Norwegian but oh well.
To round up this post, here is a picture from the Audi Forum in Ingolstadt, Germany that I snapped on our way home from Austria.
