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” .
The New Audi A1
One of the real treats when going to the Wörthersee event is to visit Volkswagen and Audi’s big official displays. Built from scratch in the middle of Reifnitz each year they just seem to get bigger and more exclusive each year.
This year the Audi display focused on their new compact, the A1 showing of 9 modified and personalized A1′s. As I had seen the cars a couple of days prior when Audi brought them to a small meet in Schiefling, I was already impressed by the new model, but seeing the show they put on on their display made me more exited. Check out the pictures below to see why ;)
Check out the full gallery from the show over at www.klutchonline.com by clicking here or either one of the pictures.
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.
Location: Wolfsburg
Just a quick post from the hotel in Wolfsburg, Germany. Left Oslo, Norway at 05:30 this morning and arrived here sometime around 19:00. Had to stop by the Volkswagen HQ and snap a quick pic of the car we’re driving.
A quick beer now before we hit the bunks and get up early tomorrow to go to Wörthersee. Stay tuned.
Location, Location, Location
Whenever I browse the web for inspiration I notice all the great locations people seem to find. Underpasses, bridges, parking garages with rooftop access, epic industrial areas, graffiti walls, deserted roads, cityscapes or whatever, for me the location can make or break a great automotive shot. It doesn’t matter how great you are with the camera as long as the location is unexciting.
Whenever I’m out driving I’m on the lookout for good locations, but Oslo where I do most of my work isn’t a big city and locations like that are scarce. especially locations with a cityscape for background. I’ve found some with a great view of the city, but most aren’t accessible with a car. However, just down the road from where I live there’s a small parking that could do the trick, so on my way home tonight I decided to take a look.
I did some quick shots with my own car to test the location and can’t really say I’m to pleased with it. Lighting was rushed, is uneven and the car was no longer as clean as I thought. But with the right car, a slightly higher vantage point and some proper lighting, it might just work.
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.
Swiss Alps
…is where this picture was taken…
Digging through the archives today to make myself a portfolio book I found this shot from when we we headed down to the Worthersee Show in Austria last year. I must have missed it when I reviewed the shots from the trip, because I really feel this needs to be shared :)
I’ll try to do some photos of the portfolio book and post up some day as well.
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.
Happy Holidays
Ideally I would have posted up a snowy picture to suit the season and wish all of you a merry christmas, but I couldn’t find one, so you’ll have to make do with this old shot from when I was new to photography back in 2008.
The car in the picture was my third Volkswagen Mk1 and looked nothing like this when I bought it. The plan was to give it a new coat of paint and some new parts and then use it as a daily, but things got a bit out of hand and it ended up way to nice for being used on a daily basis. The wheels are Custom painted BBS RM’s with Porsche Grand Prix White and the car is lowered on FK-Coilovers.
Check out the picture on flickr by clicking on it if you want to view a larger version.
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 :)
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…
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 ;)
A world first?
Whoa, what a night! Been out shooting for the better part of five hours with no less then four Volkswagen Sciroccos. I’ve climbed railroad carts, hung out the back of my car, jumped barefoot into a stream to get a better angle and generally had a blast. And if it isn’t the first shooting in the world with that number of modified examples of the third generation Scirocco, Im sure it’s a first here in Norway. I have tons of pictures to edit, several which actually came out good as well. But I’m going to a wedding tomorrow so the pic’s will have to wait for a while.
Big shout out to the owners of the cars who must be the most patient people in the world coping with me and my directions…
A larger version of the picture can be found on flickr by clicking it :)
Early Bird
Now, usually I am not one for getting up early on Sundays (or any other day either really), but today I couldn’t resist getting up before the sun, birds, most other people and whatnot. People who know me are well aware that this is out of the extraordinary, but so was the photoshoot I was headed to. -A two car showdown at Gardermoen Internationl Raceway. The culprits; A Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren and a 500 bhp Supra-engined Nissan Silvia.
The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, a 617 bhp front-mid-engine supercar that retails at about USD 500 000 (and even more when Norwegian taxes has been brougt into the equitation) was there courtesy of Bertel O. Steen, the official Mercedes dealership and a reporter from Finansavisen.
The Nissan Silvia belongs to, and is driven by Stian Jacobsen, a driver competing in Norwegian drift-series Powerdrift, as well as regularly heading of to mainland Europe to race for the Dotz drifting team. A complete opposite to refined supercar with its leather interior, sat-nav and electronic aids, the Silvia has nothing but two bucket seats, some gauges and a full roll cage, but still puts on a decent show with its 500 bhp engine sourced from a Toyota Supra.
Allthough perfect for any classic western movie showdown , the weather couldn’t have been worse for both the drivers and for me as a photographer as the sky consisted of one great, boring grey cloud and the track was wet as a dog from the rain. I had hoped for both better and more photos during the day but we didn’t have the track for long and had to make due with what time and conditions we had.
After some warming of both engines and tires the guys went at it and ripped down the strip, both cars struggling for grip but still seeing top speeds well above the 220 km/t mark.
Curious about who won? I’ll keep that to myself untill the newspaper with the story breaks cover ;)
Meanwhile, check out the pictures in higher resolution on flickr by clicking them.
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.
Real motion
After yesterdays post with some faked motion in it I felt I had to post something with real motion in it. Or not really, the picture you see below is far from the sort of picture I set out to shoot today. I went for a drive to practice my car strobist skills and spent a couple of hours shooting, changing batteries on the 430′s, cursing the wireless triggers and beating myself up for being out to early to catch the blue hour.
Fed up with my mediocre shots I called it a night and headed home. Then somehow it all came together. I saw this cool warehouse from the freeway, the blue hour had set in and an idea of using my Manfrotto tripod as a rig sprung to mind. I bungeecorded the tripod to some cargo hooks in the trunk, hung the 50D with the 10-22 upside down about 3 feet away from the car, dialed in 6 secs of exposure and pushed the car forward…
I’ll have to be honest and say that I am more than pleased with the result. Check out the the picture in higher resolution on flickr by clicking the picture.
The strobe shots I took earlier will have to way till the day after tomorrow as I am celebrating my girlfriend Ida’s birthday tomorrow. Head on over to her blog and wish her happy birthday while you wait ;)
Playing around
Just finished this quick photoshop of Volkswagens Scirocco. The picture was originally shot at Volkswagens official showground at the Wörthersee Treffen this year, and as you may have guessed, the car was of course stationary. I was inspired by a fellow photographer over at www.khfoto.no who had done something similar to a picture of his Audi TT, and felt like trying it myself.
On another note, I was out scouting locations the other day and found some pretty decent ones. Hopefully going there with a Norwegian Scirocco sometime next week and may also be able to shoot some Porsches, a BMW 645 and a Range Rover Sport there soon as well. Stay tuned!
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.
