I love the smell of trackbite in the morning
Last weekend saw the 8th annual Scandinavian Callook Classic held at Gardermoen Raceway in Norway. Strictly for the classic air-cooled Volkswagens SCC has been growing bigger and better each year, and people now travel from all over Europe to attend. This year even had visitors all the way from California!
Although I’m more of a water-cooled Volkswagen guy and despite the fact that I only managed to squeeze in a short visit on Sunday, I have no trouble seeing why over 2000 people chose to attend. This show is probably one of the most laid back and welcoming I’ve ever attended, and holds a great mix of untouched original cars, true show&shine winners, serious race cars and everything in between. Around 1000 classic beetles, buses, ghias and whatnot were either on display in the Club area, the Vintage Village or battled it out on the raceway.
Some of the highlights in the show area was the Ghia below, a drivable Samba that just last year sat at the bottom of a lake where it had resided for several decades and rather large collection of Karmann Cabriolet’s .
The raceway saw broken drive shafts, blown engines, cracked transmissions and two new world records. Team Skinne and their beetle did a jaw dropping 8,60 – 272km/h. run thus being the worlds fastest VW pan streetcar and the Team CSP clocked in at 8.855/250.00km/h making their Ghia the worlds fastest car with a VW engine case.
The SCC also reports a huge number of rookies on the drag strip this year. World records they may not have set, but with SCC beeing the friendly and welcoming show it is, racing what you bring is encouraged, and a total of 500 passes were made this year with everything from stock cars to the all out racers.
Congratulations to the SCC crew on yet another great show, See you next year as well!
Also, Click on any of the images to get to the album where even more pictures are to be seen!
Overdue…
I’ve finally been able to go through some of my Wörthersee pictures. One of the reasons for putting of going through them, apart from being really busy lately, is that I really suck at this kind of photography. Usually I do recognize a good photo opportunity when I see it, but when I’m at at show I enjoy being there to much so I forget about taking pictures… So with that being said, here they are, more holiday snapshots than award winning pictures.
But take them for what they are and I hope you enjoy them.
Cabriolicious
Still behind on my shots from Wörthersee, I’ve managed to edit some pictures I took of this nice Dutch Mk1 Cabriolet at Pyramidenkogel. Pyramidenkogel is a mountain located to the south of the Wörthersee, near the town of Maria Wörth and has one of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen. We were up there sightseeing one day and I took some panorama shots I’ll make sure you guys get to see on another occasion. Anyways, Russel from KLUTCH had contacted Twan Niemeijer to shoot his 92 Cabrio and we all went at it on this picturesque spot near the observation and broadcasting tower at the top of the mountain.
Click on either of the pictures to see some more shots Jordan from Klutch and I did of the car, or visit this link to read more about the car and see Russel’s pictures from the shoot.
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.
More Trackday Pictures
I’ve finally found time to process the pictures from the trackday in the previous post, Felt I had to post them as soon as possible, so the colors are a bit inconsistent, but I guess they’ll do.
Please link back to the www.naess.net if you post the pictures on forums or other websites
Trackday.no at Rudskogen Motorpark
Yet another tell true sign of spring is the raceways opening for the public and trackdays being held again. Today the good folks behind www.trackday.no held their first event of the season at Rudskogen Motorpark. I was there and managed to bag several hundred decent shots.
If you were there, theres more than fair chance that I’ve got some shots of your car, so don’t hesitate to contact me. Send me an email with either the number the organizers assigned you, your cars registration or just car make, model and color and I’ll see what I’ve got.
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.
The snow doesn’t give a soft white damn who it touches
I’m sure American poet E.E. Cummings didn’t really think about automotive photographers when he stated the above, but it sure is fitting. Today the first snow fell and with that put an definite end to this years shooting of cars. I’ve got some indoor shoots planned and also scheduled, but fresh automotive pictures will be scarce until the spring sets in again.
So what to do? Well I started digging through the archives and did some editing. I’ve really gotten a thing for high key-ish and low contrast pictures lately and had to give it a try. The picture was shot at VW Audi Club Norwegen’s annual fall meet at Rudskogen Racetrack in August using a following vehicle for those interested. This was one of my first times using the Canon 24-70 2.8 L, a lens that since then has gotten a decent amount of use ;)
Visit my flickr photostream by clicking the picture to view a higher resolution version of the picture
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 :)
Vintage Volkswagen Buses
I’ve just gotta share these with you. The pictures are from Bugrun at Mantorp Park in June and think I never shared them here.
I kinda excited about them as the PP was minimal. I found some great Photoshop actions over at Totally Rad Actions that worked like a charm and suited these pictures really well. Check the actions out, some are free, some are available for purchase.
Also, check out Nick Grant who has put the actions to great use and directed me to the Totally Rad Actions webpage :)
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!
Event Poster
I had some spare time yesterday and decided to work on a event poster for VW Audi Club Norwegen’s annual fall event. I’m not really into design like this and this is my first poster so to speak. The first thing that amazed me was how time consuming it is – I spent the better part of an hour preparing the pictures and then double that time arranging them, making the leaves, (the event takes place in the fall, so see what i did there :p ) and finally choosing the font.
Now, this is mostly a draft as I still have to get the admission price and opening hours in there but those aren’t decided on yet so this’ll do for a while.
Thanks to Thomas for advice on the font Color :)
Oh and yeah. If you are into Volkswagens or Audi, clear that august weekend for anything else and come have a blast at Rudskogen Motorpark.
The Love Bug
At last weeks BugRun, held at Mantorp park in Sweden, one of the highlighs for both drivers and spectators was the traditional drag racing. Old or new, fast or slow the cars race each other for a quarter mile. Now, the most die hard aircooled Volkswagen fans out there probably think about old Cal look legends like the “Inch Pincher” or the “Dyno-Soar” when racing and Beetles is mentioned. But more known to the rest of us is probably Herbie, the white bug featured in several Disney motion pictures starting with the 1969 film The Love Bug.
Herbie is distinguished by red, white and blue racing stripes from front to back bumper and a racing-style number “53″ on the front hood, doors, and engine lid. So was this one cute little bug hurtling down the drag strip at Mantorp.
I felt like giving the picture a vintage look and although it could have been a bit brighter i feel it very much reminds me of the old Herbie movies I watched with great enthusiasm when I grew up.
And while we are on the subject of Cal look, beetles and drag racing – Be sure to check out the good folks at Scandinavian Cal Look Classic. Great guys, great event. Be there!
Featured on www.Broom.no
This week I had one of my photos bylining an article on www.broom.no
Click the picture for larger view.
The article is about Norways biggest brand related car club VW-Audi Club Norwegen where I currently have a position in the adminstration.
Broom is a new tv-show on TV2, Norway’s biggest commercial tv-network, about cars featuring Jan Erik Larssen as the shows host.
Jan Erik Larssen had great success with Autofil as a tv show on NRK (The Norwegian government-owned radio and television public broadcasting company). Autofil also came out as a magazine through Aller Norge which is one of Norway’s leading media groups.
The picture was taken at an indoor car show held in in an expo hall in Lillestrøm by Gatebil which i also covered in this post.
Well, allthoug not all of them very exciting, there should be enough links in here to keep you occupied for a while, so I’ll leave you to it…
Another Crazy week
So it has been some time since my last post where I said I had had a crazy week, Guess what? This week has also been crazy ;)
I’ve just returned from a 7 day roadtrip to Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Austria. Some friends and I decided to go to the AutoNews Treffen 2009 which takes place in the town of Reifnitz by the Wörthersee lake in Austria. AutoNews, Gti-treffen or the Wörthersee-tour as it is also called was held for the 28th time in really pictorial surroundings and draws a huge amount of modified Volkswagens and Audis from all over Europe. All the cities arond the Wörthersee lake is litterally invaded by all the cars and there is people absolutely everywhere.
I’m sure I snapped about 1500 pictures, but with the sun gleaming from a cloudless sky the conditions for taking pictures could have been better. Take the huge crowd in consideration and you can forget about getting any cover shots. But I’ll try to post some even though…
I’ll start of with a couple of shots from our trip down. The first is of a random Volkswagen Scirocco we passed an the Autobahn on our way down. The picture is taken while traveling at about 120 km/t and the lady driving it must have thought we were crazy hanging out the window of my car just to take her picture ;)
The picture below is of my friends Volkswagen Golf Gt whom we traveled with. The picture is taken at dawn while driving at the foot of the Swiss alps. The light was fading rapidly and hanging out of the window at about 100 km/t I didn’t have much time to really compose the picture, but it still came out ok ;)
That’s it for now, I still have a ton of pictures to look through and I’ll try to post some of them as soon as I can :)