Welcome to Quattro Country – The 2014 Audi S1 Quattro
At the time of writing, I’ve been working freelance longer this year than I had been as a contractor. It’s only a small amount of time, but I’ve learned that it has been important to enjoy every victory that comes my way. Other victories that I welcome are invoices that are paid on time and messages from Audi Ireland to come and collect another ‘S’ series car… The S1 quattro is the latest new ‘S’ car to be introduced to the Irish market. Whilst it shares its name with the iconic Group B car, the similarities between the two are limited. As the top tier A1 model, the S1 features some impressive numbers and statistics: 230hp, 370Nm, 0-100 in 5.8s and an electronically limited top speed of 250km/h. All of which is transferred to the road via its quattro four wheel drive system. The model I had the pleasure of shooting was the Sportback variant, featuring an extra two doors over the three door hatch. Perfect for loading camera equipment into then. If you’re reading this from outside of Ireland, you might not be aware that – for a change – we’ve been enjoying a rather spectacular summer here. The downside to the great weather is that the rest of the population has the notions of going outside and visiting scenic venues dotted around the country. This makes finding a location quite difficult indeed… I collected the car on Friday morning before heading straight back to Waterford. With a harsh sun shining on the south east, I took this time to clean and prepare the car for an evening shoot. With any car, I’m always careful to ensure the paint is kept in its best possible condition and even more so with a brand new car. This means using cleaning methods that are […]
Type R Déjà Vu
Although I’ve been shooting for quite a while, and I’ve certainly lost track of the amount of cars that I’ve been fortunate enough to shoot, I can’t remember shooting the same car twice. There’s a whole heap of situations where this could have occurred. For example if multiple publications wanted images or if the owner decided to tear apart a perfectly good car and rebuild it into something even better. Neil Thompson’s Civic Type R is a case of the latter. It was actually only back in May when I found myself meeting Neil at a services on the M1 motorway, north of Dublin. With summer having belatedly arrived in Ireland, it was still too bright after 6PM to shoot the dark colour Honda in the harsh sunlight. I tried a couple of frames and positions at the back of traditional Irish pub, before we scouted around for a couple of different locations. With the sun starting to turn the countryside a nice shade of gold, we returned to the same pub’s car park and got to work. When shooting editorial, you not only need to ensure that you grab everything required, but also to try and vary compositions as much as possible. This allows the designer more freedom when laying out the spreads. A happy designer, means a better feature and the potential for more work in the future. Since turning freelance, I’ve personally felt that a lot of pressure to perform has lifted from my shoulders. I feel more comfortable and have begun to produce much better work than I have done previously. In my opinion at least. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some great editors, who all have encouraged me to shoot how I want. That is, in as much of a LoFi style as […]
This Time It’s War.
My relationship with drifting goes right back to the beginning of my photography career. I guess it would be pretty fair to say that if it wasn’t for drifting, I likely wouldn’t have had a lot of the opportunities I’ve had so far. Even in saying this, my love for the sport has waned progressively over the years. I’m not going to go into the reasons for this now – it’s covered pretty well in my article on Drifted, linked below – but rather I’d like to take a few moments to appreciate just how much the sport has resurrected itself over the last few years. In Ireland, anyways. Drifting very much so remains a budget motorsport in Ireland. The cost to entry is quite low, but as you examine the top of the professional class standings, it’s evident that a lot of money is required to stay competitive. As it is with any motorsport. 700 plus horsepower isn’t unheard of, nor is destroying a brand new pair of super soft and just about road legal tyres every couple of laps. Some will bemoan this, but it’s exactly what is required for the sport to evolve to a level where the drivers can concentrate all of their energy and time on driving. Whilst only in its second season, the newly formed Irish Drift Championship has been doing everything in its power to bring back the glory days of Irish drifting. For the third round of the 2014 championship, aptly named ‘Global Warfare’, they invited some internationally acclaimed drivers to compete on Irish soil. No non-Irish driver has ever been victorious in Ireland, a record which has so far stood for 10 years. This was the focus of the event projected globally on a high quality web stream, could the Irish […]