Recent PR Work – 2015 Opel Astra
Client: Opel Ireland Intent: PR & Social Media. Date: November 2015. Location: Dublin, Ireland. Further Information: www.opel.ie
RECENT PR WORK – 2015 SEAT ALHAMBRA
Client: SEAT Ireland Intent: PR & Social Media. Date: November 2015. Location: Waterford, Ireland. Further Information: www.seat.ie
Recent PR Work – 2015 SEAT Ibiza FR
Client: SEAT Ireland Intent: PR & Social Media. Date: October 2015. Location: Waterford, Ireland. Further Information: www.seat.ie
Recent PR Work – 2015 KIA Cee’d GT Line
Client: KIA Ireland Intent: PR & Social Media. Date: October 2015. Location: Wicklow, Ireland. Further Information: www.kia.ie
Recent PR Work – 2015 Opel Karl
Client: Opel Ireland Intent: PR & Social Media Date: September 2015 Location: Dublin, Ireland. Further Information: http://www.opel.ie
Recent PR Work – 2015 Audi Q7
Client: Audi Ireland Intent: PR & Social Media Date: August 2015 Location: Wicklow & Dublin, Ireland. Further Information: http://www.audi.ie
Recent PR Work – 2015 Audi A1
Client: Audi Ireland Intent: PR & Social Media Date: April 2015 Location: Dublin & Wicklow, Ireland. Further Information: http://www.audi.ie
Recent PR Work – 2015 Audi Q3
Client: Audi Ireland Intent: PR & Social Media Date: April 2015 Location: Wicklow, Ireland. Further Information: http://www.audi.ie
Recent PR Work – 2015 Volkswagen Polo GT
Client: Volkswagen Ireland Intent: PR & Social Media Date: March 2015 Location: Tipperary, Ireland. Further Information: http://www.volkswagen.ie
Recent PR Work – 2015 Kia Sorento
Client: KIA Ireland Intent: PR & Social Media. Date: March 2015. Location: Wicklow, Ireland. Further Information: www.kia.ie
Recent PR Work – 2015 Volkswagen Cross Caddy
Client: Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Ireland. Intent: PR & Social Media. Date: February 2015. Location: Co. Waterford, Ireland. Further Information: www.volkswagenvans.ie
Recent PR Work – 2015 Skoda Fabia Combi
Client: Škoda Ireland. Intent: PR & Social Media. Date: February 2015. Location: Waterford City & County, Ireland. Further Information: www.skoda.ie
Front Drive Is The Right Drive – Opel Astra OPC
Client: General Motors Ireland Ltd. Intent: PR Date: January 2015 Location: West Waterford & South Tipperary, Ireland Further Information: www.opel.ie For many years, the horsepower war in the hot hatch sector was arguably an unnecessary one. FWD cars with ~250HP which struggled to put their power down left a sour taste with enthusiasts. It was often to the detriment of the car that manufacturers concentrated on increasing power figures, rather than figuring out how to best transfer the power to the road. Time has been good to the hot hatch though, and the latest generation are enjoying the results of years – and a few euros in investment – of the advances in differential and chassis evolution. Opel’s latest venture into this sector, comes in the shape of the new Astra OPC (or VXR in the UK market). With 280PS and 400Nm, some will still approach the car hesitantly, but their preconceptions and fears will be wiped away after their first spirited drive. With a mechanical limited slip differential and HiPerStrut front suspension, you would be forgiven if you first thought that the Astra shares the same 4WD platform as its larger Insignia OPC brethren. It’s certainly a car that needs a race track to exploit its full potential. To even attempt so on the road, will see the driver run out of talent – or courage – long before the car does. What further enhances the appeal of the OPC, for me at least, is the exquisite selection of parts attached to the car. With brakes by Brembo and the superb OPC branded seats have been created with the help of Recaro, it just adds to the experience of the Astra OPC. And what an experience it is…
Out of the Darkness – Audi A6 Ultra
I’ve never made a secret of this, but I do love a good saloon. Where my friends own and lust after quick coupes and hatches, I’ll always prefer a good more door. It’s quite likely a family thing. My grandfather and my father were always saloon men and that preference has continued for another generation… Late last year, I was commissioned by Audi Ireland to shoot some PR shots of the the face-lifted A6, now with the added suffix of Ultra. With the car in high demand, my time was limited to a couple of days including collection & return from Dublin. With the weather staying consistently in the middle of the scale for a change, I was able to maximise shooting time. Even the night shots were unseasonably mild, but those are only fond memories at this stage… I did get the time to try out some techniques which were new to me, and a couple of ideas that I’ve waited a while to try when all the requested shots were in the proverbial bag. For me, this is when I both learn and enjoy photography the most. Experiment, shoot, learn, repeat. As for the car? Well, it’s very good indeed. But you probably already knew that. www.audi.ie
Rain, Cobbles & The New Škoda Fabia
You have thought that by living in Ireland all my life, at some stage I would have gotten used to the rain. As it turns out I haven’t and I probably never will. However, I’ve always been of the opinion that if it’s going to rain on a shoot day, then it has to rain. I guess I should have been careful what I wished for… When I picked up the new Fabia from the amazing crew at Automotive Team, the skies were threatening but I thought we might just get away with it. As it turned out, I was quite wrong. Exceptionally strong winds brought rain shortly after collection and in turn, completely changed the dynamic of the shoot. Luckily though, I think it actually worked in my favour. When the weather can’t make its mind up and you get showers followed by brief sunshine followed by more showers, you end up with inconsistency in your backgrounds and more often than not, dirty and grungy looking roads with random dry spots. But when the rain comes and decides to stay, it brings out a whole new colour palette from the city’s streets. You get reflections and shine that you don’t get on a dry day. You have consistent soft lighting throughout the day and the benefit of water droplets beading off the paint work. The only issue on this shoot was the strong wind, which kept rocking the tripod and made the task of getting sharp exposures quite difficult, particular when trying to drag the shutter out just a little longer to blur those passers-by. The car itself? Well, pretty much like the rest of the VAG cars, you know it’s going to be a good one before you even drive it. I really liked it. This particular car featured a 1.2 […]
Ready For Anything – Seat Leon X-Perience
Standing at the crossroads at the top of Sally Gap allows an almost unrivalled view of the surrounding countryside. It was late January, and a particular cold spell had gripped the country. The roads up at this altitude were precarious enough, with snow decorating the edge of the road and some sly ice patches which concealed themselves in the shade. With a limited amount of time and quickly fading light, this made the task of navigating the Wicklow Mountains at a brisk pace more challenging than I would have liked. Luckily, the Leon X-Perience’s 4Drive provided a reassuring solid grasp of the road all day, and the awesome dual clutch gearbox – with steering wheel mounted paddles – allowed me to focus on keeping the Seat pointing in the right direction. However, as the last of the light dropped behind the mountains, a darkness began to creep across the country from the east. Taking this as my cue to head to the relative safety of lower grounds, I begun the decent towards Blessington. I was maybe five minutes on the road before the darkness released a light flurry, which quickly evolving into a full on snow blizzard. I still had a lot of ground to cover with limited visibility and on summer tyres. Wicklow County Council didn’t have the foresight to prepare the roads either, so it really was a case of the Leon against the world. With its all LED headlights piercing the weather, visibility was reduced to around 20 feet at this point, the car never really felt as if it was uncomfortable with the conditions. Traction was no issue, but with unprepared roads, stopping distances were greatly increased. With this consideration allowed for, the Leon made exceptional progress down the mountain and back into relative civilisation. With soft roaders and lesser […]
Future Now – The Volkswagen XL1
Every now and again, a job pops up that you literally have no choice but to drop everything and go do it. When Volkswagen Ireland contacted me at short notice to ask me to come to Dublin for the day to shoot something ‘special’, my interest piqued. When I was told that they planned on driving the ultra-rare XL1 on Dublin’s streets, I knew I had no choice but to drop everything haul myself up the M9. The XL1 is a limited run production car, which showcases Volkswagen’s abilities in one neat and very futuristic package. It’s powered by a small diesel engine and an electric motor, allowing it to achieve almost unbelievable levels of fuel efficiency. Pictured below is the car’s OBC after driving around Dublin city all morning, 0.8L/100KM which equates to approximately 353.1MPG. You didn’t read that wrong. The most impressive thing about the XL1 for me, is not the efficiency, but rather just how incredibly striking it is. I’ve had the pleasure of shooting lots of cars but I honestly can’t think of another which could spark such universal attention. And all of it positive, where your typical supercar may polarise people. People wanted to know more about the car and weren’t afraid to approach and chat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many camera phones brandished so quickly either. This is the sort of car I was promised as a kid, raised on a diet of Back to the Future and The Jetsons. Please manufacturers, can we have more of this sort of thing? Photographed exclusively for Volkswagen Ireland
Electric – The 2014 Volkswagen e-Golf
To most of my friends, the idea of an electric car is abhorrent. We get our kicks from the good ol’ fashioned internal combustion engine, whether piston or rotor powered, and powered by fossil fuels. It’s all we’ve ever known. I was the same until the very moment I released the brake on the new Volkswagen e-Golf. As the age old saying goes, it’s just like a Golf. Both inside and out, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between the e-Golf and a regular Golf, save for the blue detailing around the car. To drive one is definitely the most surreal motoring experience I’ve ever had. You take off and travel in complete silence. Sitting in traffic, you can hear people having conversations on the footpath and even in other cars. You become acutely aware of the idle of other engines and for the first time in my life, I was conscious of the pollution we’re putting into the environment every day. You also learn to drive in a completely different manner, as you’re aware of the energy being consumed to propel the car. With all of its torque available immediately, the car is a lot quicker off the line than some might expect. I don’t think the gentleman in the MKV Golf GTI was quite expecting such a silent and rapid getaway between traffic lights on the N11. With a maximum range of around 200KM (for a paltry €2’s worth of electricity), I’m genuinely excited about an electric future. I’m now looking forward to the day where I can commute in silence and with a clear conscience. Of course, there’ll be something louder tucked away for the weekends… Photographed exclusively for Volkswagen Ireland.
Sunshine in October – The 2014 Volkswagen Golf SV
Ireland is a funny place to live and work. Especially, if you work outside and depend on the weather. Generally, no weather forecast is ever accurate. I generally try to take a car for as long as possible for this very reason. I can usually get the shots I need inside a day, but with unpredictable weather, I’ve often had to wait a few days before I can even get outside to shoot. Luckily my time with the new Volkswagen Golf SV, although brief, was constant sunshine. Born lucky? The Golf SV is obviously aimed at a market where practicality is at the top of the list of requirements for potential buyers. In typical Volkswagen style, the SV does everything it needs to do and does it very well. It’s comfortable, frugal and well equipped. The 1.6 TDI engine provides more kick than you would expect whilst easily returning impressive fuel economy figures. There’s also storage for days, and even as I was returning the car, I continued to find new storage areas which have been cleverly integrated into the cabin. From a photography viewpoint, I wanted to continue to develop my in-camera skills on this shoot. That is, I don’t want to depend on Photoshop or Lightroom afterwards. I want to try to get as close as possible to the final image in-camera as I can. This generally requires a lot of patience and improvisation when out and about, paying a lot more attention to small things like reflections, debris etc. Although it means more time shooting, it means less time in post production. I’ll take shooting in the sun any day over sitting in a dark room… Photographed for Volkswagen Ireland www.volkswagen.ie
Pure – The 2014 Toyota Yaris
Making a living as a car photographer is honestly not even half as glamorous as some would believe. Yes, there are amazing perks and if you happen to love cars, it never really feels like work. You get to drive a vast range of cars from complete opposite ends of the spectrum. On the other hand, there are the early mornings, the cold nights and the wet days when you have no other choice but to get things done. Shooting the Yaris was a perfect example of my little hypothesis… There’s something quite pure about the new Yaris that I like. Whilst it retains most of the features you would expect in a new car (air conditioning, bluetooth, iPod integration etc.) and some that you wouldn’t (reversing camera for instance), it presents everything in quite a simple and direct way. All of your multimedia needs are taken care of via a touchscreen head unit, there are the usual heater controls beneath this and in front of you, you have your speed-and-tach-ometers. And that’s pretty much it. There’s nothing complicated, all the controls can be learned at a glance and you never find yourself reaching around blindly looking for something. The particular model I photographed was the Sol version, which adds some nice features for not much more over base RRP. The one litre engine was perfect around town and even proved its worth on the motorway whilst remaining frugal. A refill with unleaded cost me less than €50. I though the pump was broke such was my surprise. With a light foot, your €50 should see you easily past 600KMs and probably past 700KMs. It’s hard to argue with that. Toyota afforded me quite a lot of time, almost two weeks, to shoot the Yaris. It was a good thing […]
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 […]
S For Sublime – The 2014 Audi S3 Saloon
For years, it always pained me to read Irish road tests of cars on UK or non-Irish number plates. Often, the cars presented would be of different specification or even left hand drive. It’s a small thing but something that a plethora of manufacturers here are coming around to. One of those is Audi Ireland. Along with investing €80 million into its Irish dealer network, by introducing another Irish registered press car into its fleet for exclusive use by Irish press, it’s just a small token that shows how they are invested in this country and that they care about their customer base here. Ireland might only make up a minute percentage of Audi’s worldwide sales but they still treat the market with huge respect. Kudos to them and the other manufacturers too. Some weeks ago, Audi booked me to shoot their new S3 saloon once it arrived onto their press fleet. Little sleep was had in the weeks subsequent to this booking. 300hp from a two litre TFSI motor and the famous quattro four wheel drive with an S tronic dual-clutch gearbox. What more could you ask for? Well, besides an RS6 that is… I shot the car over the course of a weekend earlier this month. Whilst trying to limit the amount of mileage put up on the car, I chose a couple of spots local to me that I hadn’t previously had the chance to explore. With good weather forecast, I set off early on the Friday morning for the Vee in county Tipperary. With the Audi’s impressive MMI navigation leading the way, it was only an hour or so before I arrived at the first location. Whilst it was more than adequate, I wanted something that little bit better. I took this opportunity to quick detail the car and […]
The 2014 Kia Soul
With the official launch of the 2014 Kia Soul having taken place earlier this week in Dublin, I can finally share some of the images from the shoot earlier this month. Working closely with Kia Motors Ireland has been great. They’re a company with energy, vibrance and they know what they want. These images were to be used for the press packets at the official launch so the brief was simple, clean imagery. Kia had sorted the primary location for the shoot in advance, the main courtyard at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. We would start by shooting two cars together before I took one of the cars into the heart of Dublin for extra locations. I needed to focus primarily on the exterior of the car but also captured some details, inside and out. Once I was shooting in the city centre, I needed to run and gun to a certain extent. To remove the distraction of passers-by, I used an ND filter so as to drag the shutter speed out to around ten seconds or so. The Soul itself is further evidence of how far Kia’s cars have come. It’s both comfortable, easy to drive and even the base model is very well specced. It’ll be a left field choice for a lot of conservative car buyers, but I promise you that it’s worth test driving one if you’re in the market. Kia Motors Ireland Read the review on CompleteCar.ie
The 2014 Kia Optima
Last month I was commissioned by Kia Motors Ireland to shoot some quick images for PR purposes of their new 2014 Kia Optima. The car was located in a dealership in Tipperary and I only had a couple of hours to get the images photographed. Thanks to modern technology, I was able to scout out viable locations on Google Maps using street view. Whilst the first two locations weren’t up to scratch, a third location turned out to be perfect. Located on Lough Derg and just outside Nenagh, Dromineer is your a-typical picturesque Irish village. As this shoot took place on a week day, the area was nice and quiet which allowed for a hassle free shoot. With a certain amount of urgency involved, I made a shot list in advance which I could easily reference as I was shooting so as to keep track of everything. With two strobes off camera to provide some fill, I stuck to a choice of three lenses on a Canon 5D MKIII – 24-105 F4 L IS, 70-200 F2.8 L IS & a 35 F1.4 L IS. The images were delivered to the client next day, although the examples below have been since edited further to give them a more stylised look and to remove the registration plate (neither of which were required at the time). I’ll have more work with Kia that I can share shortly. Kia Motors Ireland
A New Direction & Meeting the 2014 Mercedes GLA
I’m sure some of you are aware, but I recently parted ways with Speedhunters. This isn’t a bad thing or indeed due to any sort of falling out, rather I believe it to be necessary to further my career. My time with Speedhunters was both happy and of huge benefit to myself but it has come to a stage where I wanted to take my career to the next level and to progress as both a person and photographer. I’m proud to have worked with an amazing bunch of people and will be forever indebted to them. Who knows, I might make a guest appearance or two in the future… Since the beginning of April, I’ve begun work on pursuing a new career path within the automotive industry. Where previously my work was 99.9% editorial with a focus on the aftermarket scene, I’m now aiming to work closer with manufacturers and agencies to document new cars either for PR or commercial purposes. Although on the surface it might not seem that much different – I am still taking pictures of cars – it is a completely different ball game. I have a lot to learn but can’t wait to really immerse myself in the work. My first shoot was courtesy of the great people at CompleteCar.ie. Over the years, the Irish motoring media industry has always disappointed me to a certain extent. An over reliance on stock manufacturer photographer or worse, Irish road tests with cars on UK registration plates. Having met Shane O’Donoghue, editor at CompleteCar, earlier this year, I immediately knew that these guys carried the same passion towards improving the standard within Ireland. As journalists, photographers, marketeers etc. I believe we have an obligation to do the best job possible and to show that the Irish industry is […]