Whilst shooting at Gatebil earlier this year, I had the pleasure of photographing the freshly unveiled Swedish built hypercar, the Koenigsegg Agera. I managed to capture a couple of decent-ish snaps of the car as it lapped the Rudskogen course, one of which is my favourite shot of 2011. I never for a moment thought that a couple of months later that Koenigsegg Automotive would be in touch to acquire the images for their own promotional use. To say I’m ecstatic would be the understatement of the year. I’ve included the images submitted to Koenigsegg below, I can’t wait to see where they show up!

When we visited Japspeed for a shop visit and a couple of interviews, Paul aka Mr. Japspeed asked if we could get a killer group shot of the four team cars. The team’s workshop turned out to be a pretty good location and a much better alternative to venturing outside into the hostile weather conditions. It took us some time to arrange the cars and with a tight schedule, we managed to grab a couple of exposures which gave this image after some intensive post processing. Each car was lit and processed individually before being re-placed onto the background plate. It was my first time shooting this many cars together and it was definitely a challenge. Nothing ventured, nothing gained …

I posted a sneak preview of this a couple of months back. Well the feature just hit the shelves in issue #157 of Redline Magazine so you can check it out there. There’s also a brief behind the scenes feature on Speedhunters about the shoot. The rest of the shoot can be found after the jump.

by Paddy McGrath for Redline Magazine

In an unusual turn of pace, I swapped the racetrack for the warmth of this fabulous kitchen, designed by young Waterford designer Anne Ellard. The design has been nominated for a Kitchen Design Award and I wish Anne the very best of luck with the contest. Some more shots after the jump …

Just finished quickly working over this shot of the two Team Nexen Ireland cars of Christy Carpenter and James Deane. It’s a simple enough composite, containing around five images. We only had time for one angle as the guy’s had to head to practice so I don’t think it came out too bad. I know it’s not the greatest image in the world but it’s good practice !

Received these awesome spreads from the guys at Autosalon Magazine in Australia featuring a shoot I done last year on the WKD Imports HKS Evolution IX. More spreads after the jump !

http://www.autosalon.org/

Sorry about the delay in getting this post together, has been busy here the last while at PMCG Studios. Earlier this month, Junior from Irish motoring site Driver.ie approached me about shooting a rare E46 CSL that was located down the country. With an upcoming BMW theme on Speedhunters, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

More after the jump …

The car had been fitted with aftermarket angel eyes (I always thought they were standard but how and ever) which gives the front a very distinct but menacing look. Shot in a warehouse, which was quite bright at the time, I exposed for the LED’s which caused the rest of the image to dramatically under expose. The image was chosen by Speedhunters to lead the launch for the BMW theme for September which was quite an honour !

The warehouse had these perspex ceiling panels, which created these horrible refections along the bonnet and roof of the car. No amount of circular polarizing would remove them !

Moving the car to the other end of the warehouse proved a little bit more successful, although the concrete walls were a little dull. After these we decided to move outside and I chose to leave the strobing behind and shoot au-naturale …

This was my first shoot in a long, long time that I didn’t shoot with the lights (with the exception of the 7 minute shoot on Alan Sinnott’s SR86) It was slightly daunting at first, the lights provide a certain kind of comfort when shooting but once we were into it, I knew it was the right choice. This shot was shot from afar with the simply sublime Canon 70-200 f2.8 L IS,. Shot wide open at 2.8, it gives this gorgeous soft bokeh.

This similar shot was shot with the Siggy 50mm f1.4. Again, the depth of field really makes the image that bit more three dimensional.

Getting a nice profile shot was challenging due to the uprights on the building dissecting the car. The only solution I could come up with (asides from moving elsewhere) was to deliberately leave one of the white rails pass through the b-pillar of the car, in an attempt to create a visual line to lead into the car.

Just a tighter shot of the above …

We were lucky that we got a sky that wasn’t just a grey-out like we usually get here. The reason the door was left open was a cue for the interior shots when displaying them in a linear fashion.

Kept the interior shots to the usual simple standard. Just enough depth of field to throw out the exterior and keep the attention on the wheel.

It was a similar affair under the bonnet, keep everything simple and use depth of field to add interest.

Tried some new rig work for this one. The mount was attached to the rear window and using just a magic arm to get the camera into position.

Same as the above for this one but with the mount attached to the door. I wanted to incorporate the big AP calipers and the CSL badging on the vent. There’s a lot of spotting on the wheel, which I’m sure is from the stacked circular polarizers, must invest in an ND filter.

The full car shots were a little bit tricker. The mounts and boom worked perfectly on the car but the post work was a major PITA.

Same goes for this one. The rig was actually taking up the entire top left of the image so had to try and use backgrounds from different images to create a new one to replace the boom arm.

I was really impressed with the stability of the rig, even at 5 metres it showed little movement. Picking up the few pieces I need this week to extend it to 7 metres along with an added tensioning device to prevent any sway.

Hope you enjoyed the post, you can check out the articles on driver.ie and Speedhunters at the links below.

- Paddy

driver.ie

Speedhunters

The brief for the shoot was fairly simple, the client wanted some simple, clean images that can be used for brochures, posters etc. We had a bit of time to spare at the shoot so we ran with the idea of rigging up one of the cars with the intention of catching both the cars in the same frame. Previously, this would of been a nightmare, but thanks to the new rig, we were allowed some creativity we never had previously. In the above shot, the rig is actually suction mounted to the REAR window of the lead car, then passing over the roof and bonnet to sit about four / five feet from the front bumper.

Sticking with the theme of simplicity, we went for a straightforward shot of the side of the Sileighty car. Being a bright day, with a black car, getting an exposure was a bit of a nightmare. I stacked two circ-pol’s to kill off as much light as possible.

This is the rig on its four meter configuration, using some twine to tension it to the rear spoiler legs. Handy with the 180SX that the rear hatch is nearly all glass, so plenty of grip for the suction mounts. We changed the wheels to green to tie in further with the Monster branding, the photos looked a bit too black and white with the white wheels. Prodrift & Monster liked the change so much they’re getting the wheels powder coated !

This is my personal favorite from the shoot, captures all the sponsors and the close proximity to the wall increases the sense of motion. In reality, the cars were in neutral, free wheeling down the hill in the background, so the maximum speed was around 5mph.

Again we went with some subtle colour changes to re-enforce the Monster branding. By changing the wheel colour again and adjusting the hue of the yellow wall, it strengthens the image from a commercial perspective. The rig in this one is in five meter mode, I still had the option of increasing it by another two meters but was happy with this angle.

For the statics, we just went simple images in front of the pit garages. Several exposures were combined to minimize the reflections. I didn’t bother with lights as now time was getting tight as the cars were due on track for a demonstration.

With the cars parked up in the same spot, I just grabbed another closer shot to emphasize the sponsors on the front bumper.

With the cars on track, getting the usual smokey, good angle drift shots were easy but I wanted to finish with something little bit different. As the car was coming back down the pit straight, the driver was firing the car into 360′s and I caught this shot of the car mid spin. I blew out the background with the aid of the adjustments brush in Lightroom along with a bright vignette.  It still keeps the car in situ, whilst removing any distractions from the background.

- Paddy



Related reading …
www.prodriftseries.com
www.monsterenergy.com

New issue of Modified Motors was released today featuring I shoot I did with Georgie & Elaine from Prodrift. Check out the magazine for the full write up. More images and a walkthorugh of the setup after the jump.

These two (above & below) were shot on the 70-200 2.8 L, wide open at f2.8.

The 1D MKII N gives a finer grain than the 40D which I think adds to the B&W image.

Unforuntately the noise can be a bit too much as seen in the shot here in the background.

This shot of Elaine had a 580EX II camera left into a bounce umbrella at 1/2 power and a SB800 camera right into another bounce at a 1/4 power.

This one had just the 580EX II camera left into the bounce brollie, I can’t remember the power setting but it would of been around 1/2 or 1/4 power.

For this shot (and the opening shot in this post) I fired the SB800 bare at the car and the 580EX bare from camera left at the girls. Could do with adding another strobe or two but I need to pick up some reliable triggers first.

Hope you enjoyed !

PMCGPHOTOS.com is proud to unveil the 2009 Wexican Motorsport SX-20, a two-litre, turbocharged, Nissan powered, Toyota Altezza for road and promotional purposes. PMCGPHOTOS.com has worked very closely with Wexican Motorsport to design a custom livery to help show off this astounding custom built car.

The car is powered by a Nissan SR-20 DET engine, outputting 400 horsepower. The widearch kit was custom designed and built by Wexican Motorsport to house the traditional WM baby-blue 18″ Work wheels. The rear of the car is framed with an Origin Europe GT Wing and Wexican Motorsport undercar diffuser with a full underbody tray.

The car boasts a full interior, including a CD-player and air conditioning. To protect the driver and passengers during demonstration runs and trackdays, the car has been fitted out with a full roll cage and Takata green harnesses.

Martin Ffrench, owner of Wexican Motorsport said that he ‘is delighted with how the car has turned out. We have created a vehicle that looks as good as it goes. It’s awesome’

The car is part of a three car team. This the SX-20 has been built for road and light track use, whilst the eagerly anticipated SX-22 track car is about to under-go a full Kevlar rebuild courtesy of Carbon Fusion, with a target weight of sub-900kg and 450 horsepower. The SX-22 will make its debut in late 2009.

Wexican Motorsport would like to thank their sponsors for all their kind help and support; Titan Autoworks, Carbon Fusion, Origin Europe, Plastics 4 Performance, Japanese Performance & HSD Ireland, Gorbachov Music, Kiltorcan Raceway, WKD Imports, Dragon Performance, Touge Heroes, Speedhunters and PMCGPHOTOS.com.