Catching Up With Friends and a Mazda RX8
Every now and again, we need to set time aside to catch up with the good people in our lives. Similarly, we also need to set aside time to do what we love. The second of these can be especially tricky, if you happen to make a living from what you love doing… Waking up every day, with a smile on your face before work, does come with a risk. It’s a risk that by doing what you love everyday, there’s a chance that your love for your work may begin to fade. That for me is my biggest fear. The fear that one morning I’ll wake up, and dread getting in my car to go to a shoot. I don’t ever want that day to come. If it does, that’ll be the day I walk away from the industry. Life is too short to do be doing something that you really don’t want to do. It’s not something that’s exclusive to photography either. My friend, Flip, is chasing his dream too. By building and working on cars that he loves. Although our trades are practically incomparable, there’s a link between the two that we can both appreciate and understand. That is, of course, our love for cars. Flip’s RX8 isn’t even close to being his first neat project car. I photographed his amazing EK9 Type R back in the day, a car which would still blow people away today. He told me that his EK9 was refused several features because the rear was stripped out, and didn’t feature an overweight stereo install… Tastes change, style is permanent. His RX8 is testament to this. Subtle modifications, purposeful wheel fitment and finished in immaculate Lamborghini Grigio Telesto paint. A perfect and individual daily driver, built with passion and love. Regardless if […]
Erik Jonasson’s Datsun S30
When life deals you lemons, you make lemonade. Or so they say. One of the toughest aspects of being a photographer is often having to shoot in less than ideal circumstances. I arrived in Sweden back in June to find that my 5D MKII had died in transit. Of course I was well armed with back-up bodies, but I had developed a bond with my 5D2. It sounds strange and a little sad, but losing it really put me out. Never the less, it’s one of those occasions that you just have to get on with it. Location wise we were limited to either a busy paddock or we could shoot on-track for a limited amount of time (I think it was around 20 minutes) but we couldn’t move the car or get any tracking shots in. Luckily, we didn’t need much more than the car itself as it done all of the work for me. You can check out the full story on Speedhunters – here.
D-Mac’s Carina of Doom
I made a quick visit to Formula D competitor Darren McNamara last week to check in and see what he has been up to over the winter months. Darren is a huge Toyota fan so it comes as no surprise that he always has a couple of interesting projects on the go. His Carina project has certainly attracted a lot of attention over on Speedhunters. It has divided opinions too, but as Darren has said, it’s not really meant to be taken too seriously and is only intended for a bit of fun. Having taken styling cues from a mix of different automotive sub-cultures (VW, JDM, USDM) it’s certainly an interesting project. It’ll be even more interesting when it receives its SR20DET conversion later this year …
