Recent Editorial Work – Volkswagen Jetta VR6
Client: Speedhunters Intent: Editorial Date: November 2015 Location: Waterford, Ireland. Original Feature: http://www.speedhunters.com
Recent Editorial Work – Volkswagen T5
Client: Speedhunters Intent: Editorial Date: May 2015 Location: Wörthersee, Austria. Original Feature: http://www.speedhunters.com
Recent Editorial Work – Gepfeffert’s Carbon Volkswagen Golf GTI
Client: Speedhunters Intent: Editorial Date: May 2015 Location: Wörthersee, Austria. Original Feature: http://www.speedhunters.com
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 Volkswagen Cross Caddy
Client: Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Ireland. Intent: PR & Social Media. Date: February 2015. Location: Co. Waterford, Ireland. Further Information: www.volkswagenvans.ie
Moving People, Moving Lives – Volkswagen Caddy Sportline
I guess I can only speak for myself but I would hope that a lot of you can relate to this. No matter the vehicle, I think we will always have a life long attachment with our very first car. It doesn’t matter if it was a good or bad one, there’ll always be a part of us that will have a fondness on some level for the first car we owned. It was that first car that gave us our taste of what true freedom really was. It might have been a banger or it might have been brand new, but the association we retain will be the same. There’s no love like your first love, right? But my first car wasn’t a car. It was a van. And what a van. I remember driving it home for the first time, still wearing the previous owner’s dry cleaning business’ graphics on the side. It was a 2005 Volkswagen Caddy 1.9 TDI, which affectionately became known as ‘Sudsy’. This was entirely due to the graphics staying on the van longer than intended, which would take several hours with a machine polisher to finally remove them. My Caddy taught me a lot of driving craft. With 105HP, I needed to learn how to carry speed and to be as smooth as possible if I wanted to retain any sort of momentum. It was also the van that helped me get on my feet when I went into business as a sole trader. It reliably carried me and my camera equipment all around Ireland and the United Kingdom. I have a lot of fond memories of adventures in it. On the other hand, there were some bitter sweet ones too. It was in my Caddy that I helped move my girlfriend to London, where she could finally start the career […]
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
A Classic – The Players Golf MKI
Since the article has just been published on Speedhunters, I can finally share the results of this shoot which took place last month outside London. Rather than try to repeat Ben’s words from the article, I thought some of you might be more interested to read about the photography side of things. With the extended winter we seem to be having, we were confined to an indoor location. Thankfully, Richie from Milestone71, based just outside London, gave us full access to his new workshop. The primary light source was via a large frosted window on one side of the workshop. There were ceiling lights but we only had those turned on for one or two shots. To balance the window, I used up to three speedlights on varying power settings and all diffused (two bounce brollies & one small soft box). Some of the exteriors were shot with just the small soft box providing fill in the shadows. All the details were shot with the same single soft box. Being a light coloured car, it reacted really well with the lights. The only difficulty was trying to ensure that the car didn’t appear white, as it’s more of a light cream colour. It was just one of those shoots where things worked, and very little post work was required. I would have liked some alternate locations and maybe some tracking shots, but it just wasn’t going to happen with the weather refusing to play ball.
3SDM 0.01 Wheel Shoot
Just before Christmas last year, I journeyed north to a small village west of Belfast called Magherafelt. My brief was to shoot a couple of cars which were running a new wheel by UK wheel company 3SDM. The 0.01 is 3SDM’s flagship model and it’s not too difficult to see why. As far as the shoot was concerned, the day turned out to be a nightmare. Gusts of wind and heavy rain interrupted shooting all day (along with taking my Nikon SB800 being blown clean off the top of a light stand). Moving the cars to a backup location provided a stroke of luck however. With the winter sun setting over the Ulster countryside, we were gifted with a half hour of magical light. For the processing, I used a simple system of compositing the lit cars onto naturally exposed and developed backgrounds. Any of you who get past the opening line on any of my posts here will know I’ve been trying to work on my processing skills lately and hopefully you’ll enjoy the fruits of my labour. More images after the jump …
2011 ADAC Zurich Nürburgring 24 Hour – Part One
I’m slowly trying to come around after a couple of very intensive weeks of work. Bouncing from the legendary Nürburgring twenty four hour race to the wild festivities of Gatebil in Norway has taken its toll on this Speedhunter. There are quite a lot of shots from the twenty four hour that I want to share so I’ve decided to split the coverage into two, chronologically ordered pieces. The first part will take you from our arrival in Germany on the Tuesday before the race to the Thursday night after qualifying. The rest of the story is after the break …
Caddy Life
For all three of you (Hi Mammy) who regularly visit here, I apologise profusely for the lack of updates and content. Needless to say the last month or two have been entirely taken over on the biggest project I’ve ever worked on which will hopefully be unveiled to the world quite shortly. In the meantime I have been out and about shooting and plan on filling you in on my adventures over the last couple of weeks. Some of you may know of my rather strange infatuation with my beloved ‘Sudsy’ better known as a 2005 Volkswagen Caddy TDI. Sudsy was my first and she will be here to stay for quite some time. I’ve wanted to use Sudsy as a promotional vehicle for myself for quite a while but instead of covering the van in my company name and logos, I decided to try and approach it a different way. Instead of splashing the van with graphics I decided I’d try and make Sudsy stand out from the crowd by subtly modifying its appearance. The pictures of the transformation are after the jump …
Edition38X
I’m going to try and make an attempt to catch up on some coverage I’ve been shooting for Speedhunters recently. The first of which was the awesome Edition38X event in Overstone Park, Northampton, United Kingdom. The relaxed atmosphere made this one of my favourite shows in 2010. The quality and quantity of cars was absolutely top notch. The rest of the images are after the jump …
