West Coast Moto Jam at Infineon Raceway

May seems to be a busy month. Finals time at San Francisco State mixed in with multiple DJ gigs and photo sessions and event coverage. If I pass out and disappear from this blog for a while, you'll know why. And then I'll come back like Jordan wearin the 4-5. Anywho, here's a little bit of the West Coast Moto Jam at Infineon Raceway, an AMA Pro Cycling event. There was a combination (as I've heard) of motorcross, flat track, road course and a ton of other two wheel action that, well frankly, I didn't know about until I got home.
So this is the Sunday portion of the AMA event, more of the last 2 1/2 hours of the Sunday event. Mr. Alvin Lee (gangster pharmacist) scored free tickets and we went last minute to check it out. I'll say that it's not as crazy as, oh say, Moto GP at Laguna-Seca, but still fun. Allergies kicked my ass, bad enough that my eyes reacted so badly to pollen, the tears built up and glazed my view finder over. Yes that bad. Managed to pull off a few pictures, but this being the first time I've seriously shot motorcycles, it is difficult. These things are fast and small. They pop in and out of your view finder almost instantly and you've got to be on your game.
Anyway, here's what I managed to get from the Sunday. I don't really follow AMA Pro Racing so I don't know the names of any riders and can't really give commentary. Enjoy!

Side note : The great thing about Infineon Raceway is that you really don't need a media pass to get awesome photos. The track is pretty wide open, from most areas on the course you can see 3 or 4 corners and a few straight aways. Very photographer friendly. No media pass with these photos.

Shot with :
Nikon D200
Sigma 100-300 f/4
Super incredibly bomb tri-tip sandwich with boring bread
Total waste of money crappy pizza
Allergies worse than (enter horrible disease here) _______.







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Formula Drift 2010 Round 1 Long Beach

Formula Drift 2010 Season Round 1 @ The Streets of Long Beach

Well it's that time again, the Formula Drift season kicked off it's inaugural event at the Streets of Long Beach street circuit. Always fun to see all the SoCal photographers, hang out and just have a good motorsport weekend. And it's always crazy. This weekend I'd be shooting a buddy's Mr2 for Mr2 Only Magazine (that'll be the next post) and Formula Drift. I skipped the Friday Formula Drift event and focused on the Saturday. Unfortunately I overslept and was still dead beat tired from being up for 36+ hours. Anywho, here's Formula Drift @ Long Beach.

The Long Beach street circuit is set up for the Long Beach Grand Prix the following week. That weekend comprises of the Indy Racing League and American LeMan Series. Both of which I've shot and god damn it they are awesome events. The Formula Drift series uses turns 9, 10 and 11 which are the final corners of the Long Beach circuit. This is probably the most difficult course to shoot. EVER. The entire circuit is lined with two layers of protective fencing and k-rails. You shoot through designated pre-cut photo holes, which of course will have 20 other photographers going for the same shot. It's difficult to get anything original or amazing unless you're really amp'd to do so. Which I wasn't.

Thanks to Kong and Jaime for getting basically all the pictures we'll be puting on Intuned Online. Mine are pretty much crap. I'll blame the focusing on my D200 this time.

Shot with :
Nikon D200
Sigma 100-300 f/4
Tokina 12-24 f/4
An incredible lack of sleep

Tyler McQuarrie of the Falken Motorsport team


Big ups to Joon Maeng. He was picked up by Bergenholtz Racing and sponsored by Full Tilt Poker. This guy is true grass roots drifting at its finest. One of the most humble and genuine guys ever. Really glad he's getting exposure and moving on up. Check him out at : www.joonmaeng.com


Tanner "Foxy" Foust, third place winner @ Long Beach


Ken Gushi in the freshly painted Scion Racing tC


Fredric Aasbo from Oslo, Norway. This guy entered the Formula Drift series last year as a rookie. He was on point for Long Beach taking out veteran drivers left and right. His Supra was dialed in and kickin ass.


2009 Champion Chris Forsberg returns with his NOS 350z going up against Kyle Mohan's Mazdatrix new purple schemed RX-8. Forsberg got knocked out a little earlier than I expected.


Mr. Rhys "Mad Skills" Millen took second place. This is the Hyundai Genesis he used to monster the Pike's Peak mountain run. Bad ass.


Dai Yoshihara in his S13. Totalled his IS350 last year and this car was built in nine days right before Infineon Raceway.


Kenji Yamanaka and his 5.6 Litre V8 Titan motor. With a supercharger. Yeah you can never really have enough power.


Rhys Millen sliding through the turn 11 hairpin.


Darren McNamara's new Falken livery scheme up against Falken's new guy James Deane. That's Calvin Wan's old Nissan S15 there. James Deane had an impressive run, making it to the top 8 eventually being beaten out by Tanner Foust.


Vaugh Gittin JR (winner this round) in his new Monster Energy Drink sponsored Mustang up against Tony Brakohiapa and his WWII P51 Mustang inspired livery.


Ryuji Miki still tearing up the Hankook/Apex-i Mazda RX-7.


And finally, here's a look at one of the bigger shooting zones at Long Beach. Yes we wear funny yellow vests. And yes the cloud of smoke covers us at the end of this shot.


Mr2 Only Magazine up next!

Back in action

Wow is this seriously my first post for 2010. Guess I haven't been doing too many photo-ish things lately. Anywho, sold almost all my gear in attempts to purchase new gear. That unfortunately is on hold. So all I have now is old gear and broken lenses. Shoot with what you've got damn it! is what I've been told. And that is what I've done.

Did a little impromptu photoshoot with AirbagClub's ridiculous Civic EK. Had my Nikon D200 (which has been acting up lately) and my busted Nikon 18-70 that doesn't autofocus anymore. Yay manual focus. Didn't have my flashes, so no off camera lighting. Boo. Nonetheless work with what you've got. Most of these are a sad attempt at HDR because shooting a white car with black rims without flash with the sun high in the sky is...well...epic suck. So here goes, first post in a while. Pretty crap photos, but hey, fun car, good company and a nice drive. Can't complain.

Ooo and up next, photoshoot in Fontana, CA for "MR2 Only Magazine" (yay published in the UK), Formula Drift Round 1 in Long Beach and photo gallery art exhibition at UC Merced. I've got my work cut out for me. Stay tuned!

Shot with :

Nikon D200
Nikon 18-70
Quantaraaarrayyay CP Filter
No sound deadning material = deaf
Watchamacallit candy bear
Chinatown folding chair stool

Base of the GG Bridge
Laid on the ground for this shot, kinda painful


Reminiscient of our old school EK shot




Funky processing + blown out sky


Cool buildings


Cool buildings part 2


Mmmm B-Series




One-off Willains / Recaro harnesses
Badassness


Finishing off the day with a nice drive


Can't post this as a feature yet, as it's waiting to be shot for a magazine feature. But enjoy anyway.

And yes, the images don't have my watermark, but please don't steal them. That's just not nice.

SEMA Show 2009

The SEMA Show in Las Vegas is a yearly gathering of the automotive world. It is easily the largest aftermarket automotive parts showcase in the United States and maybe even the world. It is a week long event filling up the entire Las Vegas Convention Center separated into different sections. I spent most of my week hanging out in the Wheel & Tire area with Konig Rims. These guys are great hosts and a bunch of fun guys to hang with. 

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas so I'll just fill you guys in on the photos posted. 

We scheduled a photoshoot with Falken Tire midweek. On the agenda were the new line of tires and of course the Falken Tire models. First off the tires, Falken had just released two sets of all-terrain tire along with a 60,000 mile all season OEM replacement tire and a full line of big rig truck tires. This is a huge step for Falken as their line up consists of mainly performance tires. Big props to them. Of course, we did a semi-exclusive photoshoot of the Falken models. Hopefully these'll get featured somewhere, anywhere. Big thanks to Joyce Ho for direct and keeping googly eyed passerbys out of the way. That's about it for now. San Francisco International Auto Show coming up next. 

Shot with : 

Nikon D200

Tokina 12-24 f/4

SB600 with the Gary Fong sphere tupperware cereal bowl

Falken Performance Tire

The ever popular Azenis Tire

Nissan Cube

Please check out : 

www.intunedonline.com

www.falkentire.com

November Randoms

Ahh...Thanksgiving is done. 2 pot lucks couple of dinners and lunches. A ton of food and food coma. And no Black Friday shopping. With the combination of trying to build my DJ career and photography career, everything eventually gets backed up. Fortunately still found time to hang with some friends and shoot their car. David's RSX and Kingston's TSX. Our bad for having you wash your car and hope for a car shoot, all to be shot down by too many shots of soju. But we made it up for him. Headed over to Treasure Island just as the sun was going down. We've mastered the art of the $2/2minute car wash. One person does the coins, one does the hose and one does the soap thing. Pictures are a little dark and wasn't really thinking when I shot these pics. Should've set them up better and did a better job. Hope you like it guys

Shot with : 

Nikon D200

Tokina 12-24 f/4

SB600 with Poverty China Wizards + Umbrella

David's Jade Green RSX Type S

Kingston's TSX on mismatched rims

Was hired to do a little body painting model shoot at Fluid Ultra Lounge in San Francisco. Honestly had no idea what to expect, just show up and shoot. Didn't expect what I saw. All the girls were airbrushed with a sort of animal or primal look. Was pretty interested and as we were rushed for time, I'd have to work with what I had. I think there were 7 girls total and I was giving 1 1/2 hours to shoot. Things were backed up with make up since we were shooting inside a nightclub, I'd have to be done before doors open. Sorry to the girls that finished up late, wasn't able to have ample time to get proper lighting set up, poses, etc. Learned a lot of directing skills that night. Wanted to do a cross between that animal-instinct style imaging and a bit of glamour shots. Repeated a lot of the same poses with different models, just to speed things up. Creativity was on the low end. Let me know what you think. Still learning. I DJ'd at Fluid Lounge the following week. Yay.

Shot with : 

Nikon D200

Tokina 12-24 f/4

SB600 + wireless + umbrella

First model I worked with that night

Probably my favorite of the night