A Sweet Tooth for Candy White...

Finally, after trying to coordinate a shoot for the past few months, everything fell into place today. Darrell's Candy White GTI has always been on the top of my list. After the bag install and a fresh new interior, well...it went to the "top" top of the list. A head turner for sure. I've watched people make double and triple takes, followed by a LONG STARE and a dropped jaw.

We set out to good ol' Mare Island and went to a spot that I've used once before, but have always wanted to re-shoot using strobist.

Big thanks to Darrell for bringing his car out and rockin' the DigiFresh label!

And another big thanks to Dianne for always being my "human" light stand!

Car Info:
2008 VW GTI 2.0T - "Candy White"

Exterior
Fully shaved front bumper
Open fog grills
Pulled rear fenders
Badgeless Honeycomb grill (gloss black)
Filled hood notch
OEM Euro LED taillights
Ziza city lights

Interior
Stock seats/door cards wrapped in Maroon Leather
OEM Euro headlight switch
OEM Dash cubby

Engine
GIAC Reflash
VF Engineering intake
ECS dogbone insert

Suspension
AirLift Slam XL front struts
AirLift rear bags
Accuair E-Level Management
(2) 400c compressors
5 gallon tank

Wheels
18x8.5, 18x9.5 Mercedes Alpahrds - fully polished
215/3/18, 215/40/18 Falken Tires


See more here: GALLERY

Dub'n in Dublin...

Met up with a good group of peeps the other day off the golfmkv.net forums. This was an impromptu meet to start off the new year, and turned into a little photo shoot. The turn out was GOOD, better than many of us expected. I think it was 16+ cars. I'm kicking myself for not bringing the camera gear. Carlo Ruiz of Dialed-in Media Group took all the sick photos below. I'm always an enthusiast for clean photos!

CLICK FOR MEET INFO

CLEAN RIDE...CLEAN VIDEO...

What more can you ask for? Just hit play and ENJOY. Then watch it again and again!


Dub Allstars X Travis' MK5 from JonnySundell on Vimeo.

Got this video off the vwvortex.com forums.
Owner: GreenGawker on the forums.

and then there were three...pictures that is...

It was a good day to take a cruise to an old Naval base (now filled with private companies, but cool structures) to find some spots to shoot and get more experience with using off-camera strobes. Stopped at one spot behind a building, hoping security wouldn't hassle me. Someone ended up calling them, but the guy was pretty cool and showed me were I could go. I took a bunch of shots, but only three made the cut. I spent a lot of time moving the lights around, but they were never perfect.

What did I learn today? I need AlienBees!!!

Click a pic for my Flickr page.

the Marina.

Some friends and family met me at the marina where I was taking pictures during a motorcycle meet. We turned out to have a mini VW meet of our own. Having my camera gear on-hand and with my cousin (Jetta) sporting a fresh drop (just installed hours before), I figured we could do a shoot in an empty parking lot near by.

It was time to put the off-camera flashes to the test again and get more practice in. I'm definitely in the need of some softboxes or maybe some umbrellas. Any suggestions?

Click here to see entire gallery.

Jaeson


Andrew


Brandon


Sean


Mine + the FAM

Mare Island shoot.

Took a second trip out to Mare Island to shoot a couple more pictures with different cars this time. Brandon (Black GTI) and Indy (Silver GTI) came out so I can get some practice in. Oh yeah, any cars that are slammed(especially MK3 VR6's...lol), beware, Indy busted his oil pan on the way in.

Click to see the rest.





The results of a busted oil pan:

Another day with the MKV

With the weather getting better, it was about that time to bust out the camera gear and put it into use. I bought an off-camera flash set up earlier in 2009, but never got to fully use it, or see how much power it had.

The pictures didn't come out exactly how I wanted them to since the second light source was my ex430 mounted on the camera. It was difficult to get the light where I wanted it. I guess I just made another excuse for me to buy a third Pocket Wizard to get that flash off my camera.

Strobist info:
Nikon SB-28 @ 1/32 power(camera right)
Canon 430EX @ 1/16 power(mounted on camera)

Rollerzzzzzzz......

Finally, some rolling shots of the car with the new wheels (not so new anymore). Thanks to my cousin Katta for snapping these pictures while we were "going, going...back, back...to Cali, Cali," from Reno.

Check out her photo skills Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/retrobot/