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

Stance:Nation Feature w/ Danny's Bagged Rabbit

I had the pleasure of shooting Danny's bagged Rabbit exclusively for Stance:Nation.

Last week Danny hit me up looking for a photographer to shoot his car for a possible feature.  Looking for more opportunities to bust out the camera and get more exposure, I hopped on it quick.  I've always loved Danny's ride and bugged him about doing photo work for a while, but his car was always in the works. His "in the works" paid of nicely. I met up with Danny, and his girlfriend Carlee, and had a mission to find a spot.




We drove through the hills in the Berkeley/El Cerrito area, but ended up landing near the water in the Berkeley marina.  The timing was just right to capture the sun coming down, a shot I've always wanted to try out with strobes.  Once the sun disappeared, it left and a nice colorful sky in the backdrop.  What more could I ask for...

Thanks again to Danny and Carlee!

A special thanks to Elvis at Stance:Nation for getting my work featured on his site. 


The Scoop:
2007 VW Rabbit 2.5L - 5dr Hatchback

Body
Fully shaved GTI front bumper w/ molded Votex lip
Fully shaved R32 rear bumper
Votex sideskirts
Shaved hatch
GTI headlights
Boser Hood
OEM Euro taillights

Air Suspension
Mason-Tech fronts
Airlift rears w/ Bilstein shocks
Easystreet Digital Management
(2) 480c compressors
5 gallon tank

Interior
Merlot headliner
6-inch Kenwood double din
10-inch Rockford Fosgate Sub

Engine
Magnaflow exhaust dumped down
Carbonio Intake

Wheels
3-piece O.Z. Mae
18x9.5 et18 - Yokohama 205/40/18
18x10.5 et25 - Yokohama 215/24/18

Read the Full Feature here.
 

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:

One clean MKV Rabbit on airbags.

B-E-A-utiful. This is a definite favorite of mine and it was a must to throw this up. I was lucky enough to see it a few weeks ago at the Berkeley Marina meet and snapped these two pics.

Super RS's on air bags...nothing but love...