Hot Import Nights- Phoenix 2017

To be honest, I was thinking of skipping Hot Import Nights this year. But, after some convincing by friends, I decided to go. And man am I glad I did.

I got to hang out with some photographer friends for the first time here, and it became a place to see a lot of other people that I haven't seen in a long time. It was great getting to catch up and hang out with these people since we were all committed to staying for a long time and we were all here to hang out and have a great time.

It's always welcome seeing the One Auto crew. I actually hadn't seen Eddie's GT-R in its Mermaid V3 guise until this show, and man is it spectacular. Furthermore, it was the unveiling of Taylor's new wrap on the GT-R. It's an awesome, striking design that perfectly embodies her handle of @f7lthy_samurai. I also finally got to see Austin's Rocketbunny V3 FRS in the flesh. This Rocketbunny kit is definitely great. Sure, I'm not entirely sold on the aerodynamics of it, but the aggressive strakes and body panels look fantastic. I'm not sure how, but I don't have any pictures of Aaron's Camaro, but I love what he's done with it since I last saw it almost a year ago.

It was also great seeing a lot of familiar cars, but unfortunately not the faces behind them. For example, I see @huratron's awesome wrapped Huracan everywhere, yet I've yet to meet him in person. Nor have I seen Paul since first seeing him at the EA Wraps grand opening a year ago. The same with Matt Haugen's cars, of which he brought the Malboro Genesis Coupe, drift Genesis coupe, Rocket Bunny 350Z, and Liberty Walk Murcielago. I've also yet to meet @j30_6speed, yet I see his Accord everywhere. Being an 8th gen Accord owner myself, and coming from a family that has owned 5th, 7th, and 8th gen Accords, I love seeing his car around. Despite being Facebook friends with Mike, I've still never met him in person; I only see his immaculate blue NA1 NSX around at various car shows. I also got to see the Skyline Z again, a RB26 swapped Z32 300ZX.  I remember always seeing it back when the Drivermod meet was at Tempe Marketplace. It's a work of art how clean the engine bay is. And that turbo. Mmmm. 

Of course, there were other cars there with missing persons behind them. I haven't seen Elizabeth in a long time, but I see the amazing Vorsteiner R8 everywhere. I remember seeing that car at the very beginning, and it's amazing to see the final product. I also saw the Static Motorsport FRS, in a new color from last year, but I didn't interact with any of the folks from Static Motorsports. 

It was great catching up with fellow photographers and showgoers as well. Furthermore, it was great being in a different car show environment. At Cars and Coffee, while of course it's open to all types of cars and modifications, the focus mainly ends up on supercars/exotics and rare, vintage cars. Here at shows like HIN, the focus is all on "What have you done to your car?" And while there are American and German cars present, it also focuses a lot on Japanese steel, and as a JDM fan that's most certainly something I can appreciate. Widebodies, lowering, engine mods, custom fabrications, fresh ideas, all of it runs wild at shows like these. It has more of a festival/party atmosphere, no thanks to the lit up, musical stage. Vendors are everywhere and showcase their best works, and crazy custom cars, like @carbon_brz's custom, full-carbon fiber Subaru BRZ convertible (yes, convertible, also custom built) are the stars. 

Of course, the import scene is also home to import models. It's was great talking to Sunny Fae and Mhaye Monti again, two import models that I talked to a lot at last year's show. I think it's become a yearly tradition now to go to HIN Phoenix and talk with the two of them.

In addition, models were walking around in front of the cars and posing. Since it was something new, I decided to sneak in with the people they were modelling for to try my hand out on it. Unfortunately, I was usually at a bad angle, or someone's light would ruin my picture, so all I have to speak for is a photo of Nikki Darling. But, it's definitely something new that I would experiment with more. Something I've been dealing with recently is feeling that my photography has stagnated. There's nothing wrong with finding a style and sticking with it, but I don't want to be restricted to that. I want to grow and explore, so I've been seeking out new subjects and compositions to try to mix things up a bit.

Overall, it was a great night with great people. Being able to chill and talk with so many friends and aqauintances is refreshing when life is hectic, busy, and full of drama. You get to remember that there are always people around that makes things great. 

Study Break- Tempe Town Lake Night Portraits

Being a full-time engineering student is super busy. However, it's important to make sure to go and have some fun when you can, which is what a friend and I did one night towards the end of the spring semester. Since it was tradition for us to snap selfies and pictures of each other whenever we went out to go do something fun, and we had some cool photo ideas but the only camera available was my phone in a dark room, we decided to recreate the pictures in better conditions.

First came testing settings, framing, etc., since I would be in some of the pictures so I would have to make sure everything was set up first. But, after snapping a few pics, I decided I didn't quite like the location we were at due to the lighting, so we moved closer to the lights nearby.

The light poles nearby make for some good props for photos, and the lights meant I didn't need to use my speedlight, which I couldn't really use when the camera is sideways, anyways. After we determined sitting on them wasn't possible, we tried some other poses while also messing around with how much leggings were shown. I thought that the combination of her outfit, the nighttime, and the lighting added a sense of mystery to the serious photos.

Eventually though, "sitting" on the pole was achieved, leading to some of my favorite photos from the night. The background, lighting, and positioning all came together really well. For these shots, I thought that having more of the leggings and skin exposed would  add to the mood of the photo (and also because it wasn't really physically possible otherwise thanks to the stretchiness of her dress), plus it matched the poses well.

My friend decided we should get some group shots again, and after demonstrating and determining that my phone-based wi-fi remote wasn't going to work with the poses we were trying, I resorted to setting up the camera and speedlight (due to the increased distance to get us both in the shot), setting the timer, clicking the shutter button, and then running in a panic to my spot. 

To get full-body shots, I had to rotate the camera and tripod, meaning no more speedlight, and set everything up again, giving my friend some more time to have fun before getting some more group shots, including a fun one and one of us being badass looking. We don't mess around.

To be honest, as of right now I find it more difficult to be creative in editing with portraits than automotive photos. However, something I think portraits really lend themselves well to are black and white conversions, which is what the following two photos are. They add this feel and emotion to the photo that can't really be put into words, and that is what I'm after when I take pictures. For some reason, when I look at these pictures, the Jaykode remix of the song "New York City" by the Chainsmokers pops into my head. The first photo involved black and white conversion, followed by adding in cloud and rain effects, while the second was a black and white conversion and darker contrast/blackness settings.

It's always fun to hang out with friends and decompress when life gets stressful. As much as it seems like that isn't possible when life gets busy, time can be found and made. 

Tempe Town Lake Night Portraits

I decided to edit these pictures first before the qipao photos (which would be the Part 2 of the Chinese Cultural Center Portrait shoot) because a) I've never done a night portrait shoot before and I was anxious to see the results and share them, and b) I really liked these because I thought they looked badass. So here we are. After the daylight left and we messed around some more, my friend and I decided to brave the cold (more her than me since she was still wearing her dress) and try some night portraits. Tempe Town Lake is pretty at night, as long as you don't look at the water, and I thought the bridge lights, artificial lighting, and her jacket would all match very well together in photos. Leaning against a pole looking badass was the first round of shots here. I used my speedlight on a low light setting and a very high angle (like 60 or 70 degrees) with a bounce card to shoot these in addition to a low shutter speed (from 1/40-1/20 seconds), with the camera of course mounted on a tripod. 

Of course, all these shots were far away, and my friend wanted to try some ones that were closer. I have to say, these are my favorites, they really make her look badass, in my opinon (not that she isn't already). 

Moving on from the light pole, we decided to just do standing shots. Also, since all the other ones were serious, we threw in some smiling pics into the mix. For these, I didn't use a flash, instead I used a much lower shutter speed (1/15-1/10 sec or so), which I didn't think would work but the results speak for themselves. I'm not sure if I like them better or not though. Trial and error will tell me what to do in the future.

Oh, and because I also had a leather jacket, she wanted me to pose with her in our leather jackets so we can be badass together. These used the same flash settings as the first pictures, with me using the camera's timer to take the photos. We're about to drop our newest mixtape, yo.

Of course, I couldn't just let the images go without some artistic editing. Here's my artistic license applied to the pics.

Here's to hanging out and taking more pictures in the future. Thanks for your help, my friend!

Chinese Cultural Center Portrait Shoot Pt. 1

It seems like this is going to be a tradition now, as my good friend and I hung out and had a portrait shoot this Winter Break while she was back home from U of A (ew). Because she brought her qipao while she was in Taiwan, we decided to go take pictures in the Chinese Cultural Center since the Chinese theme would carry over into the environment. Of course, we had to take pictures of her in her dress though, so that came first. Lighting wasn't ideal in the garden because neither of us realized that the buildings nearby blocked a lot of the sun out, and we only had around an hour before sunset to shoot. Since there was still some pretty strong sunlight towards the walkway to the lake in the garden, I decided to try to take some shots where the sunlight would naturally create a lens flare and kind of wash out the image. It.... kinda worked, some instances better than others.

With all of the imitation architecture nearby though,we shifted taking photos to here. The windows allowed for those classic window poses, including looking out the window and sitting in the window frame. I had a few more shots, but they were too overexposed for me to save without the colors looking horrendously unnatural. As you can see, we had a lot of fun.

We couldn't ignore the pond with the koi though, so we took the first picture here. However, the sunset and reflection off the water made the sunlit parts in the original picture way overexposed and everything else way underexposed; I tried my best to correct for it. And, since I had my friend sitting on the railing and the sun was still up, I tried to get those dramatic pictures where the subject's head is right in front of the light source. I think it worked well.

Going back to the bridge and pondside, I thought a "attitude" shot was in order since she was wearing boots. But also, since she was also wearing a dress and I thought it would suit the environment we were shooting in, I thought that getting shots without any footwear on would be appropriate, too, as if one is kicking off their shoes to relax in a nice place like this. 

There are still some photos left from this shoot I need to edit, so stick around for them soon!

South Mountain Portrait Shoot II

If you've seen some of my earlier blog posts, you'll see that a favorite location of mine for photography is South Mountain, since it offers rugged, mountainous backdrops but also a great view of the city. You'll also know that a friend and I were going to take photos at the summit, until I messed things up. But, this is summer vacation, where time is aplenty, so my friend and I went to have another photo shoot on South Mountain, this time with both of us properly prepared. This was also the inaugural photo shoot of my new 35mm f/1.8 fast lens, which I have to say I absolutely love.

After a quick 5 minute hike to the location, we began setting up and figuring out locations. There were torrential downpours of rain the previous night, and the clouds from that storm still loomed in the. So, the initial photos were taken in cloudy conditions.

However, after reviewing photos and teaching my friend a little about photography, the sun poked its head through the clouds. On her urging, we started taking some more photos in a variety of poses, which also included me lying down on rocks with half my body over a 10 foot drop.

After some more photo review, chitchat, setting up, and photography lessons, the clouds covered the sun again, which was starting to get low on the horizon. So, we took some more shots with the available light and then headed back down the mountain without getting arrested.

More pictures, thanks for modelling for me!