Some recent work… Finally!

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned. It has been almost two months since my last post! Here’s a little update on what I’ve been doing lately.

First off, our October cover story was my latest soirée into the realm of Virtual Rig Studio PRO, a piece of software that lets you essentially render realistic looking “rig shots” without the use of a physical rig. http://www.virtualrig-studio.com/

I also used VRS on the article’s opening spread. Honestly, I am not happy with how any of the photos in this set came out. I will not make excuses, I will however say that everyone has their “off” days and difficult assignments… This falls into that category for me. I do not think these look “bad,” but they did not come out how I wanted either. So I shall move on, learn from what went wrong on this shoot, and hopefully avoid those issues in the future. VRS is a fantastic piece of software, but unfortunately I’m not able to use it to the fullest extent because of constraints on my own production end. So for now, I have stepped away from trying to integrate VRS into my regular workflow. In an attempt to hone my skills and not try to jump ahead of where I should be, I’m getting back to the basics.

I’ve been enjoying motorsport a lot lately, I spent the entire season following the Formula DRIFT series, and what a time that was! Here’s a few of my favorite shots from the season.

We started the season following Fredric Aasbo and Papadakis racing at Long Beach.

Here, Shawn Hilliard (crew chief) takes a brief moment to rest between repairs.

Fredric’s car has a pretty unique and functional aero setup. These vents on the rear bumper help dissipate smoke and also create a low pressure zone to increase downforce on the rear end. Also, they look cool.

Next up at Road Atlanta was Chris Forsberg.

Here, Chris attaches a small video camera for data acquisition purposes.

SSR Type F wheels — Forsberg’s weapon of choice.

Next up was Matt Powers, at the new for 2011 venue of Palm Beach International Raceway.

Matt is always a crowd favorite, he’s quick to sign autographs and hang out with fans.

Here’s me “embracing blur.”

I missed the New Jersey event because my flight experienced a “mechanical malfunction.” What that meant in my case was the windshield of the plane BROKE mid-flight, so we were quickly diverted to Las Vegas and made an emergency landing. Unfortunately Delta Airlines was not able to pull their shit together to get me to the east coast in time to make the event… Pissed off (but glad to be alive), I flew back to LA and had to explain to my boss Peter Tarach why I wasn’t hanging out with JWoww sampling the finest of Jägerbombs the Garden State has to offer. Thankfully Peter is an understanding kind of guy, it must be the Canadian blood in him. So I met up with Walker Wilkerson in Seattle to resume my season long endeavor.

Walker had a good rookie season, and his team is small and has a great grassroots feel. Here they guys trim part of the frame (I believe) to make room for a new intercooler piping setup.

In case you were wondering… Drifting is hard on your tires!

And here’s a sneak peak at the next installment (appearing in the December issue of Modified) with Joon Maeng.

Joon had a bit of bad luck in practice…

…but he is such a nice guy (and talented driver) that the option of canceling his story just because he didn’t qualify never even crossed our minds for a second!

The final installment will be in our January issue, where we follow Dai Yoshihara for the season finale at Irwindale.

For all these photos, I decided to go ahead and have a bit of fun. I took the team colors and used those as the theme for each story, and I added a healthy amount of artificial film grain in Photoshop. Why, you ask? “Why not” I say. I find drift photos to by and large, be quite repetitive. By adding a bit of color and grain, I think I’ve at the very least succeeded in making my shots look “different” than most. Weather they are “good” or not is subjective so I’ll leave that up to you LOL! Either way, I had an amazing time with all the teams this season. Each and everyone I hung out with was super friendly and accommodating, thanks to all!

For the complete stories and more photos, log on to http://www.modified.com/

And make sure to “like” Modified on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Modifiedmagazine

.
.
.
.
.

And here’s one teaser from my recent trip to the American Le Mans Series at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca… I will be doing a long post about this race shortly, just as soon as I have the time to really dive into the photos. I’ve made this into a desktop for anyone who wants it, so by all means, download and share!

Aaaaaaand, what the heck. Here’s two more from the Long Beach Grand Prix!

So that’s about it for now. Stay tuned for more! I promise it won’t be 2 months until I post again!!!

-NH