Final Bout Special Stage West 2021 Coverage… Part 1…

Final Bout Special Stage West 2021 Coverage… Part 1…

This year’s Final Bout Special Stage West event seemingly came outta nowhere for me. I knew they were doing an event out here on the West Coast this year but didn’t realize it was happening in July until I saw that their event in Oregon was going on the week before! It was a bit of a bummer for me personally because I’ve always wanted to shoot at PARC since it is such a scenic location. Just the idea of cars shredding through this beautiful forest-looking environment seems really cool to me. That and I’ve never been to Oregon before so it would have been a perfect time to get away for a weekend. Of course, I didn’t know the actual date of it so I missed it. That just happens sometimes when I’m just stuck in the shop working on a myriad of things. I wanted to make sure not to miss the California stop of Final Bout so I contacted Simba to see if he could squeeze me and Der in last minute for some media passes. Normally this would probably not be a good idea to bother someone during the week of an event, but I’ve shot a couple of Final Bout events in the past that have worked out pretty well so I’m sure there is some mutual appreciation there, lol. I wasn’t sure he’d respond but he was actually pretty prompt and was more than willing to accommodate us…
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Life As Seen Through A Manual NYC 35mm Reusable Film Camera… (Part 2)

Life As Seen Through A Manual NYC 35mm Reusable Film Camera… (Part 2)

Film dump from last month featuring many of the people and activities I was around which I shot with the @manual_nyc 35mm camera that I’ve been playing with lately. Seems like the last roll was better in terms of color but this was shot with Kodak Portra 400 unlike the Fuji film previously. Also half the shots were ruined because I somehow managed to get the camera strap into them, lol. Friendly reminder to myself why I never have a strap on my dSLR. Enjoy…
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Meguiar’s “Portrait of an Icon” 90s-Era Shoot and Unpublished Photos…

Meguiar’s “Portrait of an Icon” 90s-Era Shoot and Unpublished Photos…

Earlier this year, I was contacted by Meguiar’s and invited to be one of five creator’s to be on their “Portrait of an Icon” campaign to celebrate their 120-year anniversary. I was honestly a little surprised at first to hear from them since there are so many good content creators out there in the industry but was deeply honored when I got the details of what the project was all about. It was to be a generational piece, spanning five-decades from the 1980s to the 2020s, each themed according to the time period and the main caveat being that there had to be a “Meguiar’s Easter Egg” hidden in the photo. Each photo must have one of their products, that existed during that particular generation, present. It didn’t have to be blatant or in your face, and just had to appear somewhere within the photo. Think “Where’s Waldo” type of hiding, which is basically hiding in plain sight. The more it blended-in with the photo the better. It didn’t take a whole lot of convincing for me to agree to be a featured artist in their campaign because I was presented with absolute freedom to do whatever I wanted. Over the years, I’ve been offered and turned down a number of projects because I felt it was too restrictive in what they wanted and expected from me. When I feel that type of creative ‘stunting’, if you will, I shut off and just can’t find myself wanting to produce anything. This project was the opposite of that. I could get a check and have creative freedom doing what I enjoyed? I’m in…
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Time-Traveling Back To The Nineties… CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #12

Time-Traveling Back To The Nineties… CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #12

On this episode, I take you guys back on the road with me on three different photoshoots throughout Southern California for the ongoing project I’m working on for Meguiar’s. You guys got a short glimpse of the 80s-themed shoot I did for them with a E-AT Civic a few episodes back and the next one I’m shooting is dedicated to the 1990s. If you’re a Honda guy then the nineties will undoubtedly be your favorite era. That’s when Honda made the best cars and the import scene was still in its very exciting early infancy. Being that it was a shoot focused on that era, many tiny details had to be incorporated into the shoot that were plucked from that time and obviously, the cars themselves as well. In-between shoots, we also found some time to stop by Unit B to celebrate our good friend Kristian Wong’s birthday. This is a good one and I hope you get overwhelmed with that nineties feeling while watching!
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Cinematic Vibes From Re-Hashed Japan Photos…

Cinematic Vibes From Re-Hashed Japan Photos…

It’s honestly been a very cathartic experience working on this new book. I feel like I should have started earlier in the year but it is what it is. Here is another batch of ‘throwaway’ photos that I don’t believe I ever used for anything because I was just randomly shooting in the moment.

The last few months I’ve been watching a lot of movies and studying color grading and tones from different movies throughout the world. I decided to play around with these random shots from various years during my stays in Japan and really like how they came out. I tried to keep them all similar so they flow into one another as you scroll through.

I think if there was a central theme to this set, it’d be ‘quiet’ or calmness, almost to the point of loneliness, which is a feeling you’ll experience often when in Japan. Maybe I’m overthinking it, lol.

If you’ve noticed I’m writing even more than usual lately, it’s because I’m in booking making mode and I am like DEEP inside my own head right now.
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2AM Photos With Battlecraft…

2AM Photos With Battlecraft…

Being that our shops are so close to one another, Kristian tends to walk over here at random hours of the night to watch tv or shoot the shit. Earlier today, I asked him if the shop was clean cuz I wanted to test out some lighting equipment that I planned to use this weekend.

I hadn’t shot with strobes (battery powered remote flashes) in almost four years or more so I’m sure I’d completely forgotten how to use them. I don’t know what made me want to shoot with them since I feel it’s a bit dated in how it ‘polishes’ a photo but I wanted to try something different than what I’m used to these days. Anyways, he said the shop wasn’t super clean and the Civic was on jack stands but he could put wheels back on the car if I wanted to play with my camera and lighting. So around 2 am he comes by and helps me lug all that equipment over and we drink some White Claws. I snapped a couple photos and it made me realize I had no idea how to use strobes anymore. Long gone we’re the days when I used to haul this stuff around everywhere for magazine shoots.
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Out And About At Evasive Motorsports, BMWs Take Flight, And Brew’s Cruise!! CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #11

Out And About At Evasive Motorsports, BMWs Take Flight, And Brew’s Cruise!! CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #11

We’re out and about for this one! Since it’s been getting pretty hot lately out here in Southern California and Der is taking a break from working on his Civic, we decide to go out for the weekend to check out some events. Things are starting to open up everywhere so car stuff seems to be happening throughout the city. I head down to Evasive Motorsports first for a private event where they reveal this year’s Pikes Peak Hill Climb competition car before Der and I attend a couple other local events. There is quite a bit of diversity in this episode with all types of different builds of all styles so check it out!!
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Life As Seen Through A Manual NYC 35mm Reusable Film Camera…

Life As Seen Through A Manual NYC 35mm Reusable Film Camera…

A while back, I acquired this 35mm reusable film camera from @manual_nyc which I stumbled upon one random night. It’s like this ‘sustainable replacement’ for disposable cameras just made out of plastic with a built-in flash and manual wind. I don’t know why it seemed so interesting to me but I ordered it not realizing it was back ordered for months! It showed up at my office one day some time later and I only had one roll of film on my desk that hadn’t been used. It was totally the wrong type of film to throw into the camera but I figured I’d just shoot with it to get an idea of how the camera worked…
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Regamaster The World…

Regamaster The World…

I don’t think very many people remember, but when I first started getting into photography back in 2008-09, Jared Aguila (@dpk_jared) was one of the first people I had the opportunity of shooting. You can see those photos HERE actually. Back then he had an S2000 and I had a $600 Canon Rebel dSLR starter camera. Over the years I’d like to think we’d gotten a lot better—him at life and me at photography. We became friends after that day, we ate at Portillo’s, eventually I got to watch him get married, and now I get to see him put Desmond Regamaster EVOs on a Porsche 964. What a life, huh?…
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Central Circuit Track Day May 2021 Coverage… Part 2…

Central Circuit Track Day May 2021 Coverage… Part 2…

Let’s jump right back into the second half of the Central Circuit track day photos that Yasu helped me capture last month. Hopefully you guys have seen Part 1, if not, well, it’s right before this post so it’ll be easy for you guys to find. If you love Civics, these are the photo sets you want to see because Osaka can’t get enough of their EG/EKs. Honestly that’s one of the things I love about this entire region. They just have this crazy undying loyalty to the Civic and have such a specific way in how they style them that makes any enthusiast appreciate the craft. There is also this rich history that oozes out of these cars that only people from this area can showcase to the rest of the world. “Civic is culture” as Yasu puts it, and no truer words have ever been uttered about the Kansai region. There really isn’t much else for me to say other than that. The photos speak for themselves. Thanks again to Yasu for carrying to weight for me while I’m still unable to make the trip back to Japan. I hope you guys enjoy his camera work…
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