Here’s the surprise though – there are no lemons – I just said that to fool you! HA!

bye for now.

So I spent an afternoon cleaning it and took some photos. Because I’ve realised my front page takes forever to load with too many photos on it, I’ve only posted one photo here, the rest are available through this link which YOU MUST CLICK IMMEDIATELY!!

Peugeot 205 1.9 GTI

I tried a different approach to the Audi shoot last year, this time I used long exposures of 30 seconds, and triggered two Vivitar 285HV flashes manually by hand at various points around the car to highlight the areas I wanted.

Corsa VXR

Corsa VXR

I also tried to get a decent shot of the interior but I remain rubbish at this. It’s either something I’m doing wrong in taking the shot, or a shortcoming in my post processing skills (or lack thereof).

In other news, sadly although my new whizzy Mesh PC is sufficiently stable to do a little bit of photo editing, it’s not up to the job of performing more strenuous tasks without displaying a blue screen of death and then crashing and like a miserable little stoat poo.

So I’ve got to send it back to Mesh who will no doubt tell me that there is nothing wrong with it and send it back to me still broken.

Also, my replacement camera that was suppposed to take 7-10 days to be delivered has not arrived, a mere 21 days later. Sigh….

Aside from being overwhelmingly cute and funky, these Fiats are also absurdly specified as standard with all kinds of bluetooth and mp3 whizbangery taking place.

On to the pictures, because frankly no-one cares what I say.

This rig shot is a mixed bag – I’m happy enough with the composition and processing, but I’m gutted I forgot to put the lights on which would have looked much better.

Bonkers loud and 300BHP ensure it’s quite an event to drive, I was tempted to buy it myself but decided I’d stick with my little Fiesta for now until (if? when?) the fuel prices ever go back to a bearable level.

These were taken for Richard over at Performance Car Dreams.

For a while I’ve been thinking that Cheddar Gorge might lend itself to some interesting rig work. I’ve taken a couple of half decent car photos there before, like these Ferrari shots and I thought the grey gorge walls could work well with the red car.

I’m pleased enough with these all things considered, although I made more mistakes than I would have liked.

and a couple of interior shots I liked.

“There,” said the Mayor. “That’s that.”

Firstly what I like. It’s sharp and the rig was rock solid throughout. I love the colours, the composition is good and the photoshop work to get rid of the rig only took about 15 minutes. As I’ve seen other people saying they spend between 1 and 5 hours on an image, I’m happy with my results for a 1/4 hour session.

Perhaps for the right image I would spend longer but in this case I couldn’t see the point.

Now the bad things. This was done in a car park which you can clearly tell by the white lines, so it’s not quite as good all round as the Fiesta one I took from a similar angle. Presumably I could get rid of the white lines by editing them out, heck, I might even give that a go at some time. Which goes some way to proving my earlier comment that I couldn’t see the point to be a big fat stinking lie.

Perhaps this is because my photos aren’t good enough to be in print and so it’s easy for me to be open about what equipment I use…

In any case after that it would be churlish of me not to post a photo of my rig.

It’s really quite simple:

1.) Manfrotto suction cups
2.) Arri clamps
3.) 5/8th” Aluminium round bar.

Please note, I’m not saying my system is perfect or the best you could do – I know of people using single bars to get huge distances but as they wont share how they do it, I can’t say any more than that. All I can do is share what I use, and the results in my rigshots pages.

If you have a question, ask me!

In the spirit of sharing I’ll post a photo here that I don’t want to use as an example of my rig work. There are several serious problems with this photo which would mean I’d never normally post it except for one thing… The magic van.

I know the processing work on this is bad, and that it’s not sharp. But look at that van! The entire background is a blur, except for the silver van on the right. This is not faked or photo shopped.

I can only assume it was travelling at the exact same speed relative to the camera panning. I can’t see how I’d ever achieve this if I was trying to, this has to be a one in a million shot. Shame that can’t be said of the rest of the photo!

First, I promised the next rig shot I posted would not be of my car, and as a man who occasionally attempts to keep the odd promise, I present to you a Seat Leon!

This time round the image is slightly disappointing, because I didn’t consider carefully the interaction between the grey car, sky and road. My excuse I was rushing, but that’s a rubbish excuse.

Next up, I decided I’d get a canvas print done of my favourite photo – Yokohama by night – which I then had to frame myself. Of course the wife then points out the existing decor in the living room doesn’t suit this, so we re-decorate and get new sofas.

I’m very pleased with how the print came out and how the room looks, and more importantly, so is the wife!

Coming soon – BMW Z4 and Audi TT rig shots. Oooooooooh……