So I was recently asked to shoot a friends car for a blog feature.  We finally met up on a Wednesday evening in the downtown Dallas design district area.  Immediately after meeting up w/ the car owner, we headed out down the street to one section he had scoped out before.  We had stopped next to each other on this two lane road to chat.  The road wasn’t well traveled at that time of day, but a car eventually pulled behind us, so we had to get out of the way.

I was in the left lane, and my friend was in the right lane.  There was also a car parked on the street ahead in the right lane, so my buddy pulls in front of me, we travel a few hundred feet past that parked car and we both change lanes into the right lane.  Next thing you know, his car sinks into the ground violently and I hear a VERY loud bang followed by loud pop and hiss….aw jeeze…pothole from hell.

Damn you parked car!!

Evil pothole angle #2….

Evil pothole angle #3….

Needless to say, his front passenger wheel did not fare too well when faced with this evil behemoth of a road hazard.

On the bright side, he did need to change out the tire soon b/c of camber wear.

Moral of the story…if you have custom wheels and you’re lowered…ALWAYS been mindful of unfamiliar roads.

Got the chance to take a few shots of my buddy Chris’ car, these wheels are insanely wide and there’s more lip than I’ve ever seen before in person.

Weds Kranze LXZ (silver/polish) FR disk
19×10 -25 (-20 with 5mm spacer to clear brake)
19×12 -32

General Tires
225/35/19
255/35/19

Custom metal widened fenders
Cusco camber kit
-4 degrees camber front
-5 degrees camber rear

These cars belong to fellow 16niss members Tommy (GS430) and Chris (G35).  The Lexus features a Carson Tuned lip kit, Weds Kranze wheels, and a custom UAS air suspension kit.  The G35 features a full custom metal widebody, custom UAS/coilover air suspension, and  aggressive J-Line wheels.

Somehow one of my event coverage pictures of Import Reactor got posted onto Jalopnik. For those of you that don’t know it’s a pretty huge car blog that posts anything car related.

http://jalopnik.com/5511497/fake-navi-models-%252B-import-cars–best-photo-shoot-ever

The picture features 16niss member Sam’s turbo 350Z along with some of the cosplay people that were roaming around the anime convention.  Sam’s son loves the movie Avatar, so he asked me to snap some pics of the blue faced women with his car.

So I finally had the chance to test out my automotive rig setup I bought a few weeks back.  It was a good learning experience, and I know that I’m in dire need of a wireless shutter release.  Ordered one two weeks ago, but it didn’t ship until yesterday.  Looking forward to using that when it comes in.  Some things I learned:

- Be aware of shadows cast by the rig onto the car for post processing.
- Be aware of background and complexity of shapes/colors for post processing.
- Be aware of cup placement for post processing.
- Push the car instead of driving to reduce bounce in the rig.
- Black, night background doesn’t help convey motion too well.

The equipment used:

Canon 40D Body
Tamron 10-24mm lens
3x Manfrotto Super Clamps
2x Avenger F1000 Pump Cups
1x Manfrotto Variable Friction Magic Arm with Camera Bracket
10ft EMT pole