Wiel Mag: OPC vs Reno

Some time ago, I did a shoot for Wiel Magazine. We did a shoot-out between the Opel OPC & Reno (something). (You can see I'm no Reno fan :P )

I'm not the biggest fan of doing car parkade shoots, as it is a location that is SO over-used in the whole automotive sector in general. But it was a special request from the art director, so off we went.

I have to admit, doing motion shots in an undercover area is so much easier! There is no need for ND filters, etc. So we went to town on those. I think we ended up doing 5 or 6 of them in total... probably a record for me in 1 shoot.

Other than that, we had fun scooting around the parkade. As usual we had the local 'friendly' security guards come checkup what we were up to...
"yeah, quick, hide that bomb we planting on the car while we driving it..." :P

This DPS also won an internal RamseyMedia award for best layout & photography a couple months later.

Run for Cover!

This time last month, I found myself on the unfinished bridge in Cape Town, it was before sunrise, I had only managed to get half a cup of coffee down before having to start shooting. Before me I had 3 of the hottest cars around... Aston Martin DBS, Ferrari Scuderia & Mercedes SL63.

This was one of the TopCar cover options for Sept 08 issue. The supercars issue! We hardly had to do much to make this trio look good together. I was very happy with how the shot came out, even though the the final image never made cover, as another story came through just before cut-off date, I'm told. No matter, I loved the shot & is definitely one I'll be keeping for a while!

I then shot a short suppliment with the Aston DBS, as a small feature for one of the supercars of the lot. A couple from there:

Tear: TopCar Aug 08 (Camaro)

I'm going to break my general '3 images per blog post' here, as I want to just add that bit extra. I'm very happy to finally have the issue of TopCar come out that had my Camaro shoot in it.

I won't go on too much about the car itself or the shoot (as you hear about it in so many other posts), but I rather just want to make a special note of the layout of this article: I love it! I absolutely love how this one was lay out. It was big almost double page spread flowing moving images, minimal text... ah, I just was very happy when I saw it. (There are a few more pages to the article, but I'm not going to post them all. You can go check out the mag yourself!)

This is the first of lots of stuff happening for TopCar magazine. I'm glad to find myself back once again, walking the corridors & offices again of Media24, with the great guys that bring us all these fantastic mags every single month.

I think one of the reasons why I love shooting mag work so much, is the people I get to work with. It's not people that hate their job, come to work with long faces, or you have to poke with a needle to get a response out of them. This applies for all the publishing houses I work with, not just TopCar. I am honored to get the privilege to work with these guys & girls.

Tear: Wiel Aug 08 (SEAT vs Mazda 5)

This shoot was a bit of a "soccer mom's" car shoot-out. Or at least the Mazda 5 looked the part. I'm no motoring journalist on any scale, so that's just my opinion. The Mazda 5 did have these very cool remote slide doors! I was rather fascinated with those. To get a proper run down on these cars, I would suggest picking up the new issue of Wiel rather.

Just a note on the opening DPS, it was another style driven by the "Advertisement" type of image. I rather liked how it came out. Now to just get both SEAT & Mazda to let me do their commercial work. :)

Tear: Wiel Aug 08 (Merc)

Mercedes SL63... Not much to say, except this was an amazing car to shoot! I put a lot of personal extra effort into location, which I think paid off very well! Special thanks to the house owners for putting up with us for a few hours.


And then one more which I personally liked, but wasn't used in the mag feature:

Oh the Prizes...!

I have several things to post for my published work for July/August mags. I want to first mention a rather nice surprise I got a few days ago. A while back I had submitted a photo to PiX Magazine, and then as all things go, forgot about it.

I got a surprise email telling me I had won the Readers Pic of the months July/August. With that bit of news came a brand new Tamrac Camera Bag. I recieved it this morning via courier and have only had a few minutes to check it out. Looks very neat! When I have a bit more time (before I shoot again on Friday morning at sparrows fart) I'll transfer all my gear & get it all nice.

For those of you who follow my work, you will notice it's a pic you have seen before. One of my favourite from the Eleanor shoot.

Wiel Tear Sheets: 4x2 Steed Shoot

So its always the case of waiting for things to be published before you can show it off to the world.
I'm glad to finally present a new style of automotive photography which I have begun doing.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I ultimately would like to end up in the advertising market. Where instead of having a range of images for selection in a editorial magazine, you strive to create that one perfect image for an advert or campaign. This new style heralds the beginning of my goal to reach the advertising look & feel. I know it won't happen overnight, nor do I expect it to. For now, practice, practice, practice & a bit more practice is whats going to pay off in the end.

Without further delay, here it is:

WIEL Tearsheets

Some tearsheets from the April 2008 issue of WIEL Magazine. Its their 30th Anniversary issue, so it was a really nice issue to start shooting with Ramsay, Son & Parker (RS&P) Magazine House

There are 2 shoots I did, seperate articles. The one was a article on Diesel being in SA for x amount of years. The other, being for Ford.

The shoot that involved the girl, the criteria given were very specific. They wanted a vintage, 60's look, which still had a little bit of an edge on sexy.

A Book Cover

Its nice to help someone else out. And very often, the return is greater than expected. A friend of a friend needed a picture for his book cover. It had to be South African themed. So I went through my archive of photos & sent him a selection of choices.

Long story short, this was what he used:


Go support the local writers we have; You can buy a copy here.

2 More Tears

So last week I bought 2 bags of motoring mags from a friend of mine, and I came across some mags which had my work in it (that I hadn't gotten hold of prior). So here is a couple more tear sheets from published work. :)

Mag Cover

Another magazine cover. March 2008

Astra Turbo Hotness

Feature car in March issue of CapeRush magazine.

Spring Tour Calendar 2008

I think every photographer at some point wants to make a calendar of their work. Its a great way to advertise their talent. I can't say I've ever wanted to do it (purely as I haven't had the time), but this year it actually just happened from a job I did.

Don't worry, next year I'll be releasing a calendar of my work. So 2009 is a year to look out for.

The MUA Cape Spring Tour 2008

Import Turbo Toy

So this shoot was originally for Max Power magazine. Shot in the end of last year, for the Dec Issue. However, with Media24 discontinuing Max Power SA, along with numerous other magazines, there where certain complications. The shoot did go to print, but I never got around to getting my copy, therefore, no tear sheets from this shoot.

Be that as it may, it was an enjoyable shoot.

First Magazine Cover

So it happened. After all the day dreaming & working (the working took majority here), I got my first magazine cover. While its not the prettiest of covers, I had to make do with what I had.

On top of that, this cover was my first shoot for the magazine itself. I was very happy about it all.