Defend Authenticity Part 1 – Brad Atkin’s EM1

And here’s another photoshoot we did on Wednesday night – it was actually a dual shoot with Brad’s Civic and Errol’s S2000. Originally we were supposed to do just Brad’s on Wednesday and then Errol’s the night after but I was able to knock both of them out at once in just a little over an hour. The reason for that is because the sun is setting incredibly fast now – so when we get started at 6:30ish, by 7:30 the sun is almost completely gone. I have yet to shoot in full darkness and I don’t do so mainly because I still don’t have strobes and partially because I’m kind of lazy to learn it. I’ll get to it someday… Until then, I’ll work with the natural light.

While I’m posting a lot of these shots all at once and one after the other, I’m saving some for the long and cold winter months too… Just to have some stuff to post up once in a while. In the past, I would post new parts that I would get for the car or some new ideas that I have but it’s going to be a little different this year since I have no time or money to put into the LS with a house and wedding coming up. Until then, I’ll post pictures of other people’s cars and live vicariously through them. But like I said before, I’m glad I was able to get the LS to the stage it’s at now – even though it’s just air and wheels – it’s 100x better than driving around a stock LS. The little while that I was doing that – it was nice, but it was like I was just taking my dads car everywhere haha!

By the way, I’ve been getting a certain feeling that my blog is starting to really feel like a ‘feature page’ lately with all of these shoots… But make no mistake – it isn’t. Typically, I would do shoots throughout the summer and post them here and there, but this year I didn’t. I was totally lazy and not wanting to do anything car related for a while and with only a few weeks left, I’m in desperation mode. For now, I’ll keep pushing out these shoots until I’m done and get back to regular programming afterwards.

Enough blabbering – let’s move onto the good stuff – Brad’s K20z3 EM1!

I personally love shooting silver cars the most. They reflect light perfectly and absorb enough to make it pop in most lighting situations. Black cars tend to eat up too much of the light and white cars bounce too much of it off.

Silver is the perfect medium.

Prior to this shoot, Brad had orange TE37’s on and that’s what I was fully expecting to be shooting. That was until I saw the conversation in our Whatsapp group… Errol asked Brad: Did you change wheels yet?? Brad replied: Sorry Jason, I know you hate black wheels. “FUUUU” I said to myself.

Either way, the shoot ended up turning out great and the black wheels pop. Brad argued that they’re diamond black but it makes no difference when I point a camera at it. They’re still black.

HOWEVER, this diamond black set of TE37’s is his 6th set of wheels. I like to classify Brad as a “seemed like a good deal at the time” collector. Actually – those were his exact words when I asked why he didn’t keep the orange and he replied that he hated them.

Up front is fairly simple and clean. Nothing too extravagant on Brad’s car – but it’s always remained that way since I met Brad: More functional and simplistic.

Still going forward with the mindset that Brad is a “collector” – none of the parts he collects or uses are fake/replica parts. I don’t usually point this out nor do I really care (OK I kind of care, but if it’s nice then I care less LOL) but Brad is an extremist when it comes to authentic and quality parts. It’s not a bad thing at all – in fact, it ultimately fosters a vision of a great build if that’s the mindset. Most often you’ll see cars that are amazing and I’m willing to bet that nothing but quality parts are accepted to be put on the car. The second the vision starts to sway in the direction of replica parts, you immediately start cutting corners. However, I’m not one to start the debate on fake or real parts… So I’ll leave it at that.

Looked great rolling too.

Perfect fitment paired nicely with Azenis.

The side profile shot of Brad’s car is also very subtle but there is enough there to make you look a second time. A powdercoated Autopower cage in the back with his rear seats still intact. The rear seats are actually wrapped with fabric from a JDM DB8 Integra Type R.

Close up of the diamond black TE37’s. They look great on silver.

The headlights – you may have noticed on the front shot of the car – are retrofitted with OEM E46 M3 bi-xenon projectors, so there’s no housing glare from PnP HID’s here. I love all cars with retrofitted projectors – it makes it look so much cleaner. I wish all cars came with projectors…

A quick engine shot and this was the last shot of the night, as it started getting darker and more difficult to get a shot without a flash. The EM1 is actually Brad’s second car that he bought completely stock back in 2007 and the K20z3 is the 4th engine in it.