Raj’s Nissan Skyline: Better in Black

June 24, 2014June 24, 2014 / jasonhoang / 1 Comment

Last Sunday was probably the nicest day we’ve had all year so far… Beautiful skies and awesome sun make for a good day.

Shortly after posting Giuseppe’s Skyline, Raj had contacted me to shoot his Skyline as well, and this coming weekend there may be one more Skyline in the books. So this may very well be the only time I would be shooting three in a row… So if you like them Skylines, you’re in the right place. Raj’s car is on the other end of the spectrum of Giuseppe’s though – both nice cars – but two different styles. Raj’s Skyline is more on the subtle and simple side of things. It keeps things interesting around here.

Raj actually wanted a shoot because he is wanting to sell the car soon. Side note: lots of the cars that I shoot end up going up for sale shortly after or are being parted out… Not sure why, perhaps it’s cause they always want one last shoot like Raj or my camera is the camera of death for cars LOL! Either way, at least I am able to get the last few shots of the cars before they move on.

Onto the pictures!

I think this will be a new tradition of mine – starting each post off with a rolling shot. I posted this on Instagram last Sunday and like my caption read – we had epic skies and clouds that day. Love it.

Met up with JC of course… His car is always clean somehow…

And my always dirty car… I apologize I can never get a clean pic of it because: 1) my driveway got poured almost two weeks ago so it has to sit outside in all the rain we’ve had. 2) I’m too lazy. LOL

We met at the old St. Louis Hotel near East Village. It’s closed now but check how tiny that place is… Curious to go in there and take a look.

Raj and Leslie showed up shortly after and we got to it. My first couple shots are always warm up shots. Takes a while until I really get into it but I was pretty happy with where we were headed.

This shot was actually supposed to be straight on but as soon as Raj parked the car, a bus full of (very nice) hipsters parked right in front my shooting area. Literally a mini bangbus with hipsters jammed inside and they asked if I wanted to shoot the van. I declined but in retrospect – I should’ve at least taken one shot cause it was pretty awesome.

Headed underground to try out some shots since we haven’t shot in a parkade for a while.

And back outside – I’m not a fan of artificial light unless I can control it. Although I have no control over natural light either, it just looks better to me. Raj’s Skyline – especially in black – looks better with reflections.

My favourite view of most cars – especially with meaty rear tires.

Super clean and simple.

Body is still clean and in good condition.

One of my favourite wings on an R32.

One last static shot before moving onto the rollers!

JC finally cleaned his damn mirrors… Looks like he read my last post…

Diana pretending to be unimpressed with how the rollers turned out. Mediocre acting skills, Diana…

Warm up shot on the bridge.

A sloppy one but if this had turned out a little sharper, it would’ve been nice. Check JC’s rear tuck. Da-opeee

Now more serious shots. Like I said – the sky was awesome that day and it made for great reflections on black.

Another one through the trees.

And that’s a wrap! Perhaps if Raj sells his car, you’ll still see it around somewhere… Anddddd if we’re lucky, I’ll have one more Skyline post this weekend for you and then some. My plan is to bang out 2-3 shoots this weekend so I’ll have lots of stuff next week I hope!

Rolling Shots: Team Silver

January 20, 2014 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

Last night I was editing some pictures of Errol’s S2000 to post up and that’s when Brad reminded me (complained) that I hadn’t posted the other rollers yet. I know I said I was going to, but I honestly forgot… Even after editing Errol’s pic because the rolling shots were in the same folder lol.

Anyways – I *THINK* that I subconsciously neglected to edit these mainly because I’m not 100% happy with them. The main reason being that the backdrop is really not that special and there’s random buildings and stuff that just suck. This would have been awesome if it was on the highway with mountains or something because the lighting was fairly good and it gives it a good night time feel, but maybe I’m just being picky… Perhaps we’ll do another shoot this year with some better planning. In any case, some may look familiar with a slightly different angle, but there are a few other ones that I left till now.

In case you haven’t seen it… Here are the two parts to their shoots:

Brad’s K20 EM1

Errol’s Amuse S2000

These shots were done a little earlier in the evening and you can see the sun setting in the back

I liked all of this shot except for the traffic up front. The rain clouds mixed with the sunset made for a great background.

From JC’s car… I was contemplating cloning out that Saturn but I didn’t feel the need to last night. Now I regret it. lol

Defend Authenticity Part 2 – Errol Tan’s Amuse Honda S2000

October 7, 2013 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

To follow up and finally conclude the “Team Silver” photoshoot is Errol’s Turbo Amuse Honda S2000. Like I mentioned before, I shot both Errol and Brad’s cars on the same night so we were rushing around trying to get as many shots in as we could before the sun went down completely – that was all about an hour.

Just an update to keep you guys in the loop on some of the photoshoots coming up – I’ve got four more sets that I have to edit from last week and the weekend and I’ve also got three coming up this week. So it’s going to be another busy week of shooting and editing. I’m usually pretty good with shooting, coming home and finishing the editing by the end of the same night but now I’m backlogged. It doesn’t change much except for the fact that I’ll probably be getting the shoots up a little later but that’s what I was hoping for anyway. I didn’t want to rush things too much or else I’ll have done all this shooting and still have nothing for the winter months. Some cars to look forward to are a 2JZ GS and a K20 EK… but I’ll leave it at that.

Back to the post… I haven’t really seen Errol’s car much before the shoot. I think I had seen it at the one beyond meet that I went to, but not much before then. When I first heard about Errol getting an Amuse kit from JDM source, I actually didn’t believe it. Mainly because the Amuse widebody kit is rare to see, let alone have anyone get it and install it. Before the kit though, the S2000 remained fairly stock and when Race City was still open, Errol would usually be there whipping it around the way an S2000 should be driven. However, Race City – the place where an S2000 belongs is also the place where the S2000 was almost put out of commission…

Fast forward to today and it is a new car. JDM source found the Amuse widebody kit and Errol took it as a chance to rebuild the car again. The kit is absolute perfection in terms of aggressiveness and detail and it really makes the S2000 look like it’s on steroids.

Errol left the car at the body shop for a long and grueling 8 months before it was completed to what it is now after the crash at Race City. The kit is fitted and painted extremely well.

Lining up for rollers. This was actually at the light right before the dual shot I posted up on the Facebook page a few days ago. You can see Brad peeking through on the other side.

Love seeing this car roll. Much like the NSX – it looks good from most, if not all angles.

Close up of the Amuse front bumper. Aggressive but also very clean.

A fitting license plate paired with ASM bolts to hold it in place. Brad and Errol hold the same type of view when it comes to modifying their cars – they want functional and quality pieces and accept nothing less. They are two of the biggest JDM fanboys I know and it’s no bad thing either. Like I mentioned in Brad’s post – a vision that starts off with high expectations and patience usually delivers high quality and rewarding results.

Errol sits on a fairly aggressive set of Enkei RPF1’s which suit the Amuse kit surprisingly well. It’s a very different choice than the usual TE37 or CE28 option, but it’s great.

A closer shot of the aggressive fender and part of the side skirt. The wheel/tire fits in there perfectly.

A side profile shot of the car with the Amuse kit is also one of my favourite angles. I remember when I finally believed that he got the kit, I asked everyone (except Errol lol) if he had gotten a GT wing for it too. When you think Amuse widebody, you also think big GT wing. At the time, Errol isn’t rocking one but it also looks very good without out it too.

I ask Errol occasionally whether he’s planning on it and he definitely is – so I think it’s only a matter of time before he has one on there. When I was parting out my STI – he inquired about buying my Voltex GT wing but the wing mounting points didn’t match up right unfortunately…

You can just barely see it but he also rocks a Mugen bucket on the driver side along with a Mugen steering wheel.

A head on shot and you’ll see right away that it’s boosted and it’s not just all show. I love the look of it from the front.

Under the hood is of course the turbo set up and the second engine in the S2000.

Good ol’ BOV

And one more roller to end it off right.

Maybe next year we’ll finish off the “official” team silver and add Alex’s Integra into the mix. I don’t doubt that there will be a bunch of changes to all three cars over the winter months…. Thanks to Brad and Errol again for coming out!

That’s a wrap for that! It isn’t stopping anytime soon either…