[fuckitass] Steve Chan’s Acura RSX

September 27, 2013 / jasonhoang / 2 Comments

Round 2 for photoshoots! The cold weather is already here – most mornings are 0C or +1C if we’re lucky… I’ve already filled my calendar with two shoots next week so far and I’m trying to fill it up more. It’s about that time where a lot of our house appointments are dying down and I’m at the point where I’m willing to put down GTA V for a little bit to do some work. The only thing left is securing a venue for the wedding – we’ve got a few more appointments for those, so I hope we can get one soon…

Anyways, last night I went out to shoot Steve’s RSX with JC. JC and I are “Team J” – it’s rare when I’m not doing a photoshoot without JC and when I am, it’s because he’s busy doing something else. He’s always usually the chase car for rolling shots and the go-to guy for locations. I just point and shoot. The funny thing about this shoot is that during the summer, I usually saw Steve every weekend if we were doing car stuff, but I have never actually shot his car. The same goes for everyone else that usually comes and hangs out on the weekend – we see each other often but it’s never their cars that I’m shooting – it’s always someone else. It’s been a few years now so yesterday when JC asked if I wanted to shoot Steve’s car, I sat and thought about it for a second and shocked myself because it hit me that this would be the first time haha

Steve’s car has also been one to go through lots of different stages – adding new parts here and there and just slowly getting better. I think the first time I met Steve, his car was very subtle. He still had the Mugen kit but with a Type R wing, he was on gold Advan RG’s sitting quite a lot higher than you see in these pics on Tein S-Tech springs. His interior was still quite stock as well.

Not a great picture but here’s how it looked a few years back for his illmotion feature.

Anywho – let’s move onto the photos from last night. Another good shoot in the bag!

Start it off with a rolling shot. I like to do that sometimes cause it usually gets people excited haha (uh… no homo).

Here’s a good shot for comparison to the older shot I posted above. Steve is way lower now than before and he’s sitting on much more aggressive wheels. Keeping up with the mag blue trend, this is a perfect shoot to follow Eric Yu’s Civic. Steve added a set of Type R Brembos to the front which is a nice addition that you don’t see all too often. He also switched over to the Mugen wing to match the rest of the Mugen kit.

JC’s car sitting over in the distance. Looking clean as usual.

A nice side profile shot. A nice shot of his stance and how low he sits. Check the mid section of his exhaust. You can also see that Steve added a Cusco rear cage to the interior as well.

You can’t see it here either but Steve also recently switched out his Buddy Club straight pipe exhaust (AKA loud as phuck exhaust) to a much quieter and refined Mugen twin loop. So instead of hearing him coming from his house, we hear him when he’s about 1 km away. hahaha

The sky and weather was nice to us last night. It was a bit chilly, but nothing a sweater couldn’t solve. You can also see JC’s car again…

As we were shooting and Steve was moving into place for the next shot, JC noticed something under Steve’s wiper blade. It was a parking receipt… JC read it for a few seconds and then burst out laughing because the plate entered was “FUCKITASS” LOL. We’re all confused as to why someone would put it on Steve’s car and why they would fake a plate when the ticket was free anyway. Either way, it was hilarious and that’s the reason it’s part of the blog title haha

Overhead shot by the huge cylinder thingies.

You’ll notice in the rear of this shot that the rear lip is not a Mugen lip anymore. His newest addition this year was the Spoon diffuser, but in order for him to fit the diffuser, he had to switch the rear back to the Type R lip since it didn’t fit properly.

In JC’s car rolling to the next location.

My favourite shot of the night was the roller from the rear quarter. Check that rear wheel tuck.

At the next spot… CT chillin.

A nice strip of road that’s pretty dead. This was Steve’s idea – no idea how he found it, but it was nice.

A rear quarter shot. I’ve been telling Steve to try and get taller wing stands for his Mugen wing – I think it would look so bad ass and so much more aggressive if it lined up with his roof line. Side note: The mag blue looks great here with the paint.

Last shot of the night. A dual shot on the empty road – easy to do since there was next to no traffic…

And there you have it! Last shot for the week. Next week will be more great sets to look forward to! Stay tuned!

Random Shots – Calgary Auto Spa

July 2, 2013 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

Right after Michael’s shoot, JC and I headed over to Calgary Auto Spa’s new location for their grand opening party. We showed up a bit late and only stayed for 45 minutes or so, so I’m not sure if the turn out was bigger earlier or whatnot. When we showed up, the grill was still going and everybody was chillin’.

I apologize for not taking any pics – the cars were not really set up for pictures and they were parked all over the place. In retrospect, I should have taken pictures of the inside of their new shop but after a photoshoot in the sun, I didn’t want to take anymore. Instead, I took some shots of the douche parking jobs Steve, JC and I all did at the end. The Scions you see behind us came a few minutes later and they made us look like idiots LOL.

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Regina George. Always looks so clean in pics… hahaha took up all that good space too. I think the Scion peeps were swearing at me.

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JC’s Gretchen Wiener.

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Steve’s RSX lookin’ clean as always.

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A random shot of all the FR-S’s and xB’s behind us. The red one was nicely kitted with the Five Axis kit – it just needed wheels and a drop. The matte black wrapped one beside it was also nicely done, but the wrap is kind of getting old… not to say that it doesn’t look good though… And the white one had 19’s and I’m not even sure what wheels they were.

We need some more aggressive FR-S’s around here – with more quality aftermarket parts. Even though the Rocket Bunny kit has been done on tons of FR-S’s, no one can deny it looks bad ass. The FR-S has so much potential, there just aren’t many people willing to bring that potential out.

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Another shot of our douche parking.

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And one more cause I wanted to.

Honda Mondays

February 18, 2013 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

Like how I set myself up for success last week with Honda Mondays? hahaha it just so happens that I don’t have much content again and it’s Monday.

Once again – going through some old pics and seeing if I can make them a little better. I seem to go through a lot of “editing phases” – it changes from wanting vibrance and lots of color to either very monotone or desaturated to give a more mellow look. When I first shot Darren’s RSX, I edited the pics to be vibrant with lots of greens, yellows and blues. This time around, I thought I’d cut out all of that and try and focus more on the tones of the car and it’s surroundings – one of the main reasons why I love shooting in RAW.

His car is still kicking around with the wheels in a different color, new seats and a new steering wheel the last I remember. Either way, still a great looking car.

2012 Wrap Up – Part VIII

December 13, 2012December 13, 2012 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

September. This was the last month I got to drive the STI before my insurance ended and I had to put it away. To be honest, I was about 50% sure that I was ever gonna drive it again because I wanted a new car. At the time, I didn’t know what. I played around with the idea of the FRS still, the 370z was kind of on the list but I hadn’t entertained the idea enough to be serious.
Anyways, moving right along…

THIS POST IS GOING TO BE BIG. Forewarning.

We shot Barb’s and Justin’s TSX’s that day. I’m not a fan of dual shoots primarily because it’s hard to shoot two cars but it ended up turning out super sick. It was cool cause they both had CE’s too lol.

JC and I chillin in our usual spot for a few hours while waiting for people to show up.

Finally everyone showed up – Steve was on the other side haha

Parked in some roundabout – grabbed some village ice cream and relaxed a bit.

Barb and Justin’s TSX’s

Corey and I parked under that walkway I posted about. Corey if you ever read this, can I please buy my wheels back? Please.

Some random shot I took. Weird because it wasn’t really an accident and I know I took it for a reason. I even thought to myself “I’m going to take this picture and post it”. I’ve been looking at it and I don’t know what the hell I would or could even write about it except that somehow my arm is in there and there’s nothing significantly special about this picture at all. What a dumbass haha

Chillin. JC mean mugging the po po probably.

Outside of Five Guys.

Justin’s CE’s

Barb’s CE’s

We all decided that it was kind of a long day so we made our way to Five Guys and had lunch.

Look at the voltex shadow. $5 says you can see it from space.

My favourite rolling shot with the new c-train overpass in the background.

The light and shadows work well here with Justin’s car. Black wheels on a white car is also my worst nightmare.

Simple yet neck breaking.

See why black wheels are my worst enemy?

And finally – some of the shots that came out.

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Some more chillin’. We also shot Ryan’s 1M that day and then shot JC’s car. It started getting to the point where I was out of ideas of where to shoot cars cause we shot so many lol.

Corey and I. I want my old wheels back so bad! LOL

Corey doing some shooting. A little different than the video clips he’s been doing most of the time for us.

Under the walkway to the saddledome. I loved this spot.

Parked outside one of the nicer hotels in the downtown area with black tile. Ryan’s 1M would’ve looked sweet in there. Unfortunately we got denied and we couldn’t come in…

I decided to try something new for rolling shots so I asked JC if we could put his seats down, open the trunk, and let me lay down so I could get some shots head on. There are a few downsides to this idea – there is a possibility the trunk would fall back down and chop my neck off or knock me unconscious for god knows how long. It is stunting and we could get a ticket. We can’t go very fast or else bad shit could happen. Luckily Aubrey was around and agreed to help us out. She joined me in the trunk holding up the trunk while JC drove around and Ryan followed close behind. She looks unhappy in this picture but she actually isn’t – it’s cause the sun was shining down on us in the trunk and it was bright. I swear. hahaha turned out good!

Ryan’s car does a good job of standing out and looks super aggressive with the RS’s. See the link to his feature and write up by JC. He killed this one.

iM Highlight: Ryan Dandurand’s BMW 1M

I loved this rolling shot.

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The Quarry Park Show & Shine was also this month. It starts to get a little cooler during September for some days and it rained a bit that morning, but the rest of the day was pretty nice. It’s a cool place to see a lot of the baller cars that the city has to showcase.

The site.

We were allowed to go inside, and I’m not sure if we were allowed all the other years but this place was nice as heck. It even smelled like new home haha

There was also a theater that was open for viewing little videos of cars and stuff. So baller… it didn’t even look like it’s been used so I decided to break it in by putting my feet up haha

A few of my favourite cars of the show…

The Aventador was probably the sickest there, mainly because of the exclusivity of it. The owner was super chill too. There was a kid looking at it and he offered to let him sit in it! There’s nothing more refreshing than seeing a modest, down-to-earth rich guy.

Porsche GT3 – he kind of just did a round and left I think. Still sick nonetheless.

Group shot of white supremacy. #NoRacist

My favourite car on our side. S14 on Meister S1R’s. DAYUM

Got a chance to check out Punit’s S2000 cluster too. Looks super sick.

Later on in the day Punit decided that he wanted to buy some raffle tickets so he ended up splurging on 35 tickets and got JC and I to fill out every single one. LOL worth it? Well, Punit won something. You’ll see at the end…

Errol’s freshly finished Amuse S2000. Really sick.

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We also got a chance to shoot Daniel’s BMW M3 GTR. Crazy beast of a car. He switches between track mode and DD mode with different sets of wheels and swaps the wing off sometimes. It’s kind of beat up aesthetically but rightfully so – it does what it was built to do.

Met at the same place as always – East Village… we should call it Chill Village.

Took the Civic today. Since gas prices went up almost $0.10/L on Wednesday, I was running around on Empty in the STI. Mainly because the news said it was supposed to go back down within 24-48 hours. Here we are on a Sunday and it’s still up. I hate filling gas so much that I drive everyone else’s car except for mine so I can save it HAHA

Not too long after, Justin showed up in the M3. Beast.

First location…

We were taking pics by the train track and with our luck, a train passed by and tooted his horn at us. Once the train passed, a cop came by and chatted a bit. We thought he was gonna harass us like always, but he just wanted to drive it haha. I asked if we could get a shot of the M3 with his car but he said no. Instead, he gave us some location ideas that he’s seen. JC is talking to him and checking out his map to see where to go next. haha too bad all cops weren’t all cool like this guy.

We entered some truck graveyard in the location that the cop told us to go to. It was dusty as f*ck. After shooting inside, on the way out I decided to e-brake drift the Civic for fun haha.

White sidewalls haha. Oh well – gave me a reason to wash it since my sister never does X_X

Chillin in the last area. Got the rolling shots and I had to get going…

On the way home I spotted Devon on Deerfoot. I creeped like mad and caught up to him and just started snapping pics haha. Super clean.

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If someone asked me what was the weirdest memory of summer 2012 – it’d be this day. LOL
We went to go shoot Devon’s EG and bike that day, but things took a huge left turn and shit got awkward… Read on.

Chill village. Upon our arrival, we found out that we couldn’t park where we usually do because it looked like all the food trucks were gathering there for some event. Not sure what it was – didn’t really care. Here’s a shot of the Family Fry Guy truck just heading in. Sorry for the super crooked picture haha

JC chillin. We’re still waiting for everyone to come.

After everyone’s arrival, we headed out to some place that I can’t remember. I honestly don’t really care where we go – I just take pictures. It was a pretty sweet place though. On the way here we were followed by a cop thinking we were ridin’ dirty. Once we pulled over, we just got out and pretended to look at the beautiful scenery. HA.

Devon’s helmet. Love what he’s done with the illmotion sticker on it.

We then made our way up the hill. Still don’t remember what the area was called and once again – I don’t really care. It was a nice view, but it was a tough spot to shoot.

Here we are. Chillin outside someones property. People drive by and gawk while we gawk back. Some people stop for a second to see what’s going on and probably to make fun of my wing. Here’s where it gets interesting…

A girl in a Mazda3 drove by and ended up parking about 30 meters away from where we were shooting. She came out and walked up to us – I’m going to be honest, at first I thought we were all up on her property and she was about to give us hell for being there. I even had in my mind a full story all ready within the 5 seconds it took for her to get close. She asked if we were here for the motorcycle shoot as well. We were kind of confused because yes – we were there for a motorcycle shoot and it was Devon’s. But no – we didn’t remember being scheduled by anyone other than ourselves to shoot it and we didn’t know anyone else knew about it.

She explained that she was actually shooting for some other magazine or publication (I can’t remember what it was) and she was early. She asked if we wanted a bikini model and that she was bored and had time to spare. I looked over at Devon and asked if he wanted to do it and he said sure. Within seconds, her clothes were off and I’m going to be honest – I didn’t know what to do. I am by no means a model photographer – I don’t shoot people, I don’t shoot people with no clothes on and I’m not good at it at all. I don’t know how to position them or anything. So we get over to the bike and she gets on and Rich and I just start snapping pics. I have no idea how to shoot a bike, now I have to quickly find out how to shoot a bike with a girl in a bikini on it. Anyways – I wasn’t too keen on the whole idea, but I thought it’d be fun to just do it. She was bored, we were just chillin so why not. Maybe Devon enjoyed it haha

I don’t want to post my pictures. They suck. It’s like I just picked up a camera for the first time and I don’t know where to point it. It’s difficult when you need to give direction, it’s even more difficult when you don’t know how. Anyways – that was it. It was a quick 10 minutes before her actual photographer showed up. I think I’ll stick to shooting cars.

We made our way to Queens Park Cemetery. Thought it’d be cool to get some shots there. Punit got lost, we ended up chillin on the side of the road watching a funeral go by. Kind of a weird place to be because you want to be respectful but the whole idea of us being there just to shoot pictures kind of ruins it all. We didn’t stay too long.

A teaser roller shot of Devon’s bike and EG.

At our turn around point for the rolling shots, we all got out of the car and switched spots at a red light. We all knew where we had to go, but when one person gets confused, everyone gets confused. *cough JC*

Shotgun in Rich’s WRX.

Our endpoint.

Peep Rich’s rear. Custom STI quad exit. Looks bad ass.

Another shot of Devon’s helmet.

Because racecar.

We all parted ways and headed home on Stoney Trail. I decided to get some rollers of everybody on the way home. Dirty barrels!

Look at my wing. SICK.

Anyways that was our day. Tough to put it all into pictures for you guys to understand how random it ended up being.

Coles notes: Scheduled to shoot car and bike. Head out and get followed by cop. Go up to see city skyline. Random bikini model comes and asks us to shoot. Head to cemetery. Watch funeral pass by while Punit is lost. Eat Pho and park in shitty lot. Go to do rolling shots. The end. LOL!

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Finally – the beyond.ca super meet that we usually all attend. It’s a nice way to close the season. It’s typically the same people that show up, some new faces come and you see lame burnouts and revving from the noobs that think it’s impressive blah blah blah.

On the way to the meet. Ricky’s car – he just got the rears cambered in. When it’s dumped it looks crazy! I always love to get a rolling shot whenever I drive around now haha

Lame traffic.

Al on his new Rotiforms.

That’s it for the single shots until tomorrow…

A shot of a quarter of the turnout…

Aldo’s Merc. Nice and clean. I’m a fan of the non-smoked headlights and tail lights for this season.

Kanji’s Integra.

Super clean R32 on TE37SL’s.

FRS. It’s nice to see them getting changed so quick. I think the first modification on these cars should be wheels and coils. The body is pretty aggressive on it’s own that it really only needs complimentary mods.

Fit + roof rack. Nice.

Bill’s Focus. Looking clean as always. Bringing the domestic flavour around wherever he goes haha

Mint.

Ricky’s GTI with his new dialed in fitment in the rear. His fender no longer sits inbetween the lip and tire – which was bad ass. But this is an even better look IMO. His car looks so sick.

The black series.

Matte red! simple and clean.

Shane’s Integra on RG’s

The BMW shoe. Still sick.

Justin’s TSX. A dumped white car always looks so good. Justin’s and Ricky’s are perfect examples.

Simple STI.

I’m beginning to become a fan of the new line of Domestics coming out. The Camaro, Mustang, Shelby’s, etc… when you put some crazy wheels and lower them, they look mean as #&$@.