Down and Out: Justin Kan’s Acura TSX

May 25, 2014 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

There’s nothing better than a last minute shoot that turns into an excellent set of pictures…

After unsuccessful visits to Subaru and Toyota/Scion this whole week, I’m over trying to trade the LS. Instead, I’ll just sit on it and see if it sells privately. I’ve gotten a few bites here and there but nothing solid yet… But to be fair, I’ve only had the ad up for a week. I’m just an impatient dude trying to get into a new car! A big reason for me not just going to trade it in is because we still got a wedding to pay for and I’d rather not take a huge loss on the car if I can help it. If the car doesn’t sell, I’ll just wait on it until next year and start fresh.

Didn’t have many plans yesterday, but JC messaged me in the morning asking me what I was up to – I only had some errands to run otherwise I was free all day. Next thing you know, we’re shooting Justin’s slammed TSX and we got nothing but good shots. I don’t think I know anyone personally or locally for that matter that rides as low as Justin does without wrecking their shit. Hell, Justin can barely turn his car around a full 180 without doing a 10 point turn but it looks damn good while he’s doing it. He drives straight and still scrapes – I’m not even exaggerating lol!

The weather was perfect yesterday morning for the shoot. Just enough overcast and not too much sun. I thought that this would be a great shot to start off this post – rollers always makes panties wet. I dub this the Windows XP desktop shot. It so closely resembles it with the colours haha

Now we rewind back to the beginning of the shoot. We met in front of Royal Oak Audi. Like always – JC was the chase car and chauffeured us around.

“Can we trade this in for that white A7?”

Justin arrived shortly after. He doesn’t have an exhaust but we knew he was coming because there was that uncanny noise of scraping we are all too familiar with… Except like I said – it’s all the time lol

Justin wiping it down quickly before we headed out.

And we begin… A familiar place from last year.

Love these wheels. I mentioned in my post about the beyond meet that these were originally my wheels from my Civic, which was then passed onto Corey for his Civic, then finally moved onto Justin’s TSX today. Still mint and still one of the best wheels ever.

That roll call.

So timeless looking.

Snapped a quick shot of the crew chillin while I do my thing. They were actually in the way for this shot…

After I got them to move out of the way LOL

The wheels fit so good!!

Diana and JC making a cameo appearance again on the blog. I’m all about the behind the scenes shots… You’ll probably see more of these jabronis during my shoots.

Love the front end of Justin’s TSX. He recently purchased the JDM bumper for that grill and headlights. Worth it.

Back to front…

Another shot of his grill.

Shot of the back.

And a shot of the front. That’s like bagged height. lol

En route to the next spot.

A quick shot from shot gun.

Always gotta get an in-car shot lol

Another one of my favourite angles of Justin’s car. Just too good.

Perfect fitment – not too crazy, but just enough.

Another shot that I ended up loving. The TSX just has such a timeless look to it and it looks good from all angles.

Rear quarter shot. Love it.

This is where the magic starts and happens…

The shot from Instagram – I love the way Justin’s car looks rolling. It’s just way too good.

A side profile shot of him rolling static.

And here we say farewell. This shoot took probably about an hour or less – probably the quickest photoshoot we’ve done in a long time (or ever). And each and every shot turned out great – I needed something to inspire me to shoot again and thanks to JC for pulling us out and for Justin for coming out! Gives me some good content.

I might have some extra shots laying around that I’ll edit during the week if I have time and post those up too.

Enter: Tony Dinh’s Lexus IS350 – Part III

April 23, 2014 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

The final part for Tony’s IS350. If anyone knows me by now from reading my blog, it’s that I have a love/hate relationship with rolling shots. I love them because when everything works out perfectly, it’s a great way to end the shoot. On the rare occasion, I’ll get nada for rolling shots and it’s a total bummer sitting at home after the shoot and finding out nothing came out the way I had intended. Sometimes it just happens with bad lighting, traffic, lack of time, etc. However, that’s not the case this time – Tony’s car was fairly straightforward except for the fact that he has the deadliest combination of wheels to paint colour – dark wheels on a light car… But it ended up working nicely!

Overall – it was a fantastic photoshoot for the first one of the year. Looking forward to doing way more because I slacked uber hard last year until the last minute. Not to mention that everybody has something new for 2014 (it sounds like I say that every year – but it’s a good thing). I personally love the attention to quality that is slowly coming our way with people’s builds and it just makes me itch to photograph them all!

Anyways – huge thanks to Tony for coming out as soon as I had messaged him for this photoshoot. It’s a great one to add to the books.

Nice gold and red combo of the Junction produce Tsuna and Fusa.

Diggin the 3000K DRL’s on this too. It was always one of my favourite first mods on my cars as well.

Of course we need another ass shot! Can’t get over how well the lip and and trunk lip go together.

Light/Shadow shot right under the Bow.

Rollers!

This was a great shot of Tony heading into the core.

The lines of the IS at the front quarter all the way to the back are pretty close to the 08 GS. I also loved this shot because it showed how low Tony rolls on a daily basis.

Another with a more monotone look.

Downtown cruising. Peep the Calgary Tower in the back.

And after the shoot chillin.

I love the side profile of the LS with the long wheelbase. It just looks so ridiculously long hahaha

That’s a wrap for Tony’s photoshoot! Hopefully some good ones to come! Punit just got his air install completed by Jackie last night and we got a few more cars just getting ready now to do more shoots!

Enter: Tony Dinh’s Lexus IS350 – Part II

April 22, 2014 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

Part 2! We made our way downtown and JC found a new location we haven’t used before and it ended up being perfect in terms of lighting and shadows. The way that the shots turned out looks like it was at night with strobes but it was actually mid day with the sun beaming down with a few clouds in the sky. The way the overhead walkway was positioned and where the sun was coming from was awesome.

Tony’s car shined at this location because it just worked so well with the overall feel of the surroundings. Kudos to JC for this bad ass spot!

The shots turned out great and this is probably my favourite part of all the sets I will be posting. It shows a lot of the details that I enjoyed about Tony’s car that I think you all will like too. You might have guessed it by now but the rear is my favourite. I’m an ass guy. Ha!

Less talk. More pictures!

A great shot showcasing the lighting that I mentioned earlier. I did little in terms of making his car pop in this shot. Always feels good when a shot turns out just how you wanted it.

A better angle from higher up.

Us chillin on the other side. I’m pretty sure this is where JC started editing his hipster picture of the Bow.

FUUUU so dirty. I’ve been lazy to wash it because there’s been and will continue to be constant construction around my house and it will never stay clean so I will never try.

Another one of my favourite shots. That Wald lip spoiler is to die for. I wish the LS had one… The JP Vizage rear lip compliments it well.

More shadows.

A shot of his tucking.

Dual combined artsy shot.

More of that Wald. Can’t get enough.

And finally a shot of his Wald side skirts. Love the look of these as well…

Last part will go up tomorrow!!! If you’ve been around for a while, you’ll know what’s in part 3 😉

Enter: Tony Dinh’s Lexus IS350 – Part I

April 21, 2014 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

Here we go with part 1!

I know a few of you were upset with the teaser last night because it was barely a shot of the car but that’s how I like to roll. Anyways – we started off right at noon and headed over to some industrial-type areas to get some basic shots. I’m usually excited and nervous for my first shoot every year because I really haven’t picked up the camera all winter and if I have, it was to shoot anything but a car. I always find that I can’t be inspired to shoot anything well unless the car or the location inspires me first. In this case, I was super stoked to shoot Tony’s car because it’s fresh and new to me so I ended up taking a bunch more pics than I usually do – hence the reason for three parts lol.

This was the first time I’ve met Tony in person – we were instagram buddies for a while and I knew that he had an Integra and he recently got the IS350 last August and has built it up to what you see today. In an amazingly short amount of time, he’s come a long way. In one way, I love builds that come together quickly and properly but on the other hand I hate it cause it takes the joy out of actually building it. That’s what happened when I owned the STI – I put it from stock to GT race car wannabe in a few months with nothing else left to do with it afterwards. That’s why I got so bored of it so quickly… But with the LS – I’m not quite done with it yet so I haven’t had a thought of letting it go nor has the thought of a new car entered my mind. I need to finish this first before I move on.

Anyways – let’s get on with part 1 of Tony’s slammed and static IS350.

We stopped at our first location and we welcomed Tony to the Mode Luxe family. Him and his car was well deserving of it and it looks great!

Tony wasted no time in slapping it on right away.

The decal looks right at home on his rear window.

My heap and JC’s in the back with his rears lowered a bit more from the last time I might have taken a picture of it.

First shot of the day… Love the bronze on white.

The side profile is my second favourite view of Tony’s car. His height is literally basically my bagged height in the rear. No rubbing back there either and the fronts are about as low as he can go without sacrificing his turning radius.

Another shot of the rear tuck.

And a profile shot. I love this picture.

And finally my favourite view of Tony’s car is from the back. The set up is just super clean and aggressive at the same time. The best addition is the Wald lip spoiler IMO.