Oliver's Blog

Lexus Advert

2009-08-11T07:17:00.000-07:00

Hi Again,

This is a mock up advert I did for the hell of it. I shot the image for a feature we did in the mag on the Lexus. I'm kinda stoked on this one!

Finished my Rig!!!

2009-07-20T00:34:00.000-07:00

Hi there. It's been a while since I've posted, and now I've got something decent to show. Yay.

I've finished my rig and shot some test shots last week. Here they are:

Bentley Continental Flying Spur Speed

2009-05-27T03:37:00.000-07:00

Hi. It's been a little while since the last update, so here's one. We've been really busy at the magazine, and this was one of those fantastic things that kept us busy.

Its a Bentley, with a very long name. This was such an awesome car to drive. Properly fast, and bloody well luxurious. Very cool car.

Well, here's a pic from that shoot.

The Sturocco

2009-05-04T06:04:00.000-07:00

One of my colleagues drives this Mk1 VW Scirocco. A properly hot car this. The dude who drives this car's name is Stuart, so we have dubbed his car the Sturocco. Here is a quick shot I took of it the other day.

Audi A5

2009-04-15T01:57:00.000-07:00

I recently got somewhat bored, and decided to play around a little. So I took an old shot of an Audi A5 that I shot a while ago, and make a composite with it. This is the final product.

Two Cool Cars

2009-03-30T03:14:00.000-07:00

The other day we went to Kyalami to go do some testing of these two cars. We got there, but with a part of the track still under construction, we couldn't do any testing, so we had the whole hour to do photos, which was very cool.

This is actually one of the 'faster' shots. We didn't put much effort into this one. We parked them, I quickly set up my camera, and banged off 12 odd exposures for the purposed of HDR merging them. This is the end result.

Also, these are two of the coolest cars you will ever come across. Ever.

2009-03-16T03:13:00.000-07:00

This is the little frog puppet that acts as my front door stopper. It keeps my front door open on windy days, and is always happy and has a big smile. Thanks frog.

I shot it the other day for the hell of it. Here it is.

Porsche 911 GT2

2009-03-13T01:24:00.000-07:00

This is an old photo, shot for a 2nd hand story for the magazine's insert, known lovingly to the staff as the 'oily rag'. The insert no longer exists. It was cool while it lasted, and so were the cars I got to shoot. This is one of the coolest.

Aston Martin Vantage N400

2009-03-11T00:56:00.000-07:00

This photo was shot for Cars In Action's PCOTY(Performance Car Of The Year) end of last year. I recently used it as my avatar, on the coolest automotive website out there (http://www.dieselstation.com/) and a mate asked me to post the picture. So I did. So now I'm posting it here. Hope you like.

2009-02-27T01:05:00.000-08:00

Hey. Been a while since the last post. So here's another. These are two images of one of the coolest cars of recent times. The Mercedes C63 AMG Estate. Yup, an estate that's cool. This car is a beast, plus you have space for your kids and dogs. Awesome.

Anyway, the first image is the one that ended up in the mag, and the second one, is one that I decided to just go and shoot for myself. I prefer the second. Here ya go.

And here's Nr 2:

Audi TTS

2009-01-19T03:46:00.000-08:00

I was lucky enough to bring this home over the previous weekend. One Saturday I took it into Newtown for a bit of a photoshoot. My good friend Carsten, and my girlfriend, Claudia helped me on this one. I must say, I am kinda happy with the shots. The whole grungy downtown look really worked well with the bright yellow TT. And what an awesome car this is.

Grounded Boat

2009-01-06T00:43:00.000-08:00

We just got back from a holiday in Mozambique. Had an absolutely awesome time. We spent Christmas and New Years there, and only got back on the 3rd of Jan. We stayed close to a town called Inhambane. It is one of the oldest towns in Southern Africa, and the oldest port(if I'm not mistaken) in Southern Africa. The town dates back to around 1550.

The area in and around the port is very flat, so there in quite a difference n water levels between high tide and low tide. It is possible to walk quite a few hundred metres out on the 'sea bed' at low tide. A lot of boats sit on the sea bed at low tide, and this is one of them. The 'Dina', as well asmost of these grounded boats are no longer in use. I shot a RAW image and processed it several times, to make up this HDR image.

I'll post some more Mozam stuff soon I hope.

Cheers

HDR ish

2008-12-10T00:33:00.000-08:00

I recently got my hands on Photomatix Pro 3. It's a programme used to create HDR images. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and the idea is to replicate the difference between highlights and shadows the way the human eye sees it.

I took a shot of a car that I shot recently but never used. I processed the RAW file seven times, each time altering the exposure by 1/2 a stop. These images then ranged from 1 1/2 stops under to 1 1/2 stops over. The programme lets you play around.

This is the result. A lot of tweaking is still required, but it's not half bad, I reckon.

Audi S3 Sportback. Great Car.

Another Portraite...of the same guy!

2008-12-01T01:51:00.000-08:00

Pollard

This was 2 or 3 nights after the last shot was taken, same place,same lights, slightly different setup. Brad was ready to go out and find himself a lady friend, which is why he's dressed as he is. We ended up getting some beers and just playing around with the lights again. He never ended up going out.

A portraite!

2008-11-28T04:40:00.000-08:00

Hi. Here's a portraite. I'm new to the whole portraite thing. So don't be too critical. That's my friend Bradley, aka Pollard (usually shouted with an exclamation mark behind it). He just got himself a set of Elinchroms, and we figured we should play around a little. So we did. This is the result.

Cheers

New Post 2

2008-11-19T05:49:00.000-08:00

Ooops. That last post didn't work, did it! I tried posting a .GIF, but it obviously doesn't work.

So here is a single still .JPEG of that day, mid-drift.

Sorry

New Post

2008-11-19T05:41:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted in quite a while now. Months.

From now on, I'll try and post at least once a week. I'll try.

Anyway, here's an 'image' from our recent Perfomance Car Of The Year shootout. The Driver is Tyrone Bradley, and I must say, he's pretty psyched on his drift. I would be too.

2008-06-24T02:13:00.000-07:00

This was a shot that was done for a Subaru feature for the mag, that was unfortunately never used.
This was shot at a not so secret location, that I still wont mention, somewhere in Gauteng. It was raining a sh*tload on this day, and we barely had enough time to shot the front of the car, before we had to move under a bridge and continue the shoot there. That's where this shot is from. The clouds did us a huge favour by granting is a stunning break, and letting just the right amount of orange hue through. Again, I must thank fellow mag photographer, Tyrone Bradley for letting us use his flashes, as thats how we lit this bad boy up. A stunning shot in my opinion, and one Im really proud of. We ended up shooting until it was pitch black, and the only light that was left for what seemed like a 5 km radius, where the headlights. Very cool shoot, and a truely amazing car!

Oh so A5...

2008-06-24T01:53:00.001-07:00

This Audi A5 is an absolute stunner in my opinion. Audi has really upped their game with this car, and is now hot on the heels of rivals BMW(if not already stomping them into the ground).
Everything about this car is magnificent. The new Audis' interiors are way above any competitior by a long shot.
We took this car the Kyalami racetrack, as we didnt have all that much time to shoot it, parked it in front of the tunnel that goes under the track. We lit it partially with flash, and let the monster that is the sun do the rest. Im really pleased with this shot, and cannot wait to get a few flashes of my own(we used fellow mag photographer Tyrone Bradley's flashes for this.
S5 Next...

The Queens Car

2008-06-23T02:46:00.000-07:00

I was out shooting this Renault Megane CC, a while back, driving around in the sunshine, when the weather turned absolutely horrid. This did give me some very deep, angry skies, which worked very well with a car, but sadly not this one. I really wish I had had something more in your face to shoot, like a red Subaru STi, or something along those lines, but oh well.

The shot still turned out very cool in my opinion!

Subaru STi Audi S3 BMW 335i

2008-06-23T02:32:00.000-07:00

Been a while since Ive updated the blog, so here we go...

This first one was an absolute banger of a shoot. We got to the Kyalami skidpan relatively late in the afternoon, a little pressed for time. Once there we spent quite some time wetting the skidpan down nicely, well actually, one of the journos, Stuart did.
After that it all ran pretty smoothly, except for running a little short on ambient light toward the end of the shoot. Other than that...fantastic.
And the cars...OMG!!! The STi is an absolute killer, but way too expensive, the 335i is super cool, but in my opinion it carries a bit too much of that BMW "look at me Im a dick" stigma.
The Audi S3 is definitely the pick of the bunch in my opinion, and I would kill to have one...no really I would.

Mercedes AMG Feature

2008-04-16T05:45:00.000-07:00

WOW!!!
All I can say is amazing!!!
This was one of those shoots that almost makes you want to cry! The sheer amount of absolute beauty and power!! Standing in front of a line up of 8 Mercedes AMG's is really something one must experience, especially once they fire up.
I was also absolutely blown away when I had the chance to drive some of these cars, albeit very quickly. I got to drive the CLK 63 and the E63 down to the skidpan from the Mercedes building at Zwartkops raceway. After the really stressful shoot, I was lucky enough to give the new C63 AMG a quick blast around the skidpan and back up to Mercedes. Like I said, WOW!!!

Subaru Multiway

2008-04-16T05:37:00.000-07:00

The other day we had to do a shoot for the mag, a multiway with Subarus. Basically this is, as you can see, a group shot with a bunch of cars.

The idea here was to follow the history of Subarus in the country, with the new STi as the newest. We (the mag) struggled, however, to get our hands on the new one in time for the shoot. So we ended up shooting just these 4.

What awesome cars, with an even more awesome soundtrack.

My personal favourite is the one on the left, second, the one on the right!!!

Great cars, and a great lineup. Just a pity about the time of day I had to shoot!

Some Early Work

2008-04-09T01:58:00.000-07:00

These 3 images were some of the earlier images shot as part of my B-Tech degree.

The Honda Civic Type R was photographed with a friend and fellow photographer, Ciaran Nunan, in a very makeshift automotive studio using a whole bunch of polystirene boards and tungsten lighting. The nature of the shoot meant having to do a whole lot of (amateurish) post production. What a car though!!! WOW!