Theme Tuesdays: Favourite Shots of 2011

I had another theme ready to go today until I realized that this was the last Tuesday of the year and I should do something ‘special’ for the occasion.

Going to events and shooting features for a year adds up to a large number of photos and since I have never really brought together my personal favourites before I figured that was enough of a theme to go with for today.

These shots are in no particular order.

Favourite Event Coverage Photos

No matter how often I see it and shoot hop contests I will always be a sucker for a shot like this.

There is always so much worth capturing in the moment; the focus in the eyes of the judge, the detailed under carriage, and the captivated crowd.

Event Coverage: Parking Lot Pimpin’ 3

I had to wait for the sea of people to part around this car at the ‘Stakes Is High’ Stretch and Poke meet because I wanted to try and capture a photo similar to this one.

I wish I shot this photo in raw so I could have lightened up the diffuser and muffler area a little more, oh well.

Event Coverage: S&P June 19th 2011: Part 2

On set-up night of Importfest 2011 Liberty VIP rolled in a little late and once they got into the lobby Brett wasted no time getting his car ready.

Since he was ready before everyone else I decided to take some photos of his car knowing I wouldn’t be able to replicate this shot the day after.

I think I spotted it as his signature on Stance Works too which is cool.

Event Coverage: Importfest 2011 Part:1

The Scraped Crusaders live up to their name, and this photo is actually the second time I captured this fact with my camera.

Luckily I happened to be heading back to my car when they were moving their cars from the parking lot to a more visible area kicking up dust and pushing rocks the entire way.

Event Coverage: CSCS 2011 Round II: Part 1

Two miracles in this shot; the first is the remarkable fact that a CSCS Drag racing was running perfect all day with no rain delays, and the second is that I managed to get an in focus pan shot of this car which was really moving down the strip.

Next year I need to remember to bring my tripod along for panning shots.

Event Coverage: CSCS Opener 2011: Pt 1

The only thing better than capturing a Skyline about to go on the track is capturing on on the track.

Even though I failed to get this one on the track I still like this photo.

There is always next year to see it run anyway.

Event Coverage CSCS 2011: Round III Pt 2

I didn’t attend as many Street Classics events as I did previously but the ones I did show up to all had great turnouts.

To me this photo really captures all of the great parts of a Street Classics Cruise in.

Including a sea of vehicles built before auto makers started catering more towards ‘appliance’ cars.

The only thing this photo doesn’t have is 50s music.

Event Coverage: Street Classics July 9th 2011

Anthony had a pretty good 2011 season picking up a new sponsor and driving fairly consistently at all of the events I saw him compete in.

This shot was taken during the demo where he was showing off a little bit (hence the arm out the window) and I like it mostly for the same reasons I like the Mustang panning shot from up above, things that should be in focus are more or less in focus.

Event Coverage: CSCS Finale 2011 Part: One

Dan has one of the most recognizable s2000s in the GTA and this year his car has rightfully received a ton of love online.

This ants eye view angle really captures how low the car really is.

I’ve never seen his lip look anything but pristine either.

Event Coverage: S&P – United We Stance

It is always cool to see people rocking stickers for the site on their cars especially stickers as big as the Importfest exclusive ones.

Thanks to everyone for the support in 2011 and Adam here for putting his in such a high profile spot.

Event Coverage: CSCS Finale 2011 Part: Two

Favorite Feature Photos

Prior to shooting Matt’s car I had never done any of the feature photography on the site.

My girlfriend (who is still a far, far, better photographer than I am) convinced me to get out and start doing some of the features myself  and helped me out with Matt’s shoot.

When I got home I was pretty happy with most of the shots.

Featured Ride: Matt’s 2001 S2000

There are actually two buildings in this location and of the two this is not the one I had planned on using. However the shots in front of the other building were just not working out as much as I’d hoped.

So I shot in front of this building instead and was able to get a few photos that worked better including this one.

There was a bum sleeping inside of the other building anyway.

Featured Ride: Richie’s SLK 350

Mina’s car is pretty photogenic so it wasn’t really hard to get a lot of good shots of it. The hardest part came later when I was editing the photos because J’s Racing Teal turned out to be a hard colour to capture accurately.

I scouted this location before hand and this was one of the photos I had in my mental shot list, very happy with how it turned out.

Featured Ride: Mina’s Golf GTI

That is pretty much it for my favourite photos of 2011, next week I will return to the normal Theme Tuesday format and I should have an event coverage retrospective going up Thursday.