The Past 6 Months…
Its been a while since I’ve posted a general update on here. For those that have been keeping an eye on PHS through our instagram and youtube pages, you can probably conclude that it has been a pretty crazy Spring/Summer/Fall… and you’d be right.
This was our first full car season as a business and I tried to take advantage of every opportunity we were given. Equating to a lot of sleepless nights, long days of travel, and countless hours staring at screens in post production. That being said, its all been worth it. This “can do” mentality has helped meet some great people, while taking me to places I’d never thought I would be.
So as temperatures begin to fall and the toys start going into storage, its a great time to go over some of the highlights of being an automotive photographer and videographer in the northeast:
Bring A Trailer
At this point I’ve probably done over 100 photo shoots for BaT, Cars and Bids, Hemmings, and Pcar Market. This is the majority of my day to day routine and we typically do about 3-5 shoots a week when its hot. Its always refreshing to meet car enthusiasts in your neighborhood, and is further reassurance that there’s more of us! It’s easy to forget that they exist in New England, given our roads are mostly terrible and plagued with traffic. Unless you live an hour outside of the city, its really hard to enjoy a good drive. While the ultimate goal is to help people sell their cars in these transactions, I’ve found that my work sometimes helps these owners fall back in love with their dream machines. I guess I’m doing something right?…
Working with the SCDA
A day at the track is always a good one. Landing the Sports Car Driving Association as a client was very exciting. I’ve had the pleasure of driving at Lime Rock Park on numerous occasions. But after being on the other side of the fence I’ve fostered a different kind of appreciation for this track. In my opinion, its one of the best tracks to photograph at in New England. The outer rim has a plethora of media only sections that provide some great angles to spot the action, and they’re all extremely with some help from the flaggers.
Gridlife
Since I couldn’t participate in Track Battle this year, I was pretty bumbed out that I would be missing out on the festivities. The team behind Gridlife made a strong push this year to grow the sport in the North East and West Coast. Hosting new with events at Watkins Glen, Lime Rock Park and Laguna Seca. Thankfully, Tyler Pappas over at Tyspeed wanted to build off last years success in GLTC and purchased an epic E92 M3 Race Car to develop for the class. I was hired to follow the teams efforts from testing at NJMP to their final race at LRP. You can check out some of that here:
Unfortunately A last minute Pikes Peak effort put the teams further Gridlife plans on hold, but more on that below. Luckily that didn’t stop us from heading to California for Gridlife’s first ever event at Laguna Seca.
Gridlife Laguna
The videos speak for themselves. To put it simply this was just an incredible event. From performances by T-Pain to the first ever full course drift meet at Weathertech Raceway, this was not one to forget. We made quite a splash content wise, with one video of Larry Chen and TJ Hunting reaching over 65,000 views. Taking advantage of the events hype, we were able to gain an overall exposure of around 100,000 views for our various videos.
A dream track, and hopefully next time I can be on the other side of the fence.
Tyspeed / Pikes Peak
Something about going to Americas highest peak and saying, “You wanna race to the top?” just feels right.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a picture of a yellow Porsche GT3 racing into the clouds hanging on my living room wall. This particular picture was taken by Larry Chen at Pikes Peak about 3 or 4 years ago. Once you see it, its a hard image to get out of your head. I think every automotive enthusiast probably has a dream of racing at Pikes Peak: With the sun rising beside us as we cross the double yellow lines. Blending corner to corner with the engine wailing while we slam through the gears.
Sadly, for most of us that experience will probably never happen.
However this year I was incredibly fortunate. I was given the opportunity to go in a different capacity, and I was genuinely surprised when Tyspeed extended the invitation. I would be tasked with telling his story, from the time leading up to the event, to the week of qualifying, and ultimately… Race day.
This video means a lot to me for a variety of reasons, but more on that later. For now, months of planning, filming, and editing are linked below. Here, is episode 1 :
And we’re just getting started… Stay tuned.
// Petrolhead Studios - The automotive photographer and videographer near you.
Servicing Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont. Book a photo shoot near you.