Photographing Volkswagen Cars

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Mark

It was a bright sunny day when a group of VW enthusiasts all decided to meet up at Putrajaya on a Sunday morning. Well, we didn’t really all decided together but more towards an opportunity for me to be able to photograph some VW cars, talk to some of the other members and get to know them better. This is all part of my procrastinated project where I wanted to take the effort to shoot more cars and build up my automotive photography portfolio.

Although this was my first time but I also learned quite a lot of things to take into consideration. Here are some of the results.

Group shot of all the cars which participated in the shoot that morning.

A Volkswagen Scirocco 1.4 TSI with the Scirocco R bumper and custom Euro license plate.

A white VW Scirocco 2.0 TSI with a full Rieger Bodykit

Next up is a series of photos of a Volkswagen Scirocco 1.4 TSI which is not black but rather in the colour, Dark Maroon. But yeah, it looks black in the photos. This car sports a Supersprint exhaust system, Caractere 18″ Rims, a Scirocco R bumper and Rieger side skirts.

Overall I learned that when it comes to photographing cars, a lot of factors come into play. The more I look at my photos, the more that I know I can do better and the mistakes that I have made along the way.

Stay tuned for more photos!

VW Passat, Jetta and Cross Touran

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Mark

The shroud has finally been unveiled. Volkswagen Group Malaysia has finally unveiled the VW Passat, VW Jetta and the VW Cross Touran.

Price structures for these cars are as shown below.

VW Jetta – RM149,888 (160ps, 240Nm, 1.4 TSI, 7-speed DSG gearbox)
VW Passat – RM184,888 (160ps, 250Nm, 1.8 TSI, 7-speed DSG gearbox)
VW Cross Touran – RM166,888 (140ps, 220Nm, 1.4 TSI, 7-speed DSG gearbox)

I am surprised that the Jetta prices are a lot higher than the earlier said rumours which priced the car to be within the RM138k range to compete against the Civics and Altis. At RM150k, the price is going to be very close to that of the Golf TSI.

All of the cars are CBU units as the Pekan plant hasn’t started operations yet.

As with our Malaysian mentality, the market still doesn’t really care about the various car segments and they mostly compare cars based on price.

At RM150k, that touches the Toyota Camry, Accords price range and the Jetta might have a tall order to challenge them. The Jetta wouldn’t be spec as much as the other Japs but in terms of drivability, the Jetta should win hands down.

The Passat priced at RM184k should be within the range of the 2.4 Camry, Mazda 6 as well as the higher specced Accord. I should say the Passat would then be a better buy purely on the fact that the car has good power and the road tax for the Passat which falls within the <2000cc range should make it more attractive. Although, the Ford Mondeo comes at very close competitor offering 200ps and 300Nm at RM180k, I am quite surprised that I don’t see that many Mondeo’s on the road. Probably because of its looks that most people don’t fancy.

Most discussions on the social network tend to show that most people think that the cars are a little overpriced but then again in Malaysia we tend to be buying cars at an overpriced price anyway.

What we haven’t seen yet is the Polo Sedan even though the brochures are now available at the Service Centers. Also everyone is still expecting the Golf R’s as well. I would definitely would love to own a Golf R personally, maybe someday when there are way too many on the road and the second-hand price of it goes down.

Behind the Image

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Mark

Rest in peace Steve Jobs, that seemed to be the theme this whole entire month when the iconic and visionary CEO of Apple passed away. Plenty of blog posts, news wire, memorial services flood the internet, I was curious. Curious about his life, curious about this photo.

Yes, that is the photo on the splash screen on the Apple website. Getting aside from being emotional over the demise of a great man, the curious side of me or shall I say the photographer in me wondered, who was the guy who took that image of Steve and what was the story behind it?

This sort of sparked from a message I received from Grace about taking images of family members during a wedding and you never knew when they would use those images. The last thing on my mind was that at the funeral memorial service. But it did make sense to use because in our Malaysian mindset, taking photos isn’t so much of something my parent’s generation like to do and how many times have we seen on the obituary, the photo used in our IC (identification card) is displayed.

Anyway back to the point. After mucking around on the internet, I found out a little bit more about the story behind the image of Steve. Read it more below.

Steve Jobs: Visionary, Inventor, and Very Challenging Photo Subject

©Doug Menuez/Getty Images
The media is heaping accolades on Apple founder Steve Jobs, who died yesterday of cancer at the age of 56. Tributes have poured in from all over the world. Jobs was a visionary who changed the way we use and interact with technology. The iPhone and iPad have certainly helped re-make the photography landscape.
But Steve Jobs also had a reputation among photographers for being a difficult subject–and not just run-of-the mill difficult, but the archetype of difficult.
“It was the joke among photographers. He was like the nightmare subject,” says San Francisco photographer William Mercer McLeod, who photographed Jobs on assignment a total of five times, and once worked for Apple, helping to develop the company’s Aperture software.
Asked to recount his experiences photographing Jobs, another photographer said, “I don’t really want to be the guy who pans iGod during this hour of national mourning!”
Photojournalist Ed Kashi, who photographed Jobs about 10 times between the early 1980s and early 1990s, recalled via text message, “He was one of the most difficult subjects I ever dealt with during my Silicon Valley years but I appreciated his awareness of identity, setting and message of the images. There was one time I had to get a picture with him and Ross Perot and when Jobs acted up Perot turned to him and like a stern parent said ‘Steve, Grow up!!’ No matter how dreadful he could be as a subject, I am deeply saddened by his early departure.”
McLeod says his first encounter with Jobs was as an assistant for Kashi. “It was in the late 80s. [Jobs] walked into the photo shoot and started moving the lights around. Then he picked up the phone and called the art director in New York and said he wanted to do something different.”
McLeod recalls how he and Kashi stood there watching in disbelief. “He’s the only person I ever saw do that,” McLeod continues. “Photographing Steve was like a dance. He had such a thing for control like nobody I’ve ever seen. He loved to be in charge. He wanted to have his say.”
“From an editor’s standpoint he could be difficult,” says Scott Thode, a former Fortunemagazine photo editor. “[He was] not unlike a political candidate. The main difference is that he had a real sense of design and how things can look.”
Doug Menuez spent more time photographing Jobs than just about any other photographer, after Jobs agreed to let him document the development of the NeXT computer. Menuez had access to the labs and boardroom for three years.
“In all those years, Steve only screamed at me at the top of his lungs once,” Menuez recalls. It was in 1988, when Fortune hired Menuez to shoot a portrait of Jobs for the cover of the magazine. Menuez wanted to photograph him in the NeXT offices, on a staircase that Jobs had commissioned architect I.M Pei to design. Jobs arrived for the shoot, looked at what Menuez had in mind, “then [he] leaned in and says, ‘This is the stupidest fucking idea that I’ve ever seen.’ Right in my face, like 5 or 6 inches away,” Menuez says. “I felt like I was 10 years old. He went off on a tirade. He said, ‘You just want to sell magazines. ‘And I said, ‘And you want to sell computers.’ And at that he said, ‘OK,’ and sat down.
Menuez concludes, “ I’ve been in war zones, but I like to say that I became a man learning how to stand my ground with Steve.”
Albert Watson, who photographed Jobs just once for a portfolio of people in power that Fortune commissioned him to shoot in 2006, had a different experience from other photographers. “The one thing I insisted on was that we have a three hour window of set up time,” Watson says. “We were prepared…we set up to make [every shoot] as greased lightning fast as possible for the [subject].’ Watson says he had also read “a massive amount of stuff” about Jobs to help him conceptualize the shoot, and so he would be able to converse with Jobs intelligently.
When Jobs walked in, Watson says that his power, charisma and genius were palpable. “It was like when Clint Eastwood walks in to the room.”
Jobs didn’t look immediately at Watson, but looked instead at the set-up and then focused on Watson’s 4×5 camera “like it was something dinosauric,” Watson recalls, “and he said, ‘Wow, you’re shooting film.”
“I said, ‘I don’t feel like digital is quite here yet.’ And he said, ‘I agree,’ then he turned and looked at me and said, ‘But we’ll get there.’”
Jobs gave Watson about an hour–much longer than he ever gave most photographers for a portrait session. “I had wanted to do the shot in a minimalistic way because I knew that was going to suit him very well. He said, ‘What do you want me to do?’ I said I would like 95 percent, almost 100 percent of eye contact with the camera, and I said, ‘Think about the next project you have on the table,’ and I asked him also to think about instances where people have challenged him.
“If you look at that shot, you can see the intensity. It was my intention that by looking at him, that you knew this guy was smart,” Watson says, adding, “I heard later that it was his favorite photograph of all time.”
Apple cleared its home page today to post that photograph as a tribute to Jobs.
(correction: an earlier version of this story said Fortune commissioned Albert Watson to photograph Steve Jobs in 2008. The date was actually 2006.)

Source of the story: http://pdnpulse.com/2011/10/steve-jobs-visionary-inventor-and-very-challenging-photo-subject.html

The amount of work put in by the photographers just to shoot Steve was absolutely amazing, I mean, 3 hours or prep work? Shooting in film? Standing up to his screams? These are the guys who like in turn captures the most amazing or memorable images. And with this image plastered on the Apple main page, hundreds of millions of people will remember Steve by it. What an honour.

Now, to gain a little bit of insight to what they meant about Steve’s character, I would recommend that you watch this show, Pirates of Silicon Valley, to see how Steve’s character was portrayed alongside together with Bill Gates. Because frankly, before watching this movie, Steve in my head was that of an angel with a strong fatherly figure and someone you might look up to and ask for more porridge. Well, that movie did definitely set my thinking straight but it also came to me as a revelation that Steve’s character is what made Apple what it is today.

Internet Rantings

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Mark

BERSIH came twice with protests on the streets and garnered a huge publicity. Upheavals in the Middle East brought down governments and don’t even get me started on the countless of revolutions which happened over the past hundreds of years. Riots and panic caused a lot of damage and even death to some of the people caught in the stampede. Most of this time, it all takes a bit of spark to set off the mob mentality.

Nowadays, we take that very same mentality to the internet. First we had the case where a video of a guy punishing his poodle and that was publicized on all social media networks from Facebook to Youtube to blogs and even news portals. Then came many more rantings and created that mob mentality online. It all just takes a spark and the whole internet community became enraged.

The problem is that, as much as we say that facts are sometimes turned around on our news and mainstream media, I tend to see the same thing happening on the internet as well.

Take this story about a bartender in the US of A, she waited on a couple one night at the bar and lo and behold, when the couple left and paid for their drinks, they didn’t leave a tip. That might seem normal here especially in Malaysia where service charge is already charged into our bills but in the states, it is deemed as rude not to leave a tip.

A normal tip usually ranges from 15-20% and whenever I travelled to the states, I made sure I used an app on my iPhone to help me calculate my bill when eating out (which I do anyway since I was travelling).

The worse part for that bartender was that, the couple also wrote a small note on the receipt.

p.s. You could stand to loose a few pounds

Image source: http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/

By the way, that’s “lose” instead of “loose”.

Anyway, she became enraged and posted this receipt on her Facebook page and the thing just went viral. She gotten tonnes of support from people and they even started researching for this alleged person who left the note and the no tip and when they found the guy, a whole hate smear campaign onslaught went on.

The problem with the whole entire episode was that the bartender, gotten the wrong guy! I guess with “gwailo” fellas, a first and a last name such as John Smith (just an example, the guy’s name wasn’t John Smith) would be extremely common.

I can just imagine that one day just waking up and finding out that half the internet community is knocking on your social media door asking for comments or just plain bashing you in.

Of course the news site have then issued apologies here, here and here. But the damage has been done already. So the next time you decide to start an online vigilante campaign, just make sure that you do your own proper research and homework before hitting out on innocent folks out there.

Movie Review – Real Steel

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Mark

The Ping Pong in Hong Kong! A line from the movie which sort of stayed within the confines of my brain. Why is that? It’s because “Real Steel” was a totally awesome show. I have actually heard of the show but because it really didn’t garner as much marketing budget versus some other movies where they had the movie posters plastered over billboards across town, Real Steel was really a great movie in hiding. I guess that’s why there are so many movie reviews written about this movie right now.

real steel final poster Movie Review Real Steel

Most movies that have been hyped up usually target a summer launch in order to catch the crowd so by the end of the year, I never did expect a fantastic show such as “Real Steel” to really wow the crowd. I haven’t read a single negative review about the movie yet although it garnered a 7.5 score on IMDB but personally, this movie deserves a 9/10 in my books.

Noisy Boy e1315386560788 Movie Review Real Steel

Set in the near future, where robot boxing is a top sport, a struggling promoter feels he’s found a champion in a discarded robot. During his hopeful rise to the top, he discovers he has an 11-year-old son who wants to know his father.

The story begins with a very washed out Charlie Kenton (played by Hugh Jackman) an ex-boxer who now has lost his livelihood since Robot boxing has taken the arena. As he struggles through life with mountains of debt and robots, him finding out that he has a 11-year old son really changed his life.

real steel 1 Movie Review Real Steel

We have always known Hugh Jackman as a very tough man especially in his roles as Wolverine, this time, Hugh Jackman played his role very well and turns this movie into both an action packed story line as well as one that tugs on your emotional strings.

What I was thoroughly impressed was the amount of CG graphics (computer generated) used and how it blended in nicely with the story as well as the overall ambiance. It wasn’t overly done but executed extremely tastefully. But hey, who doesn’t like to watch two robots punching each other in a ring.

Overall, Real Steel is really an underdog movie which definitely is worth watching in the cinema for its awesome CG graphics and even for the story line. It’s nice to feel that nice fuzzy warmth at the end of the show. Watch the show, and you will know what I am talking about.

Prior to the launch of this movie as well, a viral site was also launched in accordance with the move. Do check out http://www.wrb.com/

Congratulations to VIE Gallery

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Mark

I was invited last weekend by both Edwin Tan and Nicholas Leong over to their new gallery located in Bangsar South. It was a fun event with plenty of other photographers about with food and even a photo booth!

Put photographers in front of the camera and you end up having loads of wacky pictures. Some just too wacky that it has to be censored. Or should I leak one or two up on this site.

I know I had way too much cake at the event but am a little sad that I missed the champagne popping session that you guys did after I left. At least I didn’t get splashed with champagne

A Visit to the Batcave a.k.a Autodetailer

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Mark

Being part of the WPPM does have its benefits. Though I am a little shy as I haven’t posted about photography in a while, this time I managed to join Patrick Low on one of his Photographer’s chill out sessions at Autodetailer. In case you may not be familiar, Autodetailer is located at Jaya One and it prides itself as Malaysia’s most advanced detailing studio.

I first met Darren when I attended the Nigel Barker’s workshop a while back. Am glad that he managed to recognize me when I arrived at his studio.

Took this shot using my iPhone 4 and edited the image using SnapSeed

As I was at another event prior to this, by the time I arrived at the batcave, Darren was already giving the rest of the group a tour of his detailing studio. It is really really impressive and there has been countless of articles on the Star as well as car magazines which featured his studio.

Large turnout at the Photographer’s Chill Out session

It was a real pity that my gears were in for service at the time or else I would be happily taking photos of his studio but I was very impressed with his car studio setup as well as his post processing setup. I have never seen a Wacom tablet that is larger than a 24″ iMac in my life before!

After going through a tour of the detailing studio, I was utterly amazed! No wonder plenty of people send their cars to Darren to detail as well as restore. It’s just amazing to see the amount of detailed work they put into each and every car. I was literally blown away and amazed and I can say that his detailing studio is the only one that has an iMac and a uber large Wacom tablet

Here are some of the images taken by Darren and displayed on his Facebook Page.

The last of the 3 images above has me very intrigued lately. Mainly because that is Darren’s car and he has been working on his personal project which is to transform his Mito into a unique looking mini car which looks totally awesome. You can find out more about Project Mito at the blog or you can always check out their Facebook Page for latest updates. Do check out this Facebook Album set for a plethora of poisonous images.

I think I should do that as well for my Golf but most of the time, my Golf is pretty much dirty from all the rainy weather we have been having. It definitely needs a good wash!

For more information about WPPM and the monthly Photographer’s Chill-Out Sessions, do visit the WPPM Facebook page for updates.

Clearing out your Gmail Inbox

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Mark

There are times when you are just stuck in queues and have to wait for your turn. I think society in general tends to make us think that we are in a uber fast paced world but only to hit you back to reality with long queues and lines. Traffic jams are a norm these days and long queues at most outlets such as “ChaTime” or the immigration department seems to be one of these norms.

2117388 Clearing out your Gmail Inbox

Anyway, the other day, I sent my car in to the service center and while I was waiting for my car to be serviced, I tapped into the free wi-fi and started trying to figure out some site online to fill my time. Of course in this digital world, emails are one of my key communication tools so I logged in to my email accounts. First mail I read was an automated email from my email administrator informing me that I was reaching the limit for my mailbox size.

I guess I still am not used to having a 150MB limit especially ever since I have been using Gmail. So being the usual curious guy, I went to my Gmail account to check how much space I have actually used.

Yikes! 51% usage for my Gmail account and increasing! The first thing I did like every other normal Outlook user would do, was to try to figure out how to sort my emails by size. And only by then can I select the largest sized ones and delete them. Apparently that didn’t work because based on Google’s Gmail theory, you don’t need to sort your mails with Gmail.

After mucking through the search results, I chanced upon this site, https://www.findbigmail.com/

What it basically does is to help you scan through your Gmail account and then provides you with an email which provides several pie charts to visualize the emails you have archived.

The image above shows the scan results of my Gmail and the top 20 emails are all more than 20Mb in size. Most of them are me sending images about and after clearing them, I have managed to free up quite a fair bit of space within my mailbox.

As a result of the scan, it also creates 3 categories or 3 labels in your Gmail account and labels the emails accordingly.

By clicking on these labels, it pulls out emails that are either larger than 2Mb, somewhere between 500kb to 2Mb and finally any emails that are larger than 100kb.

Personally this tool is somewhat useful, mainly because Gmail does provide us with so much storage space that it would take a lot of emails to delete before seeing large space savings. Any how if you are running out of space on your Gmail account, do try out this tool. You never know how handy it might turn out to be. Best of all, this service is free!

Using PLEX Media at home

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Mark

VW Das Auto Show – Part 2

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Mark

With the VW Das Auto Show happening over the weekend, the Bukit Jalil Stadium has been transformed, well not the actual stadium itself but if you happened to drive by it you would definitely notice a huge white dome right in the parking lot. I was quite lucky to get invited together with a bunch of Nuffnang bloggers to attend the media opening of the VW Das Auto Show.

Upon entering the car park, because I was driving a Golf, the guards were nice to lead me towards the Volkswagen Vehicles only parking. At the end of the event I did find out that the sign actually meant that it was for Volkswagen Group Malaysia’s staff but of course my ignorance did get the better of me and I just proceeded to park amongst the other VW marques. There was plenty of parking space available and over the weekend, parking will be free.

I arrived a little earlier and was greeted with the registration counter amidst a huge room.

While waiting for the other bloggers to arrive, I managed to catch up with Nicholas and also meet Tian Chad and Huai Bin. After registering at the counter and receiving our own personal goody packs, we were ushered into a hall right next to the registration counter where light refreshments were served.

After a couple of orange juices, catching with some of my sales advisors from the Wearnes VW branch and also talking to some of the other bloggers, I went about checking out several booths which were selling VW merchandises such as key chains, caps, polo shirts and more.

If you get bored waiting about or are feeling a little bit restless, there are a number of racing simulators available to try out.

This is definitely how Gran Turismo 5 is meant to be played and not using the usual PS3 joystick. I wonder how much would a set up like this cost if I were to get it right in my living room.

After munching through several tidbits which were rather tasty, the group were then ushered into the main dome. I reckon there were about 200+ participants this morning.

We were then seated at the center of the dome while surrounded by large screens.

Elaine Daly took to the center stage as the emcee for the show.

The first speaker, Petra Schreiber, Marketing Director at Volkswagen Group Malaysia, then presented about the Volkswagen brand and what Das Auto meant. Volkswagen is committed to create high-end cars for every segment hence the true meaning of Das Auto which translate to the The Car.

Then as the speeches continued, the first 3 cars were showcased in a very unique manner, words can hardly describe the event as you really need to be there to fully experience it, the dome, the music, the projections and the cars themselves. 3 guesses on which were the first 3 cars.

The Volkswagen Golf has been around and it truly is an iconic model which truly represents what a hot hatchback should be. Frankly, I think I am in love with the 3-door version of the Golf R. Seriously, a nice sun-roof, 260 horses under that hood, the beautiful Talladega rims and that wicked AWD system, this is the car for me. Now I wonder how long it would take for me to even save up for the down-payment for this car.

After the Golf came the showcase of the Cross Touran and the Sharan. Both of these are MPV’s and as explained, try driving one and you wouldn’t feel as if you were driving an MPV but rather a sporty vehicle.

The moment the MPV’s were driven off, then came the VW Passat. Now this car has been on the radar of the Malaysian public ever since the announcement that this is one of the models which will be assembled here in Malaysia.

And as the Passat arrived at the front, Daniel Tan, the director for Volkswagen Group Malaysia alighted from the car to give the next speech.

The Passat shouldn’t be a real surprise for you all here as I did post previously about the Superbowl advertisement which I thought was extremely hilarious and creative! See the advertisement here.

Petra then returned with an electric scooter which was completely silent and wowed the crowd. There was a huge applause as she then continued to talk about how Volkswagen Blue is the next green. In case you aren’t too familiar with the Blue Motion versions of the VW vehicles, you can check it out here.

Then as she continued with her speech, the main show began as the Volkswagen models started rolling in.

The awesome Scirocco R!

The two Polos, the Polo Sedan will also be assembled here in Malaysia.

The VW Amarok! Definitely very rare in our country.

The new VW EOS with the top down, this car is definitely a babe magnet. Trust me and I can prove it later.

The VW Jetta, the last of the 3 models which will be assembled here in Malaysia

In total there will be 13 VW models that will be rolling in the dome and the finale was a surprise. It was the new VW Beetle!

Decked out in red, this baby really does look like a mini Porsche 911.

And as the event started to close off, we were greeted with a choir of children singing together with a guest appearance by Ella!

At the end of the event, me being the ever curious person decided to go and capture a couple more photos of the Beetle because my earlier shot were blocked by the folks in front.

A full frontal of the Beetle!

The interior really did look sexy, covered in the same red as the car, the styling is really awesome.

A flat bottom steering wheel with red finishing.

Looks very much like the RNS510 to me.

Manual shifters for a bit of fun!

Beautiful looking rims

Ample space in the boot, surprisingly!

Sound system by the guys who brought the world, the Stratocaster, yes, Fender, baybeh!

As we were ushered out of the dome, the display isn’t over yet! We were then brought into a huge area where all of the existing models currently sold at the dealers were on display. At the same time the sales advisors were also there to explain about each model and give you a personal tour of the cars.

Of course I took the opportunity to molest the latest model which was launched a couple of weeks ago, the Polo GTI.

Earlier I mentioned that the EOS was a babe magnet and believe me, it really was.

Non-stop, ladies were climbing into the car, checking it out, having their photos taken! Believe me, I couldn’t even get a photo of the car without anyone in it. I guess the colour of this particular one did help as well.

At the end of the tour, I managed to quickly grabbed a quick photo of some of us who were just around the area. A big thanks to Volkswagen for inviting me to be one of the participants for this fantastic event.

As I walked out to the exit, I noticed a strange and rare sight indeed, a tiger driving through the streets of the Sepang Track.

The Volkswagen Das Auto Show will be going on throughout the weekend, so do swing by
and check it out at:

Bukit Jalil National Stadium
September 10 – 11 (10am – 10pm)
http://www.dasautoshow.com.my

Mark Leo Dot Net

Loving all things photography, tech, gadgets, Apple and cars

Category Archives: Personal