• Niseko Japan

2013 has started off in the right direction with a trip to Japan. After I tended to my work duties, a short plane ride north landed my buddies and I in Sapporo. The largest northern island of Japan but we still had a long 3 hour bus ride until our desintation- Niseko Japan.

Not exactly known to have high elevation or good vertical, Niseko made all that up in the snow department. It wouldn’t stop snowing, which isn’t exactly a bad thing, rather it meant fresh powder runs every day we were there.

I think I’ve said enough. Check out the video to see what I’m talking about.

•  Latest Photos

Surprise, Surprise, more car photos to blog about. The weather has been pretty much perfect here so I was able to finally take my brother’s 240SX out and snap some pictures of it before we swap the wheels out to a different set.

•  A Rare Opportunity

I photograph cars, lots of them but I’m usually stuck shooting vehicles that cater to my magazine -mainly Japanese sports cars (or econoboxes depending how you look at it). That’s why when some fellow cohorts over at Motor Trend asked me if I knew someone who could shoot a very rare automobile in the Chatham, ON region I told them I know a hack that can put together some OK looking images.

I won’t bore you with all the details but if you haven’t guessed it that hack was me and I got to shoot this one-of-a-kind, prototype 1967 Plymouth XNR. What made things even better is that it ended up on the cover of Motor Trend Classic.

Seeing as I’m always striving for perfection there are a lot of things I would have liked to change about this shoot but overall I’m pretty happy with the results and how it turned out in the magazine. To me, there’s just something special about seeing your photos in a large format mag on glossy high quality paper. I love the internet but it just doesn’t compare to this.

And here are some of the photos that didn’t make it into the magazine. Enjoy.

• New Years Post – A month later

Albeit 30 (or more depending on when you read this) days late, this is my first post of 2012. Life has become a little too hectic for me to keep up with fresh and interesting content on this site and still produce the quality of work I need to at my day job. I hope 2012 will bring more opportunities for me to get some posts up here, especially since I’m back in my native land, Canada. I’ve made it a goal to get some photos of this country since I’ve been immersed in posting content from the ol’ USA.

To start things off, I had a pretty great time at a friends cottage for my New Year and happened to bring along a camera for it. The video below summarizes the weekends events.

However, since the frames fly by pretty quickly, I thought it would be great to provide some explanation as to the events happenings.

The card game ‘Uecker’ is a popular choice during any northern getaway. There happened to be a massive tournament that broke out during new years eve.

To spice things up, certain rules were added to ensure people would keep drinking. Oh and there were some good festive costumes on hand as well.

Sometimes cards would end up flying through the air…

And people’s eyes would wander, ok just kidding I’m sure Michelle is looking at something other than Dustin’s cards but I couldn’t help but chuckle at this photo.

Here is the wrath of being dealt a bad hand.

That’s the face of a champion…after taking a shot.

Aside from the cards, an iPad proved valuable. It’s no replacement for a real chess board but when you don’t have one it’s a suitable alternative.

Then there’s the pinball machine, a great game that has ate many a peoples hours in search of the ultimate high score.

Chinese ping pong (don’t ask me why it’s called that) is a great game that involves a group of people running around the table hitting the ball back and forth. Miss the ball or hit it out of play and you’re out.

The Ice Luge isn’t much of a game but a great way to have a cold shot.

This large slab of ice was hand crafted but truth be told, a lot of time was spent making it for the small amount of drinks that poured down its icy path.

A walk in the great outdoors is refreshing and rejuvenating especially when you’ve been cooped up inside for a while.

The dog probably loved it the most.

The cottage’s Canadian flag has seen better days, here it is being retired.

It may not be a California sunset but it’s still just as beautiful.

Dinner is a feast to behold. My friends are all great chefs so we end up having a spectacular New Year’s Eve meal.

It’s a rare moment when everyone is focused solely on their food but this picture captures just that.

Now that’s what you call a burger!

Shortly after dinner the festivities began.

As everyone partied inside we went out to the fire pit to ignite the piles of wood and cardboard.

Some gas helped the cause and using fireworks as our ignitor, the fire roared to life. The images below show the firework about to strike and we have lift off!

Burn baby burn!

We still had plenty of fireworks left to light and what better (or I should say worst) way to light them off then the raging fire.

Firing it out of your hand is way cooler then sticking it into the ground.

Fireworks are something I could play with all day long, apparently the same goes for my friends.

As the fire began to settle, we realized it was almost midnight.

Rushing inside the clock struck midnight and the champagne began flowing with hugs and handshakes all around.

There’s about 2-3 hours that I don’t remember nor do I have photos from but at the tail end of an early morning a rather amusing or cruel, depending on the way you look at it, game broke out. Sting pong. You play a round of ping pong and the loser gets to smash the ball at the opponent.

Some walked away with only a couple war wounds.

While others weren’t so lucky.

And that just about sums up what all went on, a great new years was had which means that this year should prove to be a great one.

•  Time, where have you gone?

To say the last three months have been hectic and stressful would be an understatement. My life has been pretty much turned up side down and I’m still in the process of restoring order to it.

The main reason why I’ve been so delinquent posting on the blog is because I had an insane deadline to meet with my last project car. The photos below represent the finished product but for a closer look at how this car came together and all the blood, sweat and tears I put into this car check out my build thread here: http://zilvia.net/f/chat/385069-ls3-build-thread-s13-hatch-hate-v8.html

I hope to get back to updating this site a bit more often but don’t expect anything like it was a year ago, when I was posting a couple times a week. I just don’t have the time nor energy with my busy work schedule. I will however, make a concentrated effort to get content up as winter starts to really set in and I’m forced to hibernate inside my home.

This is what I started out with. A stock 1991 Nissan 240SX.

And in 2 short months this is the finished product.

• Hanging Out

Had a run in with a rather acrobatic spider in my bathroom. He swung around for long enough for me to get some photos of him. Spiders have always amazed me, actually I should say their web/silk amazes me more than anything. Can you imagine slinging a thin line that you depend on for strength and durability? Only if I could trade places for a day…