The bus rebuild update

Eagerly I made my way to the panelbeaters today for a squiz at how the kombi was coming along. The rubbing back and panelwork is almost complete, the roof looks to be finished painting and the interior is almost ready too. A couple more weeks and it’ll be sorted. Cool.

Bought a new wood steering wheel and have ordered some parts to pretty it up. Polished safaris, deluxe trim, pop outs, getting the rims painted, and have to sort out the interior.

Very impressed with the awesome job he did on the roof gutters. They were in a pretty mangled condition and full of pop rivets from previous owners hack jobs. Now they are all dead straight and not a hole in sight. In fact the whole car is now nicely rust free. It would have been easy to spend thousands more on getting every panel perfect and straight but when do you cross the line between a drivable restoration and a trailer queen? I want to still drive it most days until the panelvan is finished and can take over daily duties. It’s never meant to be perfect and I hope I never get to the point where I’m afraid to take it in the rain or to a shopping centre car park. If they aren’t driven, what’s the point in having them?

26th April first coats of paint are on!

Enchanted Forest

It was good to catch up with Luke again today. I love visiting his place as each time is a new adventure. There’s always something interesting that a photographer drools over. There’s also some bizarre objects that will give you a laugh. This visits award winner is a tie between some lawn bowls score boards or the ten foot fruit God adorning the driveway.

Here’s some shots from today. Bear in mind these were shot over a quick ten minute walk. Imagine a whole day?

 

 

 

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Bruce’s 1954 Barndoor VW Bus

Wow talk about a crazy shoot. It was bucketing rain pretty much all day but either we did it anyway, or it would be postponed for a third time in a year. We decided to push on and have a crack at shooting between downpours. And rain it did, bucketfuls. We managed to score some pretty cool photos with what we had available. The Fuji XPro-1 managed to crank out some nice colour with the 17mm and 60mm. Not bad combo for a compact photoshoot. I had some led constant lights with me which can be adjusted for tungsten right through to daylight temps but in the end didn’t need to use them. The overcast light was fine and natural light ended up being the winner. I’m not a big fan of artificial lights in outdoor shoots on cars. There’s a ‘wow’ factor but somehow to me it loses it’s soul.

Anyway Bruce was patient while we drove all over the hippy hill country of back Mullumbimby and through some cane fields and bridges. I’ve posted below a small sample of shots from yesterday. The rest will be in a future edition of VW Magazine Australia.

 

 

East Coast Trip – April 2013

This week sees me off to northern NSW in pursuit of a 1954 Barndoor Split Window Kombi. It will be a feature article for VW Magazine Australia (published bi-monthly).

I arrived in the wee early hours straight from 36 degree heat in Perth to 20 degrees of cold an rainy conditions on the Gold Coast. Not the best weather for a photoshoot but Bruce’s VW is a rat look style so it’s not going to require a nice bright shiny day. Actually the weird weather might add to the overall look of it.

I’m jumping in the deep end with this one and decided I’m going to do the entire shoot on the Fuji XPro1 mirroless camera instead of my usual Canon kit. The Fuji gives fantastic results in it’s own style and the file sizes are well large enough for commercial printing. The whole thing will be done using my travel kit of the Fuji with a 17mm 1.4 and a 60mm 2.4 macro. Also lighting via the Glanz 144LED portable light setup and a gorilla grip. The whole kit fits in an overnight bag and is perfect for carry on flights. Stay tuned for some previews after the photoshoot tomorrow.

I’m staying via corporate points at the Rydges QT in Surfers Paradise. I love this hotel for it’s quirkiness and retro feel. From the staff uniforms down to the decor of the rooms. I snapped a few pics when I walked in to give you an idea.