As most of you know my full time Monday through Friday gig is the inhouse media specialist for an import shop here in Marietta, Ga. called Forged Performance. The majority of our customers drive Evo’s, STI’s, VQ35 based cars like the Z and G and of course Nissan’s flagship supercar: The GT-R. Our shop racecar is a fully race prepared R35 GT-R that was built for the purposes of competing in Time Attack Series and proved itself time and time again across the US putting down insanely fast lap times. It now produces more than 650awhp, is fully stripped with two Racetech Seats, FP Spec Race Cage with NASCAR Door Bars, 18″ HRE’s, Hoosier Slicks, brake upgrades, JRZ external reservoir coilovers and more. I have taken MANY photos of it in 2011 but I wanted to start 2012 off by posting some desktop wallpapers of this beast right here on my own personal blog for everyone. I took this shot with a rental Nikon 16mm f2.8 Fisheye, in a pitch black warehouse and lit the car using a LED flashlight doing multiple exposures. To be honest it was just me playing around to see what would happen but I think the end result came out pretty nice! Enjoy and make sure to check out the FORGED PERFORMANCE BLOG and the FORGED PERFORMANCE FACEBOOK PAGE.

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This past summer I contacted Alex, a NSX owner who had been around the Atlanta car scene for many years and inquired why his turbocharged show winning NSX had never seen print. After speaking with him for a few minutes I knew a feature was a goal he wanted to achieve for many years. Knowing the history this NSX and how it has been used over the past years I was certain the car and its story was more than worthy of a feature. This mint condition supercar has seen countless airport strip events where it has gone to battle with the likes of Z06’s, GT-R’s, Vipers and Supra’s. Alex also participates in many cross country road rally events where the car is driven extremely hard for many days at a time. This is NOT your average show car queen, Sunday afternoon cruise, babied and hardly every driven NSX….this is a highly modified monster that is driven like it was stolen. I love it.

Hit up your local bookstore and pick up a copy of the February/March 2012 issue of Honda Tuning to read more about the history and experiences surrounding Alex’s NSX….and of course to see my photos in print!

Last weekend I met up with Damian to complete a Christmas Gift Photoshoot of his blacked out GSX-R 600 street bike. We met in downtown Atlanta to scout for a location that would work for this GSX-R, after checking out a few spots and riding around for about 30 minutes I decided that a local parking garage would be our best bet. Here we were safe from the harsh afternoon sunlight and I got to work setting up my flashes and camera equipment. This week I have edited a couple photos a night and am very happy with the end result. The photos came out really clean and classy, which was exactly what I was going for with this beautiful machine.

Almost a year ago I met Bobby, who owns a mint condition Mustang GT that has only seen a tad over 8,000 miles in the 12 years since it rolled off the showroom floor and into Bobby’s garage. Even though this GT looks mild by most people standards it is far from it. This car is the textbook example of a sleeper. On the exterior the car remains mostly stock with its perfect OEM paint and body panels. The only visible modification is the ultra rare, no longer available, BBS RK wheels. The interior matches the exteriors theme and keeps it low key, except for that little knob on the center console which controls how much PSI is force feed into the engine via a Turbonetics T67. On 93 octane pump gas this “everyday looking” Mustang GT puts 674whp and 659wtq to the ground. I am very proud to have had the opportunity to shoot this beautiful New Edge Mustang for 5.0 Mustangs and Super Fords. Please stop by your local store and pick up the February 2012 issue to read the entire story of Bobby’s Mustang and see more of my photos.

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Jim, the owner of a heavily modified Evo to inform me that he wanted to have some high quality photos done of his car. I was able to fit him and his car into my extremely busy schedule this past Sunday and we worked together to produce what is in my opinion some amazing shots.

Shooting a black car creates so many more challenging situations than any other color. Black cars are nothing but a large reflective wall that terrifies most automotive photographers. I am far from mastered the techniques to be extremely successful shooting black cars but I have made progress over the years and they scare me a little less these days. What I have found to work the best is to shoot on a tripod and take many different exposures twisting the circular polarizer that you better have on the front of your camera lens. For lighting I just grab a speed light, defuse it and power it up to 1/4-ish. This is purely for fill light and to bring out details in the wheels, brakes, grill and/or intercooler of the car. Hopefully this image build explains what my fingers and keyboard can not.

Click the image to see the higher resolution version.

A few weeks ago I was contacted by two local auto enthusiasts that were in need of high quality photos of their cars. Both of these fine gentlemen own modified Ford GT’s that are equipped with Whipple 3.4L Superchargers and all the supporting bolt-on’s. These forced fed, mid engine, V8 powered, pump gas monsters put down over 700whp each on very conservative tunes and are just absolutely beautiful to look at. I hope every one enjoys the photos and much as I enjoyed taking them:

A few months ago I meet up with Tuan to shoot his Jackson Racing Supercharged K20 Integra. This shoot was done for Honda Tuning so I was not able to share the images until now. Most of you know this car pretty well but here is a full run down of this super clean and well done Integra for those that don’t….

2003 K20R swap
Jackson Racing Supercharger
Delphi 750cc injectors
Hybrid Racing Fuel Rail
Hasport Mounts
RSX-S Axles
Hondata Intake Manifold Gasket
Exedy Stage 1 clutch
Custom Exhaust ? Apexi Mid-Pipe paired with Custom Axle Back with
Vibrant Muffler made by Tuan
Custom -3 Clutch Line
Custom Intake made by Tuan
Mugen Strut Bar
MagnaFuel Regulator
Earls Fuel Fittings and Line
Mugen Oil Cap
Hybrid Racing AC Kit
C&R Racing Radiator
JDM ITR 36mm 5 Lug Suspension
Buddy Club N+ Coilovers
Russell SS brake lines
OEM honda pads all the way around
Spoon Calipers
Project Kics Neo Chro Lug nuts
Volk CE28N 16X7 Diamond Black
R-Crew Header
EDM ITR Cluster
JDM ITR DC5 Recaros BLUE
Nardi 350mm deep corn steering wheel
ITR interior flux stuff
Kenwood indash 7100
Spoon Shift Knob
Spoon Carbon Mirrors
Spoon DC2 Carbon Lip
ASR Subframe Brace Blue
ITR rear sway bar
ITR LCA’s
Beaks Tie bar
EDM ITR tail lights
EBC Rotors
Hybrid Racing Swap Harness
Karcepts Shifter plate
Odyssey battery
Alpine Type R Component 6.5 speakers
JDM ITR HID Front end

Met up with Justin this past weekend to get some shots of his Turbo H22 Accord on air. It was good to break out the strobes and do work. Hope everybody enjoys the photos.

IMPORT ALLIANCE: To be honest, we all know not much needs to be said at this point. If you are reading this you already know what the deal is. This is the biggest meet Atlanta experiences on a yearly basis, but this year things changed. It got bigger….by much more than anybody expected. Even months before the event was scheduled pre-meets and get togethers started being planned and the anticipation was a lot stronger than previous years. By the time IA was only a few weeks away, I had gotten word of SIX pre-meet events on Saturday.

It seemed like the largest one was the SOUTHRNFRESH.COM pre-meet/cook-out/dyno day being hosted by MAINSTREAMPERFORMANCE.COM. Of course I wasn’t going to pass up free food so I packed up the camera gear and rode out. There ended up being a great turn out with lots of cool people and a great mix of sick cars to point my camera at…..

After being there for a few hours I rode back to the house for a quick power nap.

After getting some rest, I headed out to the Barrett Parkway Starbucks where the official late night pre-meet was held. I took this time to hang out with friends and have fun without worrying about getting any photos… so if you weren’t there, you’re out of luck. Maybe next time you won’t be so lame and show up.

Three hours of sleep and my alarm was going off at 6:30am Sunday morning. It was time for Import Alliance! I was tired, but ready for this. Stopped by the gas station to grab a few Monsters and rode out with all the people from the Eastside of ATL. We got there about 8:15am, AKA right in time, because by 9am the parking deck of the World Congress Center was filling up fast. Last year there were 1800 cars at this event, and I was shocked to hear that by 11am they had shut the parking garage down and were making people park outside because there were ZERO spots left! Last I heard, there were 2900+ cars this year and that is not counting the people that had to go to the parking lots surrounding the garage. I walked around for over six hours, camera in hand, and the quantity of quality cars was just mind blowing…..

I tried to get as many photos as I could, but it was not the easiest thing because of all the people and me wanting to be social and talk with my friends. Over all I think I got a good amount of solid photos, met a lot of really cool people and got to spend time with so many people I am honored to call my friends. Absolutely great weekend here in Atlanta for anybody that has a passion for cars and the scene that surrounds them. With that, there is only one way to wrap this up…..see you in Nashville!

Make sure to check out the local ATL car forums or CANIBEAT.COM for A LOT more of my photos from this weekend!

-Chadbee

Honestly if I were to buy a Challenger, this would be THE one. It has the best color available and the rare “Speed Factory” options package which includes a few factory aftermarket mods and special badges telling you this isnt your everyday run of the mill SRT-8. In the end you are here to see the pictures so I am going to shut up now