Hannibal Chang Photography

A student in his third year at De Anza Community College in Cupertino, Hannibal Chang found his fascination of photography through making videos on YouTube since his junior year of high school. He does mostly auto photography and some nature photography once in a while. He uses a Canon T3i, the kit lens, and the 50mm F1.4 prime lens as his main equipment.

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A car is in the house? And two exotics trying to scare people? Wow!

Photo Credit - Jeremy Cliff Jeremy Cliff started out just like any other automotive photographer out there. Started out with a Canon Rebel XT and attended a bunch of car events while doing his thing. He was doing what he enjoyed and five years later, he's now doing a bunch of photoshoots for tire brands, multiple magazine companies, as well as aftermarket rim companies. He also makes some photos look surreal, making you question "how exactly did he set the light up so that there is so much detail at the right places, in each picture without messing it up?" Well, that's the unique thing about his talent and I chose one out of his many pictures to share with you all.

Thoughts For the first picture, to the eyes of a normal, regular, non car enthusiast human being, you may be wondering what the heck this is. Well, neither do I. All I know, is that the owner of this place is very wealthy, otherwise they wouldn't have a rally car in their living room, in their house, at this unknown location. But, the owner if this property isn't the topic of this post. It's about what the photographer and in this, Jeremy Cliff, did with this picture. You know those computer games where you can navigate your camera/POV every where at any angle? This picture reminds me of those kinds of games; except, this is reality. I find this angle to very interesting, where it seems like the camera is almost touching the ceiling but it gets a perfect view of the living room, the direction the car is facing, and then there's just a bunch of trees and snow in the background. As I'm writing this post, I'm still wondering to myself "where was this picture taken?". But do I want this question answered? Nope, because it's just that interesting and amazing. This picture could give off several different meanings, like how wealthy is the owner, or is the owner trying to sell the place, how did he get that car into the picture, etc etc. Point is, even though there is nothing focused and there is not object in the picture that gets more attention than the other, the thing that caught my attention about this picture was the way everything was coincidentally set up and the angle at which Jeremy Cliff took this picture. Amazing nonetheless. For the second picture, I love the setup with the two cars because it seems as if the cars have personality. The photographer parked both of the cars just right so that only the front end is in the light while the rest is hidden in their own space. Since this is in a dimly lit location, it gives it a sense that either 1) because the cars are super cars and are coming out to hunt for their 'prey' or 2) they're just there because they want to startle people due to how aggressive they look. In terms of the color, it's interesting to me that for most of the picture, you see some sort of green (including the lamborghini on the left) but then with the McLaren, it's just straight up Orange which contradicts with green on the color range.

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The Godzilla, Nissan Skyline R34 GTR and the Raw Powered Corvette Z06

Photo Credit - John Zhang John Zhang is a commercial based automotive photographer from Los Angeles. He takes pictures of anything, from a simple unmodified exotic sports car to those limited edition exotics to flat out, fully modified and built track cars. That being said, he also has many clients, ranging from aftermarket rim companies to companies that make aftermarket wide body kits for exotic luxury cars. His talent? Making the pictures that he took look like they're from a video game but are they really from a video game? Of course not, it just looks amazing honestly.

Thoughts These two pictures that I chose, of the Nissan Skyline and the Corvette Z06, I chose these pictures for a few reasons. I could have gone with my favorite car, a Mustang, as he did a photoshoot with that car too and I could have gone with a Ferrari as well, but I chose the Skyilne GTR picture because the picture is about an iconic car that is sadly, no longer produced and has a successor in it's place. This car itself, was actually made famous in the Fast & Furious movie franchise (for those of you who didn't know). Not only that, it was also Paul Walker's choice of car to drive, at least, through the first two movies. Then, after Walker's unfortunate death last year, this car became even more popular and it's value rose significantly, knowing that it played a huge role in the movie franchise as well as how much it meant to the main character. The next successor, that Nissan launched, was the R35 GTR. The next reason why I like this picture so much, is due to the color of the headlights and how clear it is in comparison to the background of the picture and the color of the car's body. The picture itself is very bright in general and it seems as if the color almost matches with the color of the headlights. The car's body color may give off the opposite feeling but with natural brightness reflecting off the car's body for some reason, my eyes just kept getting brought back to the headlights. The headlights, along with the car itself as a whole, just matches so well with the background, and that's why I chose this picture. The picture in general just looks so calming yet powerful at the same time and that's probably because of one thing: nothing can go wrong with a Nissan Skyline R34 GTR. In terms of the Corvette Z06, I really like this picture because of the location that the photographer chose. It's obviously Fall time and the color of the Corvette is a cool blue so that instantly is the opposite color range of Fall season which makes this Corvette stand out. Normally, these types of pictures would just be a stand still shot and not a blurred motion shot but I like what the photographer had in mind and he made this shot actually rather perfect in my opinion. It also seems like the car was 'sent from heaven' because the sun's rays come in diagonally from the top right corner and straight onto the Corvette.

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Lexus LFA - Driving Through Time

Photo Credit - Mitch Hemming (aka M.Hemming Photography) Mitch Hemming became known through providing high quality photography for editorial, advertising and private clients all through Australia. He has done photoshoots for many luxury car companies including Lexus, BMW, and Mercedes and has won awards since 2011.

Thoughts I chose these two pictures out of all the pictures he took of the LFA because of the car, the location, and the angle. Looking at the first picture of the car's rear end, your eyes immediately get drawn to the rear end of this LFA, which honestly isn't surprising because the LFA is an amazing car all around. With about 550 horsepower, you're looking at Lexus' most expensive sports car, being priced at around $400,000 after taxes. Next, what I found interesting, was the angle at which he took this picture. Normally, blurred motion shots are taken at the times of when the car drives by one of the sides of the camera car, but in this case, the shot was taken when the target car was in front of the camera car. I've never seen anyone do this shot in this way before so this was new to me. The location, he picked a perfect place. In a tunnel where the lights are pretty bright and then choosing a white LFA. The street lights definitely reflected off of the LFA's body and as a result, made the LFA really shine in the picture. Lastly, the amount of space he left on all four sides of the car were nearly perfect, but just a tiny bit more space on the top of the car. With the second picture, it's a more traditional angle for a blur motion shot but it actually looks rather calming. Even though the tunnel gives it a very cool look, it seems like the tunnel is more like a time warp in a way and the LFA is just driving through it and taking it's time even though it looks like he's speeding through the tunnel. The light composition is just right, the rims look shiny and the way how the photographer edited this picture, slighting darkening all four corners a little, really make the car and the blurred motion shot stand out.

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Mustang RTR Owning The Road and a BMW Apexing

Photo Credit - Linhbergh Linhbergh is a creative director and a commercial photographer. He has done photography for many car brands including the world's number one fully electric car company, Tesla Motors. He takes amazing pictures all around and at whatever scenery he arrives upon. These two pictures caught my eye because of all the professional photographers I've posted about for these past couple of weeks, I've never seen anyone take even a single picture of a mustang before and made a shot of circuit racing so blurred to the point where you can see the car perfectly fine but the rest of the image is a complete blur.

Thoughts This mustang picture caught my eye due to many things. First off, I like how he didn't decide to go with a stand still shot of the mustang and instead, chose to go with a rolling blurred motion shot. To me personally, it gives the mustang an aggressive personality even though the mustang itself already looks aggressive enough; the picture makes it look even more aggressive with the dip on the front end. It also really brings out the speed of the mustang, the mustang in general is a really quick car despite it's body weight but this picture gives you a slight hint that it's fast. To back up my statement, the RTR idea was created and designed by US Drift Champion Vaughn Gittin Jr as his signature and career drift car is of course, the Mustang RTR. He didn't modify the 6 cylinder models but for the eight cylinder models, he added a bunch of performance modifications as well as suspension modifications to make it both handle well through corners and to have quicker acceleration. Now, I like how the sunlight reflects off the side of the car, the brightness of the sunlight really brings out the RTR side emblem and you can actually see the scenery as well, reflecting off of the car's body. If I had the money, I'd definitely purchase one of these cars. You don't even see any of these RTRs running on the street and that makes them very rare. The second picture, I find this shot to be super interesting because you can definitely tell that the photographer did a scanning shot with this but was so accurate that he made most of the BMW's body in full focus while the rest was just a blur along with the background. You can also just barely make out that the BMW was about to hit the apex there on the right of them but if any non car enthusiast were to look at this picture, they'd be like what's this car doing and where is this car? The picture just gives off this sense of mystery but overall, it's an awesome photo.

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Abarth 500 Glowing In The Dark and Porsche Killing The Track!

Photo Credit - Marcel Bischler Marcel is an auto photographer based from Germany. One thing he does that makes him very similar to other photographers (not just based in Germany) is putting each individual car in backgrounds that have similar colors as the car itself or backgrounds that completely contradict the color of the car; though in both cases, he illuminates the car itself even more. He sometimes even uses the car's taillights/headlights to provide more natural lighting to the overall picture which I find to be absolutely amazing.

Thoughts I really like the picture of the Abarth because it almost looks like it's fake but at the same time, the viewer knows it's real. I like the fact that Marcel used long exposure light photography for this because it really brings out the car's color in contrast to the rest of the picture and when I mentioned it looks fake, it's because you have this all white car in this dark location with absolutely no light and the light painting makes the car shine even brighter; basically it looks like this picture was formed from two separate pictures and the car was photoshopped onto the background. Marcel used just enough light painting to let you see where this picture was taken, in terms of the background, but only about half the portion of the picture was lit up. I really like this picture of the Porsche on the famous Nürburgring track because of the multiple colors of the sky and the fact that it was a blurred motion shot. The sky is not half black and half white, it's mixed in the middle and there's still a bit of black and white on both sides. In terms of the blurred motion part, only the grass, apex of the corner, and the ground was blurred. The trees in the background were somewhat blurred but other than that, everything was in complete focus, especially the Porsche itself. The overall picture gives off a very dark and saddening feel to it but it seems as if the Porsche just fights through the mood part of the picture and comes through looking as good as ever.

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Porsche 964 - The Old Days and a Golden Gate from Mars

Photo Credit - Dejan Sokolovski Dejan Sokolovski is an automotive photographer and somewhat of a nature photographer from Gothenburg, Sweden. He, just like many auto photographers out there, started out as naturally being a car enthusiast himself. The next thing he did, which is what I started doing just last year, was combining his interest of photography and his love for cars together. The thing though, that makes his work unique, is the fact that he photographs cars in either environments that completely contradict the car's colors itself to bring out the importance of the car or photographs cars in the same colored environment but somehow still brings out the importance of the car. To some people, that's a very difficult thing to do but that's what makes Dejan so unique.

Thoughts I titled half of the post "The Old Days" for a reason. This Porsche 964 was released in 1988 but it's been kept in such good condition (restored most likely) and is still driven even in this modern time. The way how Dejan took this picture though almost makes it look like the picture itself was taken around the time this car was revealed. The reason why I say that is because of how dimly lit the buildings are in the background as well as the light source hits the specific portion of the car. The light itself really brings out the unique shape of the rear end and purposely leaving the headlights turned out allows the viewer to easily distinguish that it's a porsche and not mistaken it for any other car; Porsche headlights are very unique, it's a one of a kind. I also like how a small portion of the driver's side hood (bonnet if you're in the UK) is dark, it gives off the feeling that you do not know if and who is behind the wheel of this Porsche, which I find to be quite appropriate for a classic car like this. Very few people still own this car nowadays but to see this magnificent car even alive on the peoples' driveways, no, to even see this car being driven on the streets blows my mind. If you have the money, definitely snatch one of these cars because this is definitely a gem own in the automotive enthusiasts' world. I like the second picture, the Golden Gate bridge, because of the long exposure he used. With long exposure, it really shows off the golden gate bridge, the very icon and symbol of the Bay Area and it really just shines in this picture despite the tiny distraction of the city in the background. What I really like about this picture as well is the faint reflection of the light on the bridges in the water beneath the bridge. I also like the fact how he didn't just leave the structural lights as their regular color; he somehow made them orange, which makes the Golden Gate look like it's actually in Mars in this picture.

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Mercedes SLS AMG - Taking Off!

Photo Credit - Easton Chang Easton Chang is an Australian automotive photographer based in Sydney, who has the capability of including a ton of detail in just one picture and it doesn't matter what kind of car it is. He specializes in commercial, brochure, and advertising images and has won three awards within the past few years. He has 27 images of his work in the category of automotive photography but only these two captured my attention. I'm not a huge Mercedes fan but I can't ignore such awesome pictures of art itself when the object in priced at over $230,000.

Thoughts I really like these two pictures in a few aspects. In terms of the first picture, the picture instantly puts the question of "where was this car when this picture was taken?" in your head. It's all dark on the outside and then the light from above covers an oval area around where the car is. Also, all the tire marks on the ground makes you wonder if they had fun with the car prior to the photoshoot or if someone else had a bit of fun with another car before this car was delivered to the area. Another thing I like about this picture is that they purposely left the gull wing doors opened. This is one of very few cars that have this feature. From the top of my head, only Lamborghini and Pagani makes cars that doors open upwards but Mercedes also made a few exotics that doors open upwards. This really gives a lot of meaning to the picture because it makes it look like that the car is preparing to 'take off' into the air just like how a bird spreads its wings before taking off into the sky. Normally people would want to get rid of the stars (reflecting off of the light from above) but it also gives the car itself a lot of meaning. Impressions would be that this is a very exotic and sleek car in a way, that it's so clean because the light bounces off of the car body itself. With the second picture, the second picture looks very different and it's a different SLS AMG but the one thing they did before Easton took this picture was that they did a fat burnout. The reason is because without doing a burnout before this picture, there was no way that they would have gotten this faint smoke around the car and have it be so round so that it encircles the car even. Though, I like that the cloud of smoke provides a ghostly feel to the car, especially since because the car itself is a black color. The way how the black shines when the light hits it at a specific angle and how there's actual more than one reflection off of the car, it just looks perfect.

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McLaren P1 - Beasting it around the track!

Photo Credit: GFWilliams (aka George F. Williams) George is a very renown auto photographer around the world, first started photography at the age of 14 and discovered that he could make the most out of his natural hobby with his other interest; cars. Many supercar companies hire him to promote their driving machines, including the McLaren and Pagani.

Thoughts I really like these two pictures in terms of a few aspects and therefore picked them for a few reasons. For one, in terms of the picture with the race track, the mood of the picture. He captured this picture at the right time of night (golden hour), which in my opinion, is one of the best times to take pictures of a P1. It gives the overall picture a very calm mood to it yet gives you a sense that this super car is moving at an insanely fast speed. In reality, this car is actually one of the fastest cars, if not the fastest, produced in the world and McLaren only produces so many of these cars. George's picture just gives the car even more meaning to it by adding a blurred motion effect and at the specific location of the track. The car is coming around from a corner, this picture somewhat shows how sharp the turn is and the blurred effect shows how quickly this car is nailing the turn. Another reason why I like this picture is the amount of the car that the sunset actually hits. Only half of the passenger side is reddish/orangish while the rest of the car keeps it's original color. Now one of the reasons why I chose this picture is because for one of our photo assignments, we had to take pictures of either stop motion, blurred motion, or at a standstill. This was a perfect blurred motion rolling shot, most of the P1 was in focus while the rest of the picture is a complete blur and even shows motion going on. For the second picture, I like it in terms of almost the same aspect. The rims, ground, and the background landscape is all blurred out except for the car body itself is completely clear which is definitely the main focus of the picture. I also like how the color of the car body is sort of similar but at the same time, not really the same color.

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A Drift Machine and an AWD beast!

Photo Credit: Gus R. Photography Gus R. uploads pictures to tumblr, flickr, and many other photo hosting sites online but he doesn't give out his actual name. What he does, though, are posts pictures of standstill photoshoots and panning action shots. I was randomly searching through my personal tumblr feed and happened to see these two pictures as I was scrolling through. I chose these pictures because 1) I love the sport of drifting 2) a 240SX would be one of my primary choices for a drift car so I thought why not just choose this picture for one of my 11 chosen photographers, and 3) I also love Subarus as I will be owning one in the future.

Thoughts These pictures may not seem like much to non car enthusiast viewers and could probably confuse you, the viewer, as to what the drifter is doing and how he's doing it, but to drift lovers, this is one of millions of pictures out there that catch our attention. Another reason why I chose this picture and I didn't mention it above, is because this picture is a perfect example of a panning shot. Even though Gus took this with a very small aperture, it actually looks like Gus used a very wide aperture and manually focused on only the car itself but that's because the car is moving so fast that that automatically makes the background blurred out. I would have liked, however, if he took the picture when there was more smoke coming out from the closer rear tire but he probably took this picture given the short amount of time and space he had. I like the picture of the 2015 Subaru WRX STi because of the way how he edited the picture. I'm not a huge fan of the 2015 model as I would love to get a 2014 or older model, I love this picture because he made the car the absolute focus point by desaturating all of the picture except the car itself. He also made only the ground a blur because of how fast they were going but kept the car completely clear.

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Ferrari 458 Spider

Photo Credit: Tim Thara Tim Thara is the founder of his own company, Thara Photo Creative Services, and he specializes in wedding, engagements, and children's portrait photography. However, on the side, he takes excellent auto photography such as the few out of many of his Ferrari pictures I have selected above. I really how he planned this photoshoot. He took several pictures of the exterior of the car, all of the special features, whether they be for looks or performance. Then, he goes to the inside and takes pictures starting from the steering wheel and then to one of the smallest details of the steering wheel, the drive mode selector.

Thoughts - First picture Many car mediums say that red is the color that gets ticketed the most. By looking at the first picture, you can probably guess why. With the color of the ground on the left, color of the grass on the right, and the color of the structure that this car is underneath, your eyes still get drawn to the bright red object in the middle that is known as a Ferrari 458 Spider. The red contradicts just about every color there is in this picture. I even tried to pull my eyes away from the car but it just didn't work. The back half of the background on the outside of the structure was a little over exposed in my opinion, but that only means making the Ferrari clearer to see. Tim allowed the image to have so much detail that you can even see the bucket seats within the car as well as the structure reflecting off of the Ferrari's hood.

Thoughts - Second picture I've been wanting to get this type of picture for a while because some of my friends have unique looking steering wheels and the small details of all of these types of steering wheels are just simply amazing, whether they be straight from the factory or produced by a third party aftermarket company. With the right amount of lighting and the angle at which the picture was shot, a steering wheel that doesn't seem like a huge deal to some people could be turned into a steering wheel that attracts attention. But to do this with a racing steering wheel from a Ferrari? Mindblowing. This type of picture is best with a car like the Ferrari 458 because the picture really brings out the small details of the racing steering wheel only available and made for Ferrari (each exotic super car have their own unique racing wheels). There was just enough natural light to reflect off sections of the steering wheel (including the engine start up button and drive mode selector) and that's what made this steering wheel look even more amazing and good enough to use, possibly for advertising purposes. Something else you'll instantly notice is the amount of carbon fiber the wheel was made of (makes the wheel feel lighter while turning). Another major thing about this picture, is how shallow the depth of field is. The distance between the dash and a steering wheel is only a few inches away from one another, yet Tim was able to slightly blur out everything in the background and bring the focus only to the steering wheel itself.

Thoughts - Third Picture Tim chooses to go with a shallow depth of field again this time but it's a very excellent idea. Most of the picture is filled up by the dash but you can still see some parts of the parking garage on the top corners. If you look closely as well, you can see that the dash itself is also made of carbon fiber. There was also enough natural lighting to make each of the three sections of the dash to be very clear, not too bright or too dark.

Thoughts - Fourth Picture It honestly doesn't get better than this. The previous picture that I chose was a picture of the dashboard and before that, was a picture of just the steering wheel. And now, Tim has gotten even more specific and captured a picture of just the drove mode selector. I like these types of pictures as well because it shows what feature(s) on the steering wheel make this so unique. I feel like he also took this picture because it shows the viewer what the car can do. And, if you're a car enthusiast, how many drive modes this specific car has that no other regular cars have as an option.

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StanceNation - Nissan 370z on Accuair air suspension

Photo Credit: Cullen Cheung

Why did I choose Cullen Cheung? Cullen Cheung is one of the millions of photographers out there who just happens to take pictures of the same interest as I do; cars.

Stanced? Stanced cars is one of the biggest trends, if not the biggest, in the world of auto enthusiasts. It first originated in Japan but then ever since Elvis Skender heard about stance and spotted his first stanced car during one of his visits, it completely expanded his knowledge and it was then that he realized, that modifying a car to showroom status had no limits. He then came back to the USA, but brought back something so valuable that it has made a major impact in the car society today. His personal show car, a Lexus LS400, was the first ever car to be stanced out and as a result, he founded StanceNation.

My Overall Thoughts I really like this picture because the main focus is on this 370z but the background is and isn't blurred. The reason why I put it that way is because the viewer can tell where this picture was taken, but the background was blurred out just enough to put all the focus on the car itself. This car, from the factory, already looks aggressive enough. For people who aren't car enthusiasts, when we say a car looks very aggressive, we're talking about the way the car looks on all sides, everything from the smallest detail on the car body itself to the overall in general appearance.

Another reason why I really like this picture is because I could imagine that if this car comes up on your rear view mirror, you would let him by because it's got almost a 'scary' appearance to it. Yes, you may think it's hilarious how I'm calling a car scary but I've had that happen to me before with a dodge charger and I can guarantee I would let this 370z pass me too if he came up on me from behind. Not only does this car look very aggressive, it also looks unusually low. This is because, this car is on air suspension. Now, you may also be wondering what air suspension is and if there's such a thing. For one, yes, there is such a thing. Two, air suspension is basically a type of suspension that is composed of compressed air. You have a remote in the car that you can either raise or lower your car with. This person lowers his car when he attends car meets and auto shows and raises it back up when he has to go driving with it. To us car enthusiasts, lowering a car is a type of lifestyle. It's a way of expressing our individual perspectives through our pride and joy and that's exactly what this person did. Other people may dislike the car because of how it was modified but there are also many others like me who absolutely admire how this car was modified.