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We have helped a few teams seek sponsorships and continue to provide our services, we also provide written  articles for Auto Action and Australian Classic Car magazines amongst others, we are formalising  the services we can offer for 2010 and beyond, we are able to write your sponsor seeking proposals and supply the required imagery as well.

Use our Contact Us page for further enquires.

WOW time has got away! 5 October 2009

As the title has suggested time has got away from us, we've been working on a number of projects outside of our motorsport but still with our photography businesses, with the "recession" we have reduced some of the events we have attended in the later part of this year, we have been more realistic about making money from this venture, and not just providing a service for race competitors at our own cost. 

I think this may have pissed a few off (sorry about the language) but I'd rather work on events that were going to make a profit from than those that send us down the gurgler.  Which we came pretty close too!

I have images for the Historic Warwick event which will be uploaded soon, I don't think I'll bother for the Shannon's event as we had heaps of support from the Gemini Crew, the Sports Sedan guys and a few of the SuperKart guys which we are very grateful for, one of the best events for us ever!  So all the customers from this event already have their images, if anyone else wants images please see our order proofs page.

We worked with the Ferrari National Rally folks and had a ball for the week, some amazing cars and shots over the course of the week and a cool elevated pole shot too, thanks to Leona and Brendan for their on going support and too all the Ferrari entrants, what a great event.

We today attended the Jimboomba Car Show and again have some fantastic images from that, here's a link.  I continue to write for Auto Action and Australian Classic Car magazines, we've recently covered Leyburn Sprints and Speed on Tweed as well as images from the QLD State Champs in Auto Action.

I'm off to Bathurst for a few days now, will catch up with a few that I know and experience the Great Race again, first time I attended this event will be 21 years ago this weekend, WOW and that was my first 21st!!!

Our web site development has also taken off and we have quite a few new web sites on the go, but we'd still be happy to talk to anyone after a cost effective, exciting new web site. www.digitalrealismwebs.com

I have to say thanks to those that continue to support us, we have some exciting news on the way, we have built a database of all our customers and soon will be looking to start our monthly update, you'll have the option to opt out if you wish.

Our next event will be the QLD Super Sprint event at Morgan Park, we have a special offer for all entrants which will be available soon!

Cheers, Darin and Linda.

Cootha Images Now On Line  20 July 2009

After a long wait we have been able to upload our images to the web site, there's over 700 photos on the site of the 4000+ we shot, so really only sample galleries, if you cannot see your car don't worry we will have images of it if you did at least one run for the weekend.  Of course the best way to see all the images of your car is to order our proofs sheets.

Thanks to everyone who has enquired about the photos, and many thanks to those that have order images or CD's.  Next up is the National Historic Meeting at Morgan Park Raceway this coming weekend, we have a special for customers who ordered our CD and free print from Cootha we will give you an extra free 8x12in glossy print valued at $17.50 if you order a CD and Free print from Historic Warwick, so that's two free prints!

This offer is only available to Cootha Classic customers!  Don't forget to ask about it at the track, I'll be there from Friday and will also have 2 sales persons on site.

See you soon, Darin.

HRCC Press Release HISTORIC WARWICK 17 July 2009

     MEDIA RELEASE

    HISTORIC TOURING CARS MARK MOTORSPORT MILESTONES

Brisbane - The 2009 Queensland Historic Racing and Classic Car Festival will combine the 32nd National Historic Race Meeting and the first round of the 2009 Australian Historic Touring Car Challenge at Morgan Park Raceway, Warwick on 25-26 of July. As host, the Historic Racing Car Club of Queensland will recognise the iconic Mini's 50th birthday, 40 years of the Australian Formula Ford championship and the 50th anniversary of Australia's most successful race car manufacturer Elfin, with special races and displays. 

The HRCC has received a huge field of over 230 entries in two dozen categories ranging from a 1934 Ford V8 Indy Special to a 1987 BMW M3. But it is the Group N, C and Group A touring cars made famous at Bathurst that attract the crowds. Club president Mike Gehde explains,  "Queensland's warm, winter sun, with a fast and challenging circuit surrounded by beautiful countryside are some of the reasons we have attracted one of the largest fields of historic touring cars ever seen in Queensland."  "This is a fantastic opportunity for people to see some of the most famous cars in Australian motor racing return to life and actually do what they were made to do instead of sitting in a museum collecting dust. And believe me, the guys driving them don't hold back!"

Drivers include former Australian Touring Car Champion Glenn Seton behind the wheel of a 1970 Ford Capri and former V8Supercar driver from Queensland, Kevin Heffernan in a 1970 Holden Monaro.  Cars are categorised into various groups by the racing rules and periods when they originally competed. Prior to V8Supercars, Group's N, C and A were Australia's premier motor racing categories. They were made famous by legendary drivers like Bob Jane, Peter Brock and Dick Johnson when they battled for the Australian Touring Car Championship.

Group A is the former global pinnacle for touring cars and they must have a documented racing history between 1982 and 1992, while Group C is the earlier Aussie 'big banger' V8's that competed from 1973 to 1984. Group N has sub-categories to provide close racing, but is essentially pre-1972 cars that don't have an official racing lineage.

Production of the Mini begun in 1959 and it was it's ingenious combination of front wheel drive and a horizontally opposed engine that set it as a design benchmark that is still copied today. This engineering delivered a small car with outstanding driving characteristics while maintaining 80% of the car's internal floor pan area for use by passengers or luggage.

Formula Ford championships around the world are considered the best opportunity for aspiring drivers to learn car dynamics and race craft. The first Australian championship was in 1970. Competitors buy or construct a light-weight single seat chassis made from steel tubing and fibreglass body panels. However, they all use the same rear mounted, four cylinder Ford engine found in production cars around the world. The cars are cost effective, but high performance. While appearing like their open wheel Formula One cousins, they lack the technical sophistication and aerodynamic aids of front and rear wings. Australian Formula Ford drivers include household names such as Craig Lowndes, Mark Skaife and Mark Webber. It has also produced no less than 8 Formula One World Champions, including 7-time champion Michael Schumacher. 

Elfin is the oldest, continuous sports car maker in Australia and one of the most successful with 29 championships and major Grand Prix titles. It has constructed a plethora of sports cars and open wheel racers for categories including Formula Vee, FFord and F5000, F2 and Formula One. Elfin won the Malaysian Grand Prix twice.

Racing starts at 8:30am on Saturday and Sunday. Admission for adults is $20 per day and $30 for a weekend pass. Children under 14 years are free of charge if accompanied by an adult.

Needing help!  2 July 2009

You may have noticed we've been a bit slow at updating the web site with images recently, its a two fold problem, we've been really busy with orders (and thanks to those that have ordered) and our main source of income our general photography business and web building work has been extremely busy too.  So we have taken steps to fix this (good) issue and have employed a part time photo shopper to help us out, so we hope to soon be catching up.  Can I say thanks to those that have been so patient we will get to you soon.

In the mean time can I suggest some good reading (bit biased here) but next months issue of Australian Classic Car Mag which comes out July 15 has a 3 page article of mine plus 10 images from Mt Cootha, support this great Mag by buying a copy when its out.

Here's the cover to look out for.

   And the 3 page spread.

See you at the track, Darin

Mt Cootha Classic Gallery and Orders Update 15 June 2009

We have today completed the burning of all the disks for orders from Cootha, and we will be collecting the free 8x12in prints from the lab tonight and all orders will be posted Wednesday this week, sorry for the delay we have quite a bit on our plate at the moment. 

Once the orders have cleared we will upload an assortment of images to our galleries from the event, like I mentioned below its not practical to upload all 4000+ photo's.  If you cannot wait or want to see all the images of your car you would be best to order our special Proof Sheets.  Or you can order our images on CD here.

Any problems please fell free to contact us.

Regards, Darin.

Mt Cootha Classic Update  2 June 2009

Now that was a fantastic event, 220+ cars, bikes and speedway cars climbing Brisbane's Mt Cootha, we loved it.  It was great to catch up with so many competitors we have met and supplied too before.  We had an absolute ball all weekend, even if it mean a late night Saturday having images printed to display on Sunday, and sales were great too, thanks to all for your support.

We are in the process of sorting out our 4000+ images into groups and fulfilling orders we have already received for CD's and our Special Print for the event, if you'd like to order images on CD just click here or if you'd like to see the special 8x12in print click here.  You can purchase this special print with your car in it for $25 inc postage or $75 framed and delivered, use our contact us to order.

Soon (ish) we will have galleries open to view samples of the images captured (it's not practical to put up all 4000 images) however if you cannot wait or want to see all the images captured of you we suggest you order our unique Proof Sheets for just $20, this also becomes a credit on any images printed or on CD you order from the proofs.

Any other enquires just email us through our contact us page.  Well done HRCC I look forward to this event next year, but wonder how you will top it!

Whilst I think about it, keep an eye out for the next Australian Classic Car magazine as we are writing a 2 page article and supporting images for the event.  Plus don't forget to come and say "hi" at Historic Warwick next month and keep an eye on our Blog as we'll be producing a book for this years event, a bit like what we did for Phillip Island last year, watch this space so to speak.

See you at the track - Darin.

Updated Tuesday 19 May 2009

Quick update for those waiting on their order of images from Round 2 CAMS QLD State Champs, these are being filled this week, had a slight hold up on getting the printed images, and teachers strike today!  These will be forwarded in the next day or so.  Of course we are still happy to receive further orders.  Thanks to those that have ordered as it helps us continue to deliver our photography to you.

We'll also complete the upload of the galleries very soon!

Also whilst I'm at it don't forget to keep an eye on Auto Action magazine each week, we are their co-contributor for QLD along with ever nice guy Mr. Mark Walker.

As for the QR QRDC event this weekend click here if you'd like to see galleries from the event.

Cheers Darin

Update for May 2009 - 16 May 2009

Well April and May have turned out to be big months with plenty of racing on, I'm catching up with the last two events being the Nissan Datsun Nationals and Rnd 2 of the QLD State Champs, sorry for the delays in getting images on the web site, we have been concentrating on getting orders out first.

Also we have begun to establish ourselves as web developers as well for small and medium businesses, and we are very cost effective, if you know anyone who is looking for a good priced web site for personal or business please send them our way, there more info on our Digital Realism Webs Web Site.  Of course we have done Morgan Parks web site, and continue to sponsor and maintain it, we've done one for Paul Hibberd a Sports Sedan driver, and recently one for CPWS custom performance wiring services.

The images for the CAMS Rnd 2 and NDN09 will be progressively uploaded over the next few days/week.

See you again Soon, Darin.

Nissan Datsun Nations Easter 2009 Morgan Park Raceway - 21 April 09

What a great weekend of racing and displays of Nissans and Datsun's, and it was great also to see them hit the track at Morgan Park Raceway for the Sprints. 

Thanks to the entrants who have already ordered images and CD's, we are in the process of sending these out now and over the next few days, we will also be uploading some sample galleries very soon.

We are still taking orders from the event, click here to see our options, or see our advert in the program.

UPDATED 24/4/09 - Images almost ready for uploading, but I'm at Morgan Park again this weekend for the CAMS state champs so they will be uploaded early next week.  Thanks for your patience.

Thanks again for your support.

Darin

2009 Meetings have started for us - 16 February 2009

We went to our first race meeting for the year this weekend just gone, round 1 of the QLD Super Sprint Series "A", we are just shooting Saturdays for the Sprints, mind you I still shot over 1000 images!  We hope to have them on the web by Sunday night of the race meeting, here's a link to last weekend, here.  It was a bit wet on Saturday morning, but this made for good slip sliding images!

We have changed our CD image options and now can offer the best 6 images for $60 and email the high res images to you, or you can download from our FTP, these images will be colour corrected and cropped to the car, ready for printing or web site use.  If you want to order data images click here.  We are also still providing all the images shot of you on CD with the top 5 enhanced.

We are also securing our web site to allow credit card payments for orders. 

Phillip Island Classic Book: We have elected not to produce a book for this years Phillip Island Classic, but are looking at doing one bi-annually, hope that makes sense.  We still have a few copies of the 2008 book available here.  We have a couple of other books on the go this year, keep an eye out on our www.motorsportbooks.com.au web site for more details.

It was great to be out at the track again, hope to see you all out there again soon.

Cheers Darin.

WOW 2009 now upon Us - 20 January 2009

Farewell to 2008, that was a somewhat mixed year, 2009 will be interesting on a number of levels, the world is spiraling left and right with the financial crunch which we are starting to feel more and more every day in Aus.  For us we have had to tighten our belts, reduce our spending and look hard at what is working for us within our world of motorsport photography.

Undoubtedly we will need to review our prices as costs of printing and other factors have risen recently, plus we will also evaluate what events we can afford to support with our photography.

On the other side my CAMS status has been upgraded to the Silver level which is recognition of the hard work we put in last year.  Morgan Parks Calendar has been released and can be seen here.

This Aussie Day weekend we will be endeavoring to complete our last years galleries!!  Have to say sorry for the delays on these, but had to go and do some REAL work!  That's how my wife describes it ;-)  We will be trialing a new gallery software package that will speedup the whole process, may even go back to list all the images.

Proofs- most of our proof sets have been sent, we have had a few bounce back on the email, so if you haven't seen yours drop me a line here and I'll check it out.

See you around the tracks, Darin.

Orders and Galleries 3 November 2008

Hmm somewhere along the line I blinked and missed the last 2 months!  I can't believe its now November and I last posted late August, gee time does fly when your having fun! 

We have been busy both at and away from the track, some of you might be able to tell this by the time its taking us to get images up on the web site and finish orders, I have to apologise for the delays, we have had a bit more on our plate than expected, plus with the demise of my full time work this year I have had to put most of my time into paying work!!  It would be good to type here that motorsport pays my way but realistically it doesn't pay all the bills!

But we are continuing to plug away at the galleries and the orders currently outstanding, like the Phillip Island book, these are on route to us as I type this, we are working on the Historic Warwick orders and the others in between.  Thanks for your patience, once we catch up we'll be working on two more books, being the QLD Super Sprints 2008 book and of course our own Digital Realism Motorsport in Images 2008, unfortunately neither book will be out before Xmas, but not soon after is the plan. Keep an eye on www.motorsportbooks.com.au for more details

We have 2 more meetings left this year, the night meeting at Morgan Park this weekend, and another event yet to be released but details will follow soon.

Cheers, Darin

New Images on CD Options     28 August 2008

Today we have begun to offer new options for our images on CD, after doing a bit of a search around the web for similar motorsport deals we have tailored our options to hopefully suit everyone's requirements, we still offer our great CD service, along with a glossy 8x12in print. 

And I have to say compared to our competitors in NSW and VIC we are streets ahead in the services we are happy to provide let alone price, in fact you'd be hard pushed to find a photographer down country that will offer the full resolution images for sale.

If you click here this will take you to our pages that describe what we now have on offer from each race meeting.  Please feel free to contact us if you need any further info.

Thanks again, Darin.

Proof Sheets     20 August 2008

We have been closely looking at the number of images that get viewed on our web site and the number is pretty large, but it's only a small percentage of the images we upload to our galleries.  Most of the race meetings I have been too in the past 6 months or so have seen us upload around 3-4000 images per meeting, that's a huge number of images we sort into groups, process through Photoshop to resize and watermark, build the multiple web pages and much more. It takes many many hours to do this. 

What we are going to now do is upload a good cross section of the images we shoot from each class into sample galleries, & spend some time photo shopping them to be just right.  But what we are also going to concentrate on our Proof Sheets, in the past we have made up proof sheet sets for clients who'd like to see all of the images of their car, and then order CD's or printed images from this.

We will continue to do this and will encourage clients who want to see all of the images we capture of them to order the proof sheets.  We are going to charge a nominal price of just $5.00 for this service, and this will then be credited against any order you make from the proof sheet, be that CD's or printed images.

Another reason we are doing this is that our web site is now over 4Gb which is huge, and has over 400,000 images and files - it's just too big!  We will keep the galleries that are already up there, but the ones now outstanding will be the new lite version of the gallery, so to speak.

I'd like to thank all our customers and hope we can continue to see your support, and of course orders come through.  Please feel free to contact me if you'd like to make any comments on what we are doing.

See you at the track soon.

Cheers, Darin

WOW Busier than ever!          8 June 2008

Ha I have to laugh when I read my last post, it was some 3 months before my last!  Now this one is some 7 months since my last, and primarily the big gap has been time, and lack there of.  You see my life consists of my family first and foremost of course, then was my IT job (that pays the bills) our motorsport photography and our business of Real Estate Photography that we own.  Well that all changed last Friday, my IT job of 10 years has come to an end, a down turn in retail has left the IT company I worked for with no choice but to down size, and unfortunately the Brisbane office was to suffer.

I guess as they say as one door shuts another opens, I have joined my wife in the Real Estate photography side and have a new even better focus on the motorsport photography which I love.  And the new time, working from home lets me spend more time with our boys, which is great as there's plenty of weekend's away with the racing.

We have been really busy and I know I have said that in the past but we are even more so now, and our 2 week sojourn to NZ for the V8's and a weeks holiday has really made it hard to keep up with our orders, the Phillip Island book and plenty more.  It is great being busy, just trying to catch up!  If you have an order and are worried about the delays please rest assured we will get to it, you can contact us here if you need to though.

Soon we will be taking orders for our Digital Realism Year in Images 2008 and we are also doing a special book for the QLD Super Sprints from Morgan Park Raceway, so as they say keep an eye on this space (the web site that is).

This past month has seen quite a few of our images used in both Auto Action and eNews magazines, in fact we covered a 2 page spread in Auto Action for the AMC (AASA) event at Queensland Raceway, it was great to be contacted by them to shoot on their behalf.  Click these images to see a copy of the articles. Cont below..

Our web site continues to grow, with both images and hits, last month we had a record 500,000 hits which includes images and pages, and we welcome a new Advertiser Pit Stop Lodge Bed and Breakfast from Warwick, owned and run by Yves Stocks (who races a cool Cobra).  Its a fantastic place to stay if you are down in Warwick racing and I recommend you checkout her web site:

Don't forget to mention you saw their advert here on Digital Realism!

Sorry news this week is the demise of Leaded Magazine, Mark has informed me due to economic pressures on him and his advertisers has meant he has had to shelve the printed Leaded Mag for the mean time, which is a real shame, I for one will miss the great read Leaded is and was.  Mark was instrumental in me getting my CAMS Accreditation running numerous images from many events.  Mark will continue the Leaded web site so keep up to date of events and the likes on there.  Hopefully we will see Leaded in the bookstores again in the future.  We will continue the great relationship we have with Mark and Leaded, and they will continue to be our Blog Supporter.

So far this year we have been to: QLD Super Sprints A, QLD CAMS State Champs MPR Rnd 1, the Sprite National Challenge, QLD CAMS State Champs MPR Rnd2, Hamilton NZ V8's, HRCC "No Frills" meeting, AMC (AASA) QR Round and the QLD Super Sprints B, much more to come!

Till next time - See you at the track

Cheers, Darin

Book now uploading to USA Printer            15 Nov 2007

Forgive me but it is almost 3 months since my last post, OMG where did the time go, its been flat out with most weekends having a race meeting of some kind, somewhere.

It's 1.45am QLD Time and as I write this my server is uploading the proof for our end of year coffee table book, Digital Realism Motorsport in Images 2007.  I'm blown away by it, there's over 500 images in the book, and it looks bloody good, mind you I'm biased.  I should have the proofs back in about 14 days, then when it's checked the orders will be filled, they'll take about 2 weeks to come from the USA.  Hopefully here before Christmas!!!!

More info on the book can be found here.  I'll update the blog with a bit more soon, I promise!

Till next time - See you at the track............

Cheers Darin

Time Flies When You're Having Fun!!             30 Aug 2007

WOW I cannot believe how long it has been since I posted something in this Blog, 2 months, we have been so busy this past 2 months.  I remember saying below that we had been busy, well that was nothing!!

What have we been up to, well since my last post we have been at: Rnd 3 QLD State Champs at MP, the fantastic SunCoast Classic at Noosa (with Leaded Mag), DJR, 888, SBR & WPS V8 Supercar Test Days, QLD Super Sprint B @ MP, the HUGE Historic Warwick event where we have produced a book specially for the 30th Annual meeting, and just last weekend I was at MP again for Rnd 4 of the State Champ.

So all up in those events we shot approx 19,000 images!  Holey mackerel!  We have been very lucky to have our images published all over the place, firstly thanks to Leaded Magazine who seem to run with heaps of them from many of the events we get to, the Warwick Daily News runs lots of them as well after an event, we have images and editorial coming out in Australian Classic Car, Race Mag and maybe 321Iginition, a number of community newspapers have been using them as well.  And this month we were published in both Auto Action and Motorsport News.

Auto Action ran a pic of Karl Reindler I shot at the DJR test day and Motorsport News ran a small article I wrote plus and image of the Kangaroo Boards now in use at Morgan Park Raceway.

As I write this I'm preparing 4000 images to go up on the web from the last QLD State Champs @ MP, it'll be a very late night.  Tonight I have also updated the Morgan Park web site with a press release as racing at the track has been suspended because of the Horse Flu, see here for more.

Our web site is getting huge traffic now, we are getting around 2500-3000 visit's per month with around 550,000 hit's (that's pages and images viewed) I reckon we'd be a pretty good place to advertise on!

Well that will do for now, still have to get these galleries up tonight, well tomorrow morning at about 2am I'm thinking.

Till next time - See you at the track............

Cheers Darin

Winter's here in Tropical QLD          21 June 2007

Now being a Kiwi one would think I'd be used to the cold, and I thought I was till this week in Tropical Brisbane, damn the wind was cold!  Mind you I hear it's snowing in Canberra, which is a pain as that's where I'm heading in a few weeks time! Doh.  The family back home tell me the other day they hit the balmy temp of 6°C at midday!

This has been a rather busy couple of weeks for us with the Australian Motor Racing Series (AMRS) at QR, Super Sprints at Morgan Park and the Shannons National Meeting again at QR, plus the next installment of the CAMS QLD State Champs is next weekend at Morgan Park Raceway.

Checkout the AMRS galleries here, there's a sample of around 80 images from the 1200+ I shot over the course of the weekend, this was a great event with some really amazing race cars.  Feel free to request a proof sheet from the gallery.

This month we have had some of our images published in the Australian Classic Car magazine plus (and you heard it here first) we will also feature in the forthcoming Leaded Magazine so make sure you get a copy as we may have featured you!

We are working on a very novel idea that we hope to be able to release the details of late next week, so as they say watch this space!  That's about all I can say at the moment.

This weekend the V8's are in tropical Darwin where it will be a sticky 31°C.  So I'll be snuggling up here in front of the telly taking in the sights of the V8's at the top end of Aus.

Till next time - See you at the track............

Cheers Darin

Team Kiwi Racing          6 June 2007

It's been too long between drinks they say, well for me it's too long between blogs! I cannot believe the last time I wrote was back at the beginning of May.

Unfortunately this Blog is not full of happy stuff, well it maybe for some but not me.  Today and yesterday poor ole Team Kiwi Racing (V8 Supercars) is splashed around the media, no money no race by the looks.  Seems to be a s*%t fight between TKR and Ford Australia or FPR I should say.  I have a direct line to David John but I think its best I stay out of his way.  For the past couple of years I have helped TKR out with their merchandise sales in an IT role and on site a some race meetings selling the stuff myself. 

I was heartened when the New Zealand public dug in their pockets to help TKR out after Paul Radisich managed to write off the Holden at last years Bathurst.  But I'm pretty pissed at him now, the Rat has left the sinking ship, so much for his support when TKR showed him respect and support after the crash, they could have (and maybe in hindsight should have) let him go last year. 

Maybe Gene Rollinson should have gotten a drive, he showed talent at the last round in Winton in the Fujitsu races.  Gene is ex TKR staff and driver apprentice and a nice bloke to boot.

As for the New Zealand business community - blood from stone comes to mind here, now if TKR were racing an Americas Cup Yacht you'd get plenty of money,  Come'on Kiwi Businesses what the heck are you doing, you should be behind TKR in a big way, for god sakes they are racing only some 2000kms away it's not the other side of the world.

I hope they do make the grid at Eastern Creek - for me as a kiwi living here in Oz it's a very special link back to home.

Boo FPR, and BOO Paul Radisich.

Now to some good local stuff, I just spent the weekend with the family at Morgan Park Raceway, what a great time we had with the Super Sprint's "B".  Checkout the gallery here.  This is a great way to go motor racing, checkout the MPR web site for the calendar, and go take a look.

The past couple of months have been busy for us, this month we get a bit of a breather, even get to sit down and watch the next V8 Round this weekend!!

Don't forget to checkout our Blog Sponsor Leaded Magazine, it's a great read and a keeper, unlike many other motoring mags on the scene!  Plus keep an eye out for our images and stories in it!

Till next time, see you at the track!

Cheers Darin

Morgan Park Raceway                 13 May 2007

WOW what a month we have had, we have been really busy as you can see from the web site, every weekend we have added new galleries, even 2 in one weekend.  That's over 5000+ images for the month!

Along with that we have also just launched a sponsorship program with Morgan Park Raceway, we have been privileged to sponsor and design Morgan Park Raceway's first official web site.  It's been a month in the planning but it's now a reality and a hit at the same time.  The web site is enjoying good traffic and already has links on local and national car club web sites. 

This weekend I was at MPR for 2 days with the HRCC Historic Meeting (another well run race meeting from HRCC and of course all of the volunteers and officials at Morgan Park).  Once again I shot over 1600 images for the weekend.  (Edited: recounted 3000 IMAGES!!) (The images will be posted on the site very soon).

Anyway what I was going to say was at the meeting I was getting great feedback about the new MPR web site.  If you have a club that would like a link on the site, just use the contact us form on the MPR site and Bill or TC will get it set up.  Bill and TC mentioned that they have already had an enquiry for private testing from a professional race team in VIC?!

Finally I get a weekend off, next weekend, except we've got concreting to do, damn it! - Must be a race meeting somewhere.

Till next time, see you the track....

Cheers Darin

Historic Hill Climb                          23 April 2007

Sunday just gone I was privileged to be one of a hand-full of photographers at the annual Mt Cotton Historic Hill Climb, what a great day out and for only $5.00.  For this you got a whole days motorsport entertainment.  There was some great racing, a few thrills and spills as well.  Not to mention a HUGE variety of racing cars.  Checkout my gallery for the Hill Climb to see them all.

I was invited by the guys who publish a great Club, Sport and Classic car magazine called Leaded Magazine, this truly is a great read, does this sound like an advert, will it is!  You see we are going to be working closely with Mark and Jason covering local motorsport and other events when needed, and we are looking forward to it.  If you don't have a copy of the mag, have a look at their web site or drop into your nearest news agency and grab a copy, Issue 7 is out this week.

The well run weekend was organised by the Historic Racing Car Club of QLD (HRCC.org.au).  If you are after some great motorsport I recommend a day at Mt Cotton.  There's an MGCC Tighe Cams meeting this Sunday, racing from around 8am.  I'll be there once again for the day.

Its a busy weekend for motorsport this weekend, with the QLD Champs event at QR, drags at Willowbank and the Hill Climb.

Till next time....

Cheers Darin

More Real Racing                              2 April 2007

Well yet again another CAMS State Championship Round has come and gone at Morgan Park, and again the racing was top notch, well done I have to say to Bill Campbell and his team (the circuit looks a picture), all the officials and of course all of the competitors, you turned on a real spectacle.  Some of the closest racing you will ever get to see, actually some may even say TOO close :-)

I have to say the Gemini's put on a huge show, from Friday testing where I was flabbergasted at the close running just in testing!  Congratulations to Rebecca Dawes on winning the best presented car for the weekend, we will be providing Rebecca with a free 20x16inch print as part of her prize.

We have a very exciting project just getting underway, Digital Realism is sponsoring and designing a special website for a very well known group of people, all I can say at the moment is "watch this space".  All will be reveled soon!

Over the course of last weekend I shot in excess of 2000 photographs, most of which will be ending up on the web site for all to see, we'd love to hear your comments on our work and this can be done through our contact us page.

See you at the track.....

Cheers Darin.

Yesterday I was on business at Deception bay which is north of Brisbane City, after seeing my client I had a lunch break and went for a small drive and found myself at the old Lakeside Raceway, what a shame it has come to this, the whole place is run down there's grass growing out of the tarmac and all the windows are smashed in the control tower.  The place needs a lot of work.

Unfortunately I didn't get to see racing at Lakeside in its hay day, I did about 7 years ago get to drive around the circuit in a rental car, I think this was just before it was shut down.  I believe damn pressure from the local council and residents shut this place down, short sightedness I say, legends like Dick Johnson learned their trade there, from what I heard it was a fairly unforgiving place if you left the black stuff!!  Part of Australian Motor Sport History going to ruin.

It was like being in a ghost town, if you get the chance stop and have a look, you can easily climb over (or through) the metal gate and wander around, not sure of the legality of this!  I didn't have my camera as I would have taken a few shots of the place, next time I'm up there I will.

If there's anything I can do to help revive racing up there I will, you can checkout the Lakeside Motor Racing Enthusiasts web site here, why not hop on the bandwagon and help them out.

Cheers Darin

So often these days in the digital world we seem to take a quick look at the images we shoot and file them somewhere on our computers, I'm not just talking about me, I'm guessing that's what most "clickers" do, be it an SLR or a point and click.  Sometimes a really special image may get printed be it the typical 6x4 or maybe even a larger image.  I have plenty of them in boxes and folders in my cupboard or stacked next to my PC.

But on the odd occasion I really like to finish them off and get them framed or block mounted, take the extra time and attention and spend a little bit of cash.  Today I completed a job for one of my clients from the Mt Cotton Hill Climb, he purchased one of our images of his brother competing (he's a competitor as well) as a special birthday gift.  Luckily my framer let me pick it up late this evening!! But that's another story! :-)

I guess what I'm getting on about here is maybe we should on the odd occasion spend a little more time and finish off what we started or set out to do, so folks with this in mind we are now able to offer framing of all our images or block mounting if that is what you are after.  If you are interested in these services just let us know with your order.

What else is happening in the world of motor sport around us, well the V8's are out again this weekend in Perth, good luck to all.  There is also the QR Championship Series which I hope to get to for a while at least over the weekend.  On TV there is the NASCAR on at 9.00am on Pay TV on Sunday, and of course the count down to the second round of the State Champs at Morgan Park the following weekend!

Cheers Darin

This weekend I went to the fabulous MGCC Mt Cotton Hill Climb circuit on a very hot Sunday.  The first round of the Tighe Cams 2007 series was held by the MGCC and was patronised by some 80+ competitors and plenty of spectators.  The racing started promptly at 8.30am and continued right through the day till late afternoon. 

There were some interruptions though namely the off track excursion by car 16 a grey EVO 8 that headed towards but avoided the trees only to spectacularly roll across the circuit right in front of the crowd.  I got to shoot him skidding off until he disappeared down the hill, after that all I heard was crunch and the smashing of glass.  The lucky driver was helped out of the car fairly shaken, the car was a mess. 

Check out the images in gallery 1 of the Hill Climb galleries.

It was great to see such a diverse range of vehicles from single seaters to classic tin tops there really was something for everyone.  It was way to hot for lap times to drop but there were some really fast times on the day.

Also great to catch up with some of the CAMS flag crews whom I've met at Morgan Park.  The next round of the Tighe Cams series is 29 April, but before that it's the classic cars turn, I'll be there for that, and I cannot wait.

Cheers Darin.

Well the first round of the V8 Supercars has come and gone, I as a petrol head loved it of course.  I would have preferred to be there but hey we don't always get want we want, besides I for one think that Channel 7 have done themselves proud.  The coverage of the V8's was very good, I think the commentary team will take a bit to settle in, a part from the regulars such as Crompton and Denyer.

But what really had me excited was the support races, this was great and to see a number of other classes was brilliant.  I hope we get to see plenty of this throughout the year.

Tony Cochrane from V8 Supercars Australia said the ratings were up 27% on last year, not sure how they measure this but that's got to be good news for motor sport.

We have started a new advertising program that will allow companies to advertise on our web space, this is to replace all of the Google Adverts you see around the place, I have had a couple of enquires from my customers about this so I thought we'd give it a go.

Click below to go to the Advertise with us page.

Last weekend I was lucky enough to see some real racing, real door handle to door handle and even closer! I spent the whole weekend at Morgan Park Raceway down in a small sleepy town called Warwick, it reminded me of home actually.

Morgan Park is a stunning circuit and although this is my second trip there it was even better than the first, the whole circuit has been completely resurfaced and a damn good job has been done on that too.  Everyone involved should be most proud of the work done.  A new outright track record was set by Carlo Chermaz in a SuperKart 250 at 59.794, this was a real blinder of a lap.  (Damn these guys are hard to photograph!) Checkout the SuperKart web site.

Back to the racing, there were 9 classes for the weekend 36 races including State Championship events, this was the CAMS QLD Motor racing Championship Round 1 and what a round it was.  Personally for me the Gemini's stole the weekend, with 20/21 cars entered there was some real close racing right through the pack, well done guys and gals!

I shot over 1200 images for the weekend and some 900+ have ended up on the web site, I couldn't choose my best shots so I photo shopped some of the real classic's and have displayed the rest for the competitors to see.  Already some of the images are being displayed on the likes of the QLD Gemini and Formula Vee web sites, or check out my links page for more details.

The next round at Morgan Park is only 30 odd days away, and I'm preparing for it all ready, see you all there.

What else has happened.. I got my first sniff of the V8 Supercars a week ago with the testing out at QLD Raceway good to see them back on the track, and most with new liveries.  And of course this weekend is the first round the Clipsal 500, unfortunately the deal I was putting together hasn't yet come to fruition but we are still working on it!  Never say die!  I'll just have to be happy in front of the Plasma with a few cold ones!

I'm in this business because I love motor sport (of all kinds, if it has a motor I'm happy) and I love taking photographs, best of all I love seeing my images displayed for others to enjoy, be it on someone's wall or web site or in a magazine or posters.  So help me with my addiction and buy some of your favorites be it printed or on CD/DVD!

My images can help you promote your enjoyment in motor sport and maybe help you get that next sponsor.

Hmm was bloody dusty out at MP poor old camera will need a clean now, there are some dust speckles on some of the images, but don't worry I have the technology to remove them!

One last thing, I have tried some new galleries for the MP images, I'd love to hear your comments on their layout, did you find them hard or easy to navigate, do you have a preference for a specific layout or have you seen one on another web site that I should look at, send me an email or contact us through out contact page.

Till next time......... Cheers Darin.

I have to say the countdown to the V8 Supercars is really on, Channel Seven had their launch on telly this week with a couple of cars and supposedly 29 drivers, unfortunately I slept in and missed most of it!  Mind you they did keep repeating some of it throughout the day.  Then the same day V8 Supercars Australia had their launch, I'm guessing my invite got lost in the post!  Again by all accounts (and again on telly) it was all glitz and jazz!  I think there was more than a few on the stage that looked a bit sheepish (that's not Kiwi lingo for all my Aussie visitors!) better behind the wheel than on stage.

Most of the liveries seem to have been released now, I see in and around a few of the motorsport forums there being mixed emotions, of course the underlying argument is whether you support - Ford vs Holden.  Personally I haven't seen any I don't like, Lowndes car seem a bit devoid of additional smaller sponsors, so I'm guessing that Vodafone has given them a stack of dosh for the 07 Season.  HRT released theirs this week, a bit the same old, bit more chunkier on the doors with the driver lion combo (you can check it out here). 

I have one team I cannot wait to see and it will be their first year in a Ford and a return to the blue oval for Paul Radisich with Team Kiwi.  Hopefully the 07 season will be extra special for TKR now that they have the backing of Ford (Holden didn't do much for them here and back home) and FPR oh and a competitive car.

Most of the teams will hit the track next week for their first test day this season, about bloody time I say, I'm sorry but I'm getting withdrawal symptoms!  To combat this I dropped by DJR and was surprised to see that only #17 was ready for next weeks testing, the 18 car was still basically a shell.  After that I crossed the M1 and stopped at SBR my god they had cars for Africa and transporters.

On the local circuit the first CAMS event for QLD will be held Saturday and Sunday week at Morgan Park in Warwick.  I will be there for 2 days with the new camera gear.  Not 100% sure of all the classes running on the weekend but if you are down that way make sure you drop by the circuit for some close fun racing, and an excellent weekend I'm sure.  Say "hi" I'll be running around in the yellow day-glow safety jacket, oh and with a bloody great lens and camera on my side.

To all the competitors going to MP don't forget to check out the new gallery here on our site after the event.  We have some new formats coming for our printed images, so watch out for them as well.  Join our Blog updates or our newsletter to receive news of new galleries, plus how you can get discounts on your photographs.

Till next time... Cheers Darin

My First Blog                                                                                     9th February 2007

Well what can I say, I'm a motorsport fan of the biggest kind, I've been around it most of my life, mainly back home in New Zealand where I grew up in a small town called Feilding (yes it is spelt that way!)  There is a circuit there called Manfield which they began building when I was born I believe, some 30 mumble years ago, when I was old enough to skateboard my sister and I would have races around it, well one lap a day I'm thinking seen as it is some 3.x kms long.  A great place to grow up, my father was a grid marshal and for a time chief grid marshal, I myself went on to be one as well for a while.

I have always had an interest in photography and it was only last year that we bought a photography business (as you can see by this web site) which has allowed me to spend some more time at the tracks, now in Aus of course. This year I will be chasing all kinds of racing from Karts to hill climbs to what I believe is the echelon of Australian Motorsport - the V8 Supercars.

We are all about quality images, quality shots, quality printing and most important QOS - quality of service, if you are not happy we will make it right!

Enough about me.  This week I managed to catch the launching of the DJR Ford Jim Beam race team, albeit on the net with their live streaming, wow haven't we come a long way with technology, it was like being there, well except for the "buffering" every 3-4 mins.  The Queensland V8 teams have a practice day coming up very soon which I hope to attend, keep an eye out for that, if you want more details sign up for our blog.

Lastly sorry for the adverts throughout our site, but it does help us fund the web site.

Well that's enough for today, happy surfing - Motorsport - bring it on!