I was originally invited my Rikki James from SSVC after meeting him on the Ninove Cruise earlier in the year. Paul from T2D also suggested that I sell some posters from their stand (muchio apprecio for the trade space Paul).

As the van was staying in the Paddock area in Sandown Sat & Sun so I booked a room at the Ship Hotel in Weybridge. I was given the disabled room bizarrely, but it turned out to be rather palatial, perfect as I had 35 posters to wrap up and needed the floor space.

Saturday was an early start, the van was filthy so I was washing it in the car park at 6:15 in the morning! Then finished off some more poster wrapping. No time for breakfast, off to the Sandown gates for 7:45am.

The Paddock

Was great lining up next to Shep from Boss Dog who arrived with the awesome graphic wrapped split screen. Some amazing vans inside and out of the paddock. The weather was great for HDR’s. Good cloud coverage making for some moody pics.

Met up with Tom Wheatley on the Sunday. We sent a few hours checking out some of the rides in the paddock and talked HDR photography (yawn I hear you say). But its great to speak to a fellow photo geek.

Some pics of the weekend

Congratulations to Matt Ballz from the T2D who won a Top 20 with project Goof

Poster Sales

The posters were really well received. We sold over half the stock we took with us which was amazing. The landscape ones sold on the Saturday and we could have sold them 10 times over! Others didn’t sell quiet so well, but it was more of a test the water thing.

Buy posters online here

Finally, thanks to everyone who bought a poster. Means a lot knowing that my photography is appreciated by more than just me!

Those people that asked about photo sessions for their buses. I’m chuffed to be asked to do that for you. I’d be well up for it, just get in contact and hopefully we can get a date set and get shooting. I will be attending some more events during the summer. I’ll be posting events we’ll be attending on our new page imaginatively named… Events.

Also cheers to T2D for the trade space. Cheers fellas.

You can find us the Type 2 Detective stage throughout the weekend.

Posters will be available in A2 and A1 sizes and either mounted on 6mm foam board ready to hang on a wall or just printed. We will have limited prints available, if we run out of a particular poster we will take your details and post it to you within 10 days.

Prints for sale:

Click on thumbnails below price list.

Organise a shoot with Jon

Fen Studios will be taking many quality images throughout the weekend. If you would like to talk about organising a shoot for your van then talk to me (Jon) at the show, I’ll be hanging around the stall or near my van.

Buy posters online, here.

Quoted from T2D – “On Sunday 14 March 2010 the centre of town will be closed to all traffic except for drivers of Aircooled VWs. Witness hundreds of VWs of all age, style and colour on parade through the beautiful Belgian streets (500 – 1000 cars are expected). Soak up the unique atmosphere of this memorable occasion – a must for all VW enthusiasts.”

My split was still on the ramps at Type 2 Detectives at 3pm and we were due to leave in a little under 3 hours. The van still had to have the louvered windows refitted. Anyway, not a problem, all was finished and I met Steve and Tim on the A11 ready to drive down to Maidstone for the UK night stop before we got the train early hours on Saturday morning.

Saturday 13th March started at 5:15, quick shower and we were on our way to Folkstone to get the train to Calais.

We had several pit stops en-route to Ninove. Was great to see the convoy grow as the day progressed. A few pics from the days drive down.

Simons rat bug looked awesome and won the T2D trophy on Sunday, congrats.

Few pics below from the Witkap Brewer. Great location for photographing vans, parts of it looked derelict like some of the vans. Perfect for some HDR pics. Free beer too which was welcomed after a 4 hour drive

Some very nice early bays.

Cool deco house out the back of the brewery.

Loved the 17″ Radar on this bug.

One of my fav from the show, super slammed rat bug. Love the trike on the roof

Splity showing off his new interior. Big thanks to Simon from Interior Motive for sorting us our with a super cool pad inside.

Next show, VolksWorld 2010, 28th – 29th March – hope to see you there

Read all about how and why the guys at Type 2 Detectives did what they did. Check out the top end bespoke interior from Simon at Interior Motive as well. Excellent article and write up, pictures aren’t too bad either

Hopefully I’ll get the chance to get another publication in this top mag.

Get your copy now. In all good news agents 11th March 2010.

I was chuffed when I was asked to picture the TV Bus from the guys at Type 2 Detectives. An awesome slammed early bay with a serious stance.

Dunk is setting up his own customized Volkswagen interior company and wanted some imagery for his new website. He’s based in St Neots and suggested we take some pictures of his 1966 11-window split screen van. Its a very clean van that’s been through the usual T2D slamming and mechanical upgrades and is one seriously cool van.

The day went from bad to worse as the original location had had its access blocked. So we found another place just down the road and found some open gates, people walking there dogs and a nice open area to take some pictures, all seemed well and good.

Abandon ship, its going down…

Then it decided to rain (the weather forecast wasn’t great, but no signs of rain I must report at 11am this morning). Fighting through the drizzle we then found ourselves locked in the field with no way out. It was getting dark and we were both wet and cold. To eventiually found what we thought was an escape route only for Smurf (Dunks van) to drift off the field path and sunk into the mud. nicely embedded into the mud we finally had to be rescued by the farmer. To be honest he wasn’t too bad at giving us a bollocking, but if you’re going to leave fields open with no sign posts, whats a VW photographer going to do eh?!?

The promise is to return for more shots in better weather.

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Its had the full treatment from Type 2 Detectives, slammed , narrowed and now sits low and menacing on the floor. From what I hear it drives straight and true. The interior is yet to be finished, I hope to be able to get some interior once its done.

When you get a bus this low you know its going to be a painful photo shoot. Not only will it involve a lot of lying on the floor getting those dramatic angles but I knackered my knee the day before so was cringing everytime I got down on the floor, ouch.

The brief from VW Camper & Bus was to show off the slammed patina bay in all its glory with some low grungy shots. This is the first time I’ve shot for a magazine and I had to think a little differently about how I frame the subject. Making sure there is plenty of space in the frame allowing for cropping and text.

The light was dull which is preferable to full on sun. But this was almost too dull. The location was only a few miles from T2D HQ on the other side of Reach. There are several large black grain stores there which made for a large blank canvas in which to place the bus in front of.

I ended up shoot mainly multiple bracketed exposures which would then allow me to either use a single frame exposure to produce high tonal HDR pics. Ideally I could have done with some high powered strobes but the final images came out pretty good after the HDR treatment.

These images will hopefully make it into a VW Camper & Bus issue soon. I’ll be sure to post some more news when I hear something.

Lastly I would like to talk Paul at T2D for getting me the photo gig. Hopefully they’ll be some more

This album is a general collection of pictures that don’t belong to any specific album. They’re a collection of the new and wonderful creations from the guys at T2D.

Gallery