Porsche Carrera 964 on GMR

GMR is a pretty famous mountain road out here is SoCal. It used to be a place a lot of young enthusiastic mountain drivers would go to test their driving ability at night.  

In recent times, the road has been getting a lot of attention from the media in which gives a lot of attention to the police. So police have been a bit more proactive about monitoring it for extra curricular activity. 

Last week we had a day with very heavy rain and the next morning, Phil with @handsomeandphilthy called me up to go take photos on GMR. Figuring rain photos would be cool, I agreed and met him up there.  

But the whole time, it never rained although we had very ominous rain clouds hanging right over our heads.  

For this shoot, I kept the editing styles more loose to show some variety in style. I'm happy with the way they turned out.

Hopefully next time around, I can actually get some rain photos and maybe getting someone to drift in the rain would be sweet.

Andrew Manley​
Automotive Photographer​

Happy 4th Birthday Princess Addy

Nothing makes you feel older than watching a person go from birth to a child in no time. Where did all the time go... right? So our niece Addyson celebrated her 4th birthday yesterday with a nice small gathering of first cousins at Chuck E Cheese in Diamond Bar. 

I brought out the Canon 1dx and 24-70mm 2.8 Mark II.... which typically I don't do since indoor evenings would bring out L primes but I wanted to shoot at various focal lengths so I went with my gut. The 1dx held up well since it's low light is terrific and the image quality from the Mark II was sharp as it usually is. 

Shooting candids/documentary/journalistic style takes some effort because at the end of the day, it comes down to timing... you have to do everything right and then wait for the perfect moment. Typically I am directing at my shoots.... "Stand there, move this, park here, fix your hair...." but documentary style requires patience and being on the sidelines. 

Now I tried my best to do what I could to capture the moments yesterday but I felt like I struggled in capturing the essence. Could be all sorts of reason but I feel like I really need to change my mindset when I am shooting different styles... but it was also my niece's party so I wanted to enjoy it. Ah... the struggles.

Would love to hear who you guys love in documentary styled photography. What are some of your secrets in capturing special moments? Share below in the comments. Would love to hear you guys.

Happy birthday Addy! Love you babes

Til the next
Andrew Manley

Star gazing at Leo Carillo Beach, CA with the Sony A7s & A7r II

Leonard Holland, one of our guys at IE Photo Rentals loves doing landscapes and he has been talking about shooting with the group for some time. He came into the shop one day to show me a photo of his last trip to Leo Carillo Beach, CA. I was blown away with the ideal of laying out at the beach and looking at the stars. He told me that he wanted to go again to try and get a better shot since he wasn't happy with his last encounter.

I figured it was a great time to take a short trip out with the team and take photographs as a group. We agreed to meet there at 10pm but we actually met closer to 10:30pm or so. Our group ran late cause we got caught up in the Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade traffic, Pro was coming from the "hood" and Leonard's group was about 5 mins behind my group. Hector and Nancy made it there 20 mins before anyone but Hector started to get a bit of anxiety cause it was so dark. Our group originally planned to eat a nice meal in Santa Monica but cause we were running late, we ended up eating Jack in the Box. Felt like I was in high school again... in a car packed with people eating Jumbo Jacks with their famous buttermilk sauce. Good times. Below is a map of where Leo Carillo Beach is.

As soon as we arrived, I could already see the stars shinning brighter than they have ever in my entire life. I could even see traces of the Milky Way Galaxy... that was all a big trip for me. Part of why the stars were so bright, no ambient light pollution. I am guessing light pollution is about 3 stops of light brighter than the stars way above. When our eyes adjust for street lamps and such, the weaker light of the stars recede. 

It was pitch black out there so in an effort to keep the photos representing the feel out there, I left the images mainly untouched. We ended up shooting for 2.5 hours or so but people started to get cold and sleepy as we were getting closer to 3am. I felt like I could shoot another 2 hours. 

I didn't like the composition of the shot where the Milky Way was so instead, I probably did a big no-no and ended up making my own composition. I stacked a shot of the Milky way into a landscape that I liked better. I know a lot of you Purist would probably scoff at me but hey, it's what I do. It took me about 40 mins to properly blend it in but I got it to where I was happy.

Definitely worth a trip out there.

©2015 Copyright Andrew Manley