2:30am on a Sunday most sane people would be in bed, asleep - dreaming of nice things, last Sunday this was not me.... No.. sleeping would of been pointless as I was due up at 3:00 and didn't mind in the slightest... you see last Sunday was Ford Fair!!!
If you've been reading my blog for a while you'll know I have a fondness for the ST220 and this year is its 15th Anniversary...
Well the ST220 Enthusiasts delivered with a whopping 60 Cars on their anniversary club stand, set outside the pits in prime position.
It was an epic day filled with bacon (supplied by the aptly named Bacon Station and its resident chef) and lots of good banter which in all fairness is a true extension of the clubs online Facebook page. The stand was full of people helping each other, given advice and in some cases literally modding on the day - this to me is the true spirt of Ford Fair.
There were some awesome cars on display, but the 3 that were awarded 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the prestigious Best On Stand competition really were deserving winners.
The Best On Stand completion was judged by someone who knows a thing or two about modding Mondeos - Dennis Hays of Dennis Racing who runs a fully race prepped ST220 which is currently competing with in Classic Sports Car Club ( CSCC ) new millennium series (class C).
Many congratulations to Steve who won a photoshoot and owenseye.com voucher for coming first place.
After an epically long day (you know what? I am pretty sure I was the last car out of Silverstone... No really, even the Silverstone staff had left before me :))
all I can say is..... Bring on Next Year !!! :)
Owen Out
To find out more about the ST220 Enthusiasts, and of course tips on all things bacon click here
To find out more about Dennis Racing and their awesome racing machine click here
To find out more about the CSCC and New Millennium Series click here
]]>
To celebrate a number of ST220 descended upon the British Motor Museum in Gaydon to mark the event.
15 Years old already? Who would think this lovable under rated fast ford has hit this milestone.
ST220's were an sport edition of the Mondeo MKIII, not to be confused with the ST TDCI… the diesel variant that pushed out 155Bhp via a 2.2 lump though still a very capable car it was the ST220 shipped with a 3.0 V6 Making 220Bhp from ford with lowed suspension, full leather recaro seats (including the rare red and super rare red and black combo), heated front seats and twin exhausts from factory - what is there not to like about this beast? famously even the full x top gear crew including Clarkson him self found it hard to find fault - That being said I am a bit biased as I have one my self :)
To celebrate a large number of ST220s descended upon the British Motor Museum in Gaydon to mark the event. There were some epic Mondeos on display from all over the UK and beyond on what was a great day out for all.
Click below for a video of some of the cars on display.
If you were there in a Mondeo then the chances are I got entry pic of you. Click here for the Entry Pic gallery
Owen
]]>
So were to start? This car has come a long way in a short amount of time. When I first saw Amy (lovingly named by Harry) was it around a year ago and even then she was a tidy Panther black ST220 now she has transformed into the show car she is today. Lets look at the facts?
20" Rims, AP coilovers, full decat, Blue flame performance exhaust, Tripple R front spiltter, big break conversion and an awesome BluePrint wrap and even then I sure there are still a few mods Harrys not mentioned :)
This car is not one to blend into the crowd and I am sure will continue to evolve as Harry did admit to me... "he is actually a little obsessed with her" which shows given the commitment he has shown to get her ready for show season.
This is one Mondeo you'll want to watch out for sure.
If you would like to know where you can find Harrys Mondeo over this years show season, Check out the Blue Oval Project (TBOP) Facebook page for more details of where the club will be displaying
]]>
It started life a Performance blue 220 but Darren had other plans and gave it to Kode Performance in Sheerness to work their magic. So lets start with the obvious, this ST220 is not in your average colour, the colour is called 'Deep Base Pearl Purple Velvet' (I wonder if they call it DBPPV for short?) off topic I know sorry... getting back to it - its epic. To describe it, it short of shifts tone as you move around the car, having followed the car around on the shoot I can say the colour is quiet a head turner. Ironically the next thing the stands out is the sound track of this beast, even when poodling around this car is not shy, on over run she pops like small firearm which is unexpected from a Mondeo and then there is the styling. Putting aside the colour there are a number of details that only a trained eye would catch like in the inside of the vents are painted green to match the engine bay and breaks, and the is a tiny strip of carbon on the back bumper that ties in the lower bumper with the upper lip spoiler all add to the small details that tie the car together.
So lets talk about the arches?
Yes they are wider but don't look overly extreme and are deliberately in keeping to the original design, some people will have to look twice as there is a clear difference just not an obvious one, its common to here people say "that's not normal... is it?" or "is that a little wider?". From the back she looks clearly fatter and it has to be to accommodate the massive Kode 9.5j alloys sat under the on the rear.
Darren wanted a one off and to my eye has accomplished that already...
That being said he assures me he has more up his sleeve for this car so you can expect to see more of her in the future.
To see the full gallery click here
For more information about Kode Performance click here
What do you all think of her?
Catch you all soon,
Owen
]]>It's been almost a year since My last blog post, to be fair I've not been too active this year so far but I have a feeling that will change shortly - but I'll get into that a another time :), but now back with a vengeance and what a great way to start with coverage from Ford Fair 2016 held at Silverstone Circuit. The Biggest and the best was back again for another year. This year in convoyed up to Ford Fair with The 'Blue Oval Project' though My ST220 was on the 'ST220 Enthusiasts' stand along side 26 of her friends.
The show its self was jam packed full of Ford greatness with highlights being:
Getting a glimpse of the epic new ford GT
Paul Swift doing his thing in the live action arena with the new RS Focus
And hanging out with the fine people of the ST220 Enthusiasts
ST220 Enthusiasts StandFord Fair 2016
All in all a great day and we look forward to next years instalment, Click Here for the full gallery
Click to find out more about Ford Fair
Click this link to find out more about the ST220 Enthusiasts, and for more information aboutThe Blue Oval ProjectClick there ;)
Have a great day,
Owen
]]>If you like what you see Please like and share
Click the picture to view the full gallery.
Owen
Hang in there as more great shoots are heading your way soon.
Owen
]]>
Mostly people dare not try to mod one aesthetically in case they get it wrong.
I can assure you the above is not the case with Rich Fox’s mean green RS. The attention to detail is astounding. With tuning, sounds and aesthetics all catered for this car is truly a head turner.
Mod List:
- Revo Stage 4 Plus Map
- Lowered on BC Coilovers
- KSport big brakes
- ProAlloy intercooler
- ProAlloy oil breather kit
- ProAlloy radiator
- AS oil cooler
- AS dress up kit
- KMS Section 18 exhaust system
- Big fuel pump with 759cc injectors
- ACR front bumper
- Msport roof scoop
- Massive rally light pods
- Insane carbon spoiler
- Full Vectis Vinyl WRC graphics
- All tuning done by SCC Performance
This car is a true testament to its owners dedication, commitment and vision to the project. I can honestly say one of the finest examples I have seen so far.
Many thanks to Rich for allowing access to take the pictures.
Owen
To see the full gallery of Rich’s RS click here
]]>Had a great time at Japfest at Castle Coombe this year with the highlight being the Drift Kings Competition. 20 Cars, mostly Nissans with cars ranging from 350 - 600 Bhp competing over 3 rounds. Round 1 was but rounds 2 and three is where they turn up the heat with most of the action taking place at Quarry.
The show had a diverse range of cars from classics to this years freshest models.
All in all it was a great show and I can not wait to see what they have install for us next year
Click here for the full gallery
Owen
]]>
So picture this situation, you go shopping for a new lens, you're just about to pay for your new purchase and then the assistant asks that question that seems there just to confuse people "would you like a UV filter with that?".
Lets talk a little about what A UV filter used to do. Back in the day UV filters were used to block UV rays from the film helping a image to have more contrast, that said now days digital sensors are no where near as sensitive to UV as film is also with the advancement of technology most lenses are have coatings that minimise the effect as well, which makes them somewhat redundant in this sense on modern digital cameras
So with that said, please note my thoughts below are based on a digital shooter and do not apply to film shooters.
Let’s look into the benefit of using a UV filter before looking into reasons not to. Simply put a UV filter will offer a physical level of protection to help prevent your front element from any 'accidents' that may crop up and to be fair they do a good job at it too, browse any photography forum and it won’t be long until you come across some unfortunate soul who has taken a picture of their 70-200 with a front element resembling a spider web saying "if only I'd had my UV filter on" but in reality I have found these incidents are few and far between if you take care of you kit (this has never happened to me or anyone I know of in all the time I have been shooting to date), using a lens hood as an alternative helps minimize that risk even more but we can go into that in a different post.
So why wouldn't you want to use one then?.... A degradation in image quality!. After investing in quality glass why would you want to tarnish it by sticking a relatively cheap piece of glass on front of it? Ultimately the less that's between your subject and your sensor the better. Having any filter on you lens means less light, potential ghosting and if a cheap filter allot worse glass. I tested a number of UV filters with a various lenses and can vouch for the fact my image quality was worse overall by the addition of the filter. Having said all that not all filters are bad, there are some things that you can't or at least would have great difficulty doing without a filter but ill go into that in a different post as well.
So to my closing thoughts on the subject are. It depends on what you’re doing and how you shoot. If you were just getting into photography and got a digital camera with a couple of kit lenses then would recommend you to throw on a filter and the extra protection vs the slight loss of image quality would be worth the sacrifice. But it you had just invested a small fortune into a quality fast prime or a 'L' then I am sure you would want to get best out of you glass investment, with that said I would only recommend going 'commando' on the preemies your using a lens hood and/or have insurance to protect your glass investment.
I would like to hear you thoughts and comments on this.
How do you shoot? With or without protection :)
Owen B
]]>
Leilia contacted me just before Christmas with an idea of a covert shoot for a present to her partner. We had a limited time window to get the shoot done before her partner returned as we were shooting at her location for convenience.
The session was rewarding and great fun with great results.
Congratulations to Leilia and her family.
Owen
For more pictures from the shoot click here
Just a quick post to say I've opened up a further 5 galleries from the Sandra Shoot including the fun and Quirky Fashion Flair edits.
Click here to check them out.
Owen
]]>
I wanted to share the first two galleries from an epic shoot with Sandra.
Sandra was an absolute blast to work with and we spent as much time laughing as we did shooting. We came up with a number of ideas that were shot on location and with the mobile studio. There were a number of cracking shots from the session and I cant wait for the opportunity to shoot with her again.
There are currently 2 new galleries open from this shoot with more to follow.
Click here to access the Galleries - Enjoy
Owen
I'd like to start off by apologising for the lack of activity of recent weeks. Owenseye has changed location from London to the Garden of England (so they say) Kent. I am now based near the Medway towns and am looking forward to discovering what the area has to offer.
That said I am sure I'll be spending plenty of time in London so you'll be sure to see new London shots as well and Kent based stuff in the future. With that said I am back and ready to kick off with fresh images and ideas.
Stand by for some content coming your way very soon.
Ciao for now
Owen
]]>On a recent visit to Lullingstone Castle near Eynsford Kent I came across some nice flowers that I just could not help to photograph. Even now as summer comes to an end it still seemed vibrant with warmth and colour.
Well worth a visit if you have green fingers.
Happy weekend
Owen
Click Here to see more of my Flower and Plant photography
For more information about Lullingstone Castle click Here
]]>
Thought i'd share a couple pictures I recently took whilst visiting Eagles Heights Wildlife Sanctuary in Kent to celebrate national wildlife day. Eagles Heights its self is host to approximately 150 raptors many of which can be seen flying in their demonstrations. We defiantly recommend a visit.
Have a great evening
Owen
For more of my animal pictures click here
For more information about Eagles Heights and National wildlife day click the respective links below
]]>A while back I had the opportunity to shoot a BWM 1M, whilst I was shooting it another showed up so it seemed wrong not to shoot them together. The BWM 1M turns heads with its flared bodywork and is set to be a collector’s classic in the future. Defiantly one to keep an eye on
Click here to see the gallery.
Owen
]]>
I recently had the pleasure of photographing my niece’s christening a few weeks ago. It was a warm and cosy ceremony set in a beautiful church in Lithuania.
It was challenging from a photography point of view due to the limited available light but the combo of the 5DmkIII and 85mm 1.8 worked well to capture some incredible moments.
Owen
]]>
St Peter's BasilicaRome
DavidFlorence
Click Here for the rest of the set
Owen
]]>
Click here to view
Owen
]]>Watch this space, in the mean time there are a few leaked pictuers posted click here for a peak.
Owen
]]>Green convertible F-Type Jaguar
Whilst going for a walk about at this years annual Bromley Pageant car show I had to stop for a double take when I saw this green legend standing out from the rest of the row. Ironically it was parked next to a dark blue Aston Martin but I found myself drawn to this Jag for its elegant, mean looks coupled with the bold colour which to me was an enchanting combination.
After getting close to the car it was clear that it was truly stunning and when started it did not disappoint in the sound department either.
This is truly one of my favourite cars and I am very thankful the owner allowed me some time with it.
Click here for the gallery
Special Thanks to Tony and Matt for allowing me the time to capture this great car
]]>
]]>
Here is the outcome of fun shoot with Anna shot in the mobile studio. The session was relaxed allowing a collaboration of ideas to create some amazing images for Anna's modelling portfolio.
Anna was truly great to work with and made it easy to achieve different looks through out the session.
Anna - Mobile studio shoot
Anna - Mobile studio shoot
To view the other pictures from this gallery click Here
]]>Good Friday comes but once a year but then again such a fantastic mix of cars in one place is pretty rare too! It was a very early start for us all having to get to the meet point for 7:30am. We then convoyed from there to Dunsfold (the home of the Top Gear test track), where we were greeted by 100's of classic, modified and custom cars, bikes and trucks. I have been to many a show in my time but I have not seen anything so big and varied before. It was a delight to walk around and see some of the truly unique stuff on display. Part way into the day it was announced that the event was so big that the gates had been closed and people were getting turned away.
All in all it was a great and had some truly special cars on how so it gets a massive thumbs up from this photographer.
Click here to got to the main gallery
Owen
Surrey Street Rodders Wheels Day 2014
For more information about the Surrey Street Rodders and Wheels day please click here
]]>A photographer friend of mine tipped me off about Selfridges hosting a public popup skate park in London for a few weeks, this sounded like an unique photo opportunity that was not to be missed.
The building its self was very 'urban', the sort of place that would make a for great a grungy portrait session so I opted for a ‘gritty’ theme to my images.
Although it was not the best lit location the Location had plenty going on to keep us photographers happy.
We were not there for long but managed to get some great captures of the skaters and the environment before the session ended.
For more pictures from this shoot click here, as always let me know your thoughts and I’ll see you all next time
Many thanks to Peter England for the heads up on the cool Location/Event. To see Peters Images click here.
Owen
]]>
12 Gauge CC at The Fast Showclick here to open the gallery!!
Click the here to see access the gallery.
Enjoy!
Owen
]]>Classic shoot at Santa pod speedway with 12 Gauge CC.
Sunday saw the opening Car show of the year; the fast show hosted at the legendary North Hamptonshire drag strip Santa Pod speedway. The show itself had a good array of cars and drag action. Despite the day being a bit nippy, 12 Gauge models Sarah and Becky were on hand to warm up cold onlookers.
12 Gauge Head Model Sarah
12 Gauge Model Becky
Many thanks to 12 Gauge for the invite and Sarah and Becky for braving the cold.
More pictures from the shoot will be added shortly -
***Update*** - the gallery is now live click here for access
Owen
]]>Whilst driving around in Kent yesterday (got to admit TomTom had got us lost), I noticed a great photo opportunity. We decided to go back to take a picture and arrived just in time to catch sunset.
I was shooting with a 24-105L and 5DMKIII combo to maximise the 24mm on the full frame sensor to shoot as wide as possible.
Although it was not a long session the scene was definitely worth the revisit.
Owen
Many thanks to Natalie Collins for waiting out the shoot and giving us a ride back to our cars.
For more pictures like these please click here
]]>My wife and I were all set to go away on holiday to Cyprus earlier on this month, one of the things we wanted to do was tour the Island and find the less touristic places and see the Island as a Local. We have friends in Cyprus and the conversation of how to get around came up. Our friends informed us Cyprus has no satellite navigation coverage? But "its impossible to get lost". With that in mind we set out on our adventure armed with some local tourist maps and the unthinkable happened... That's right we got lost, but it turns out this was not a bad thing in the slightest. Getting lost sent us more of the beaten track then ever and allowed for some amazing photo opportunities that would not of been available to us had we stuck to the planned route.
I recommend you all try getting lost too the next time you away on holiday as you may find you're next best picture when trying to find you’re way back to the hotel.
For the rest of the picture from Cyprus please click Here
]]>
For more photography of London and other cities please visit the City and Architecture
]]>
Photography is like cooking in an oven. Cooking is all about getting the correct amount of heat to whatever you are trying to cook. Photography is all about getting the correct amount of light to 'light' your subject. The three things that are going to make a difference to your meal coming out burnt or not are 1 - the temperature, 2 - the time its left in the oven and 3 - how high up it is in the oven as heat rises. So understanding all that in photography terms I would liken Shutter speed to be the time it in the oven, aperture to be how hot the over is and ISO to be how close it is to the top of the oven. In the same way as cooking these 3 things control the exposure of a image. So still going with the cooking analogy if you put something to the top of the cooker at the same heat as it was at the bottom it is going to cook quicker if you do not turn down the temperature to compensate. if you do not compensate you meal will burn. Same with photography, if you turn up the ISO but don't tweak the shutter and/or the aperture then your image will be overexposed and the camera makes one or all of these for you when you shoot in any mode apart from manual or bulb.
But what happens if you like you meal a little overdone? Or maybe even rare? That is where manual mode can help as the camera's programmers don't always know what you want. It is also worth mentioning on a lot of modern DSLRs nowadays there is a little line with an indicator the that runs through the bottom of the view finder, consider this the cooking instructions advising you that you are getting closer to the settings it thinks you should use, if the indicator is in the middle of the slider, you would be following the recipe to the letter - correctly exposing according to the programmers of your particular brand of camera. If its towards the left that indicates the image would be the amount under exposed and the right is going into over exposed. Again to change exposure you would have to tweak the ISO, Shutter Speed and/or the aperture understand this concept you will be well on your way to going manual on any camera. There is a lot more to gaining more control of pictures than this brief introduction but this should give you an idea of how to start exposing your pictures manually.
Please leave any comments below. Happy Shooting.
Owen
]]>Owen
For more pictures from the Edinburgh shoot click here
]]>