Although the title of this post is sort of clickbait, I almost retired my 911 in early September for the season. Generally, I run the car pretty late into the season (Thanksgiving if we’re unlucky, Halloween or later if we’re lucky) before parking it. However, I unfortunately encountered an issue with a giant chunk of metal being lodged in one of my rear tires, causing it to be completely flat by the time I noticed. Thankfully, it held air fine during the drive home and only became an issue while parked in my garage. I thought about replacing the tire vs getting it patched and due to the insane cost ($580 for one rear tire), I decided patching would be the way to go.
I ended up dropping off the tire at TT Auto a few days later. Terence noticed that the hole was pretty large and the tire would have to be unmounted, patched from the inside, and then remounted. They took the wheel to Central Tire, who did a great job. The tire holds air and they were even able to re-mount the tire without having to move any wheel weights. For someone who cares about stuff like that, I’m ecstatic.
Since my car was once again roadworthy, Tim (Red 911) and I wanted to do a photoshoot of our cars, especially since I haven’t shot both of our cars since the year previous. I also asked Terence, who brought himself and Theresa in a Black 993. Alan (Terence’s brother) came in Terence’s other Porsche, a silver 996.
Our first meet location was the 102st Parkade on the top floor. Although the exterior and interior of the parkade had recently renovated, the top level was blocked off, ruining our plans to shoot there. Thankfully, we had planned for other locations just in case. We then drove to our second location, which was a secluded street right behind the Jubilee Car Park at the U of A. I have shot multiple times at the parkade itself so this time I wanted to shoot around it, especially since there are some interesting buildings in the area. It was also practically deserted, which helped us avoid blocking other drivers.
Lined up
At this point, the shooting began!
After this, I decided to be a bit more creative and pose each car in a different location to try to “showcase” it a bit more. Sort of like staging a car. I also had Tim bring his LED light to try some light painting. First up was Terence’s black 993, which is a recent acquisition. It’s a Targa 4S on reverse mounted BBS LMs in his signature color (which is the same color as the wheels as my Camry)
In this photo, we used the LED to highlight the car as the location was quite dark and the car is black. I love the highlights and how moody it makes the photo look
This shot took a few tries to do, as it’s pretty hard to write 911 backwards and reversed in 10 seconds. The end result is very cool though and Terence told me that this one will be printed and hung up in his shop. Awesome!
Next up is my own car. We highlighted the curves of the car and the bronze wheels. This photo is one of my favourites out of the set and I’ll definitely be printing it off to hang in my own home. The framing, colors, and setting are perfect.
Tim’s car was parked down a bit further down at the entrance of the cooling plant at the U of A. I love the symmetry of the photo with the two lights. Tim’s car is quite dark as well so using light to paint the side helps the car pop from the background.
This 996 4S is Terence’s latest “new” car, with the intent that it will be a winter beater (yeah…). We sort of stumbled on this location but the photo worked out really well. The painted 4S stands out against the darker right side, while the left has 4 windows, mimicking the 4S moniker of the car.
At this point, there was one more area at the U of A I wanted to shoot at, but unfortunately it had multiple police cruisers there, so we decided to cruse to our next location. We chose a longer drive down to the Hertiage Valley Transit Station as it has been recently constructed and was not very busy. The drive down was hilariously fun, with a lot of downshifting and exhaust noise. Smiles all around.
Once we arrived, I realized how empty this place actually was. There was not a single car in the whole parking lot, allowing us to park our cars however we wanted. The only thing lacking was any background scenery, as the lot is surrounded by, well, a whole lot of grass and not much else.
This is one of my favourite shots at this location. There was a smidge of rain while we were out and it looks like dew on Tim’s car. The color is also highlighted against a background of black which gives good contrast.
The last photo I have is a bit of a “squad” photo. I generally do not photograph people, although I do wish I did a bit more to highlight the owners as much as the cars. A great idea came up during shooting that we should re-create the iconic Beatles Abby way album with us walking in front of our cars. I gave the camera to Theresa and told her to fire away, resulting in this masterpiece!
I call it “Carrera Way” and you’ll be able to see this in glorious large print format at TT Auto soon.
Next up to round out the blog posts for the year will be another special Thanksgiving shoot featuring our 4 Porsches and 1 new one! Stay tuned.
Cheers,
Gary