Asthetics of Drift: Style Is King

Drifting is a spectator sport. Drifting should be a moving car show. The ultimate scene in which you make yourself, and your car look as cool as possible. No points systems, no paid judges, just a bunch of car nerds getting together and looking as cool as possible for their broke buddies and some fans how love the atmosphere and sport of drifting. This is what drifting is about. Most people see scenes from the movie Tokyo Drift when they think of drifting, fast cars, hot girls, high budgets, and no limits, but in reality drifting is a bunch of car nerds coming together and having a blast in some really fast cars with some really pissed off girlfriends. 

This is the essence of drifting and this is what needs to stay alive in it. So as a pretty serious drifting photographer I’d like to go over some of the things I’ve seen that would make photographing drifting better, it may seem somewhat trivial, but in reality I am one of the few outlets of drifting to the common people and you know what they say, presentation is everything.

 So to start this off we’ll go with color. This s14 is Cody Hall’s. He is a great driver and has a rad chassis to work with and I love it, but this is a black car. This is the only thing I don’t like about this car and unfortunately it is a big thing not to like about this car because it is the only thing about this car. It looks like the bat mobile out on track and if the headlights are off, it looks like a black void of blackness completely void of any light and that is terrible for photographing because photography is the art of finding light in/on your subject and this car not only is black but is also a flat black making it even worse.

So, Cody if you are reading this, please don’t be offended, simply concur with the fact that your car is hard to photograph well.

On a lighter an less sinister note some fun colors to photograph and ones that I enjoy the most are of course happy and bright colors, like yellow, orange, green, blue, teal (as a personal favorite), white and grey are okay as long as they have an accenting color to bring some more interest.

So take away from this section a want from me to see prettier cars out on track and a need for the driver to make their car as aesthetically pleasing as possible.

In addition to black cars being lame to photograph, I have a few other qualms with items I commonly see in the drifting community at grassroots levels especially. The drift slut. 

The heart of drifting is about looking cool and what in the world looks cool about a beat up, 27 different color pig nose s13 without a hood or front fenders. Here are in my opinion some of the ugliest cars I have seen driving, let alone drifting.

Now keep in mind I do understand the mission of a drift missile, to go out with your buddies on a super low budget and get as sideways as you can as much as you can and not have to worry about scratching your 2,000 paint job.

I fully understand that, and that is relevant and a fantastic argument but I have been to too many local drift events that have very very ugly cars. And these are at competitions, with spectators and photographers that care about how your car looks, not to mention how having such an ugly car reflects on the racetrack you are driving at.

So take this section with a grain of salt that I understand on test and tune days, drive your ugly car, but when it comes to competition day, please do your very best to make your car look as pretty as possible; with phat fitment, and shiny paint, and strait fenders, and clear unscratched vinyl’s and the like.

Another item I would like to mention is the fact that when drifting, I personally love it when the drivers have headlights and taillights on, yes even in the middle of the day. It makes for so much better photography… and videos for that matter. 

When it comes to photo and video, lighting is king on the high throne worshiped by all who see him. There is nothing hard about pulling that little button or flipping that little switch or twisting that little nob and potentially making the photos and videos of your car look that much better.

So pleas if for safety’s and visibilities sake alone, drift with your headlights on at all times and especially at night.

Unless of course you don’t have headlight on your ratty drift missile and simply can’t turn them on because they no longer exist. Then don’t because you can’t, I get that I wont be mad because your having a blast. But if you have them there should be little to no excuse to not have them on.

I hope some of these pictures give some good examples of how a decent photo could have become a great photo had the lights of the car been turned flipped or switched on.

The last thing is somewhat coming from a different angle then before but I feel it will end this potentially controversial post on a good note. So here are things I love to see in drifting and a few photos to help illustrate them.

I love it when cars are clearly going all out on the track, no hidden agendas, no need to withhold their car and worry about it breaking. Not only me but everyone in or out of the drifting community loves real balls to the walls drifting.

I’m talking about wall tapping, tire dropping (on occasion and in controlled environments as to keep pavement conditions top notch) close proximity, massive angle, rear entry, apex to apex lines, copious amounts of smoke.

(if you have a low horsepower car I fully understand and recognize the fact that you must drive that much harder to make up for the lack of power and still receive little gain in smoke production)….,

multiple number tandems three, four, five, seventeen members in a tandem, burnout drifts (very low speed drifts with high-speed wheel spin, and lots of smoke) super rad, and makes for awesome and moody photographs of which I have yet to really capture due to their rare nature and shy personality.

So please take this last list of drifting characteristics as a sort of checklist to make sure you are doing at every chance you get, especially when there are Blond photographers with tan Nike backpacks shooting the event you are at.

With all this having been said I am most likely forgetting a bunch of things I hate that I’ve seen in drifting, and things that I absolutely love, like the people, the community, and the undeniable sense that everyone is accepted and there for the time of their lives.

I just hope this article is a subtle and clear way to tell you some of the things I see too often in drifting that I don’t like, and just a simple reminder that things can always get better.

Thanks for the read, and happy smoking,

Joshua Sewell

Instagram: josh_sewell_photo

 

Matsuri: Drifting And Other Fun Things

 This year marks the first year that I have gone to a boneified local grassroots drifting event. This particular event was, in my mind, the showcase event for Stateline Drift. It was, as of now, one of my favorite drifting events I have attended. This particular event was in early July at Spokane County Raceway

This could have been one of the best events id been to just because of the number of people that traveled from different areas of Northwest drifting community. The two in the above picture are both from Seattle, which is very well known for Evergreen Drift and Formula Drift's round 5 Throwdown.

Another feller from the Seattle area. Being from the US and not getting the s15 Silvia from the factory over here its always very special to see one drifted at a grassroots event.

Here is a picture of Cody Hall's door with a guy holding a towel in the background right before the parade lap.

The culture at these events is very respectful, very fair and very self sustaining. I swear these guys, and gals, could all be stuck on a desert island with a race track and everything they needed to drift for thirty years, and never have any fights, and quarrels or qualms, just happy drifters drifting. It's really like a family out here in the drifting world, and that, I love. Here's Nate Schewick, Mr. Antonov and a buddy of his looking savage.

There were some grassroots drifting favorites including the Drift Union Subaru Legacy and the Villains rigs which I didn't get any shots of because I had to bail for the second day of the event but no doubt always put on a show, additionally there were some Seattle folks and one feller all the way from Canada, what a trek and what a worth while trip he must have thought he made.

Stateline Drift is just coming into their better years of drifting in my opinion, starting from humble beginnings with a Facebook page that sprouted the occasional parking lot rental to lay some skid marks to now having full access to a 2.4 mile road course, with some of the best third gear corners in the northwest.

This AE86 was a fun one to see out on track and was the first of the 86's that I saw in person to have an SR engine swap. He was having a good time out there and showing many his great driving skills with a difficult chassis.

This corner seems to be one I shoot a lot at SCR the corner marshal stand adds some more interest and solidifies that we are indeed at a racetrack and not some open country road which is sometimes the case with the track as you have well seen and will see more of later in the post. The blue car above is the one from Canada.

This 86 is a bit more well known especially in the Seattle area for its Lexus v8 swap which has a very peculiar exhaust note and keeps the Toyota guys happy by keeping their Toyota Toyota and not turning them Nissan or Honda.

This RHD rx-7 from Garage52 always looks good out on track but always seems to run into mechanical problems at every weekend I've seen it, Ive only got a few decent pics of such a pretty car.

Another one from Garage52 that is now growing on me, this car looks great from some angles and kinda like garbage from others, no idea why but it does.

Another shot of the Shinchoku car from Seattle. This Shinchoku s13 is competing in the evergreen Pro-Am and is doing pretty well last time I checked the grassroots event coverage pages.

Later in the day I was getting kinda hot and needed some shade but really wanted to keep shooting so I found a tree, one of like three in the whole racing complex, climbed it and turned out to get some interesting shots, not sure if its to distracting or captures the oh so important element of interest we photographers fight for.

This is probably the best one I got from the tree, really did my best to use a slow shutter speed to have blur the trees, but still have the car sharp to keep a good focal point, to bad, aside from the actual drifting of this car it looks like a drifting junkyard on wheels.

Another one of a pretty good looking cressida at the event. this was the only Cressida at the event and I am glad it showed up, the ratio of s13/14 chassis cars in the Inland Northwest is almost unhealthy. so props to the driver for showing up and off.

This feller was one of the better looking Pumps on the track, unfortunately at the end of the first day during the tandem competition, it got in a bit of scuffle and lost some front end, I almost wanted to cry because its such a nice car.

from what I picked up the two involved in the collision were both in drift and the car behind, hit this car as it had to much speed and drifted into this car slowing down to avoid another collision in front of it, merely an accident of drifting.. as unfortunate as it is.

As you can see the front end is a bit tweaked and the upper right frame did end up getting bent from the collision. Its good to see that this guy wasn't to butt hurt and got it back to the pit without to much trouble.

As you van see the other car came away unscathed and drove to the pits under its own power.

After the little mishap with these two S-chassis cars the tandem competition continued for another 10-15 min until the first days award ceremony.

Cody Hall is always looking good out on track and knows how to drift this corner pretty dang well.

These are some of the earlier images from the practice of the whole course. The waste gate on this yellow s13 was to die for, every time it came by I got shivers down my spine.

This is the other Seattle guy that showed up. I've never seen this set of over fenders on an s13 before and I have to say at the right angle it looks pretty nice. This Shinchoku rig is driven by Matt Vankirk. he also participates in evergreen pro-am

Here's that pretty looking s15 again.

And the V86 shot from the tree on the back corner, I really liked this angle but getting a good shot was pretty hard especially considering because only a third of the cars had the power to link this corner from the previous one.

So that sums up the highlights and general info from the matusri, next year hopefully i can make both days and get full coverage on it!

Josh Sewell

Instagram: josh_sewell_photo