Peugeot 106 GTI

This has to be one of my favourite shoots I ever did! I absolutely loved it, the results I felt were awesome & the owner who is a very close friend of mine was so pleased too, made it all worthwhile! 


These shots are all very HDR processed, however this is still one time that I feel the effect worked in the favour of the car :) 


So let me introduce you to this 106 GTI.

This fantastic little machine was not only a real stunner to look at thanks to its factory kit & eibach suspension setup allowing it to achieve its low slung look. 

It also had the "go" to match the appearance, there was the usual exhaust system upgrades which consisted of stainless steel manifold, de cat & cat back.

You also had the induction kit, allowing for better breathing for the engine.

So far all pretty much standard upgrades really for anyone into their cars...


But this had something else, & that something else was cam work, paired with a custom ECU & remap allowing this little French 1.6 hatch back to produce 155bhp at the flywheel, not bad at all for a car that only weighs in at 900kg.

An absolute monster that punched well above its weight, you'll have to believe me that this thing was quick, with the handling to match, an incredible machine.

I always enjoyed taking pictures of it, & I was sad to see the owner move on from it, but at least it has been captured here for us to remember it as it was :)

The full set of pictures taken of this 106 GTI can be found on my flickr here.


Thanks for looking! 

Honda Civic Type R (EP3)

These next pictures are from a shoot that took place a few years back, I was still playing around with HDR effects when I did these, something which I rarely touch now when it comes to cars.

But that being said, its good to go back & look at where you've come from, so all that being said, let me introduce you to a Honda Civic Type R :)

When I did these photos, I had also just got myself my first off camera flash (wow how things have moved on since.), anyway using my Canon 430ex, I attempted to light areas of the car that were shadowed on this day.

I had varying levels of success with my attempts, at the time I was happy with the results though, looking back now I can see the mistakes I made but its all good.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I was playing around a lot with HDR stuff, this really isn't what I like to do with automotive photos anymore, but back then it was working for me :)

& also messed around quite a bit with selective colouring, with red being a prominent colour on the Type R Hondas, so it had to be done :)

Recently however I re visited the car to capture some interior & engine bay shots, they were actually being done to help the owner sell the parts, which is what a lot of my photos actually end up being used for by friends hehe. 

Need to have another go at shooting this car using what I know now, but its still good to look back at what was & realise how I've developed.

The full set on flickr showing off all the pictures taken of this car so far can be found here.

Thanks for looking! 

Time to wake up & share some more stuff...

I've not given my blog the attention it deserves these last few weeks, so now its time to share some content :)


I'm going to give some attention to old photo shoots & share info about them, hopefully it'll be of interest to readers & will help inspire me to do more as well!


So first off its a Porsche Cayman S...

This machine was absolutely stunning! 

My best mate was doing some valeting for the owner, & they mentioned that they were looking to sell this car, so the offer came to come along & get some pics to help them move it on to a new owner! 

It was a really sunny day, I was shooting hand held mostly with the Sigma 10-20mm lens. With the help of a polarising filter I was able to cut down most of the reflections from the gleaming paintwork. 

It was awesome to do something a little bit different, I tend to always find myself taking pictures of Japanese cars, so a bit of European Exotica is not a bad change :)

The car didn't hang around very long apparently once it was put up for sale :)

If you would like to see the other pictures from that day then head on over to my flickr set here.

Thanks for looking! 

The day started out with a nice and early alarm going off, pretty sure 4AM was involved somewhere, but photographs needed to be taken and I was in desperate need to get involved with some drifting now that 2011 has truly started!

My journey started by meeting up with drift couple Cole and Emma, previously featured on Fitted Life. As I drove down in my little Aygo full to the brim with all my gear for the day, the rain was pouring down heavily even for England. It made me doubt whether the Drift What Ya Brung day at Santa Pod Raceway would even take place…but I carried on in hope that we’d see a break in the weather and that the iPhone’s weather forecast of overcast for Santa Pod wouldn’t let me down. So at 6AM on Saturday, I arrived at the home of two pure awesome R33 Skylines and their extremely friendly drivers/owners who were preparing themselves for a day of drifting.

Before I lose you all I should probably explain a bit more first, Drift What You Brung days (DWYB for short) allow people to practice and learn how to drift properly. It allows drivers to find the limits of their cars and learn to hold them at it. It’s often a good opportunity for people that want to compete in the BDC (British Drift Championship) or ODC (Open Drift Championship) to come and get noticed. It’s also a nice start towards earning their drift license and competing properly. But usually, it’s just a fantastic day to have some fun in your car. Whether it’s a fully bred drift track machine or a daily driver that likes to slide, anything and everything turns up.

So back to the story. I arrived blurry eyed at Cole and Emma’s early on that dark and extremely wet Saturday morning, though the two were sure that the weather would clear up. The two loaded up their spare tyres filling up the Skylines. Actually it’s amazing how many tyres you can get in a Skyline when you think about it. Cole alone managed to fit two extra rear alloy wheels and six drift tyres in his R33, and there was still room for me! hehe. Incredible! Fully loaded, we set off on the 2 hour journey to Santa Pod.

Along the way it was cool to see other drifters heading in the same direction, some even with roof racks holding all their spares for the day. One stop we’re at a motorway service station, the next we’d formed a convoy of five cars all taking part in the day’s fun. Everyone has known each other for years, and if they hadn’t..well then I couldn’t have told the difference. It was a brilliant sense of camaraderie filling the air between the different drifters. An atmosphere with which the whole day was filled.

As we approached Santa Pod, the rain thankfully stopped and it started to look like a good day for everyone! Things were looking up! We arrived at Santa Pod just before 9AM and the drivers set about preparing the cars for the day. Their pit areas were filled of spares and repairs. Straight after the drivers’ briefing the Hi-Vis vest came out and I headed over to sign myself on as a photographer. A great start to putting myself in harm’s way. hehe.

After being introduced to many of the drivers and explaining who I was, I went out to find some good spots around the track as some of the drivers started to trickle onto the various track layouts. The neat thing about DWYB days is that it accommodates all levels of skill. You’ve got several doughnut areas, a transition teaching figure of eight, the kidney which is an off pattern triangle layout, and the full size practice track with roughly eight bends and plenty of 3rd gear drifting opportunities.

As for the cars taking part, for what looked like an awful day turned pretty decent! The UK drift scene is very jap car orientated, however BMWs have really started to show their abilities in capable hands and are now appearing more and more in the scene. This DWYB day was no exception and it was great to see some variety on show.

Nissans were in full force as per usual with numerous Silvias and Skylines. The drivers took to the track showing some fantastic skill on what was still quite a wet track. Among the sea of Nissans there were a few other stand out cars and drivers to me. One being a stunning Yellow S2k and the other an Mr2 Turbo. Both of which are not the easiest cars to drift in the world. I’m pretty sure my old Mr2 Turbo tried to kill me several times on the road so I was really impressed to see one being driven with such talent.

As the day went on the weather improved for the better and the track eventually started to dry up. This led to lots of tyre smoke and even better driving from all the guys and ladies that were practicing.

I made sure to take the time to also get shots of the cars in the pit area, with the idea of capturing the moment in full and of course to get a cheeky closer look at the cars that were taking part. Including an HKS sponsored Silvia S15, simply stunning!

Another stand out car for me was Ross’ red 200sx S14 with an S13 front end or S14.3 as he refers to it. Apart from this amazing front end conversion (I’m a huge fan of pop up lights!) he had also made it so that the exhaust comes out just behind the passenger seat in the rear quarter panel! Pure awesome! I’m hoping to get something sorted along the lines of a full feature for this car in the future. At the very least I’ll be pointing my lens at his car a lot more throughout this year’s drift season.

Overall it was an awesome day among a great group of people, I felt very welcome among the drivers and other photographers. And after exploring all the angles I could see of the track and getting as close as I could push myself to do so, I came away with several hundred shots of everyone that took part.

I also had my goproHD with me and had planned on making this day my first go at putting together some footage and editing it all into a proper little film. The film I have put together mainly focuses on Cole’s R33 Skyline, which can be seen below.

Santa Pod – DWYB day – 8.1.11 from Dan Fegent on Vimeo.

It’s literally my first go at doing anything like that and it’s far from perfect. But, I’m happy with it until I can do better next time!

Lots of tyres destroyed in the name of fun and practice, great times and great memories, until next time.

Oh and I had a lot more room in the Skyline on the way home..funny that. ;)

:. Dan Fegent

For the rest of the pictures from this day, you can find them on my Flickr set!

Everyone is going somewhere...

Light Trails..., originally uploaded by Dan Fegent.

This photo sums up things quite well at the moment for me, everyone around me is coming & going, and even though I may appear to be standing still & watching it all happen around me, when I actually look back I think of how far I've come, & when I look ahead I can see more than ever where I want to be!

Some deep thoughts there, but the photo captured my frame of mind perfectly :)

Anyway I do have stuff to put on here, got lots & lots of shoots to share with you all!

Thanks for looking :D

Holiday is over...

I've been quiet for a while, pretty much since the start of this year, but all is well :D


Been busy doing various jobs and tasks and enjoying living life! However I am back with loads of content to get going with this year, so I'll start off with an Article I did for the USA based blog I write for Fitted life, whose main site can be found here


This was an article I write just after Christmas about the Miss Banzai London Tunnel runs, so without any more waiting here it is in full :) 

Lots of events take place in the name of charity every day. All over the world people club together to raise money for good causes and over here in the UK, among the automotive Japanese car community we’ve found another fun way to raise money..in the form of Charity London Tunnel Runs!

Tunnel Running itself is nothing new however, some of the biggest UK car clubs, like Pistonheads have ran their own for several years, but Miss Banzai is the first to do it solely for charity and solely for Japanese cars to take part in.

So let me introduce you to Miss Banzai, a car club that have taken these events to a whole new level, they are a Japanese make only car club and through some crazy organizing and perseverance have pioneered the idea of Tunnel Running to raise cash for some very worthy UK based charities.

Charities that money have been raised for include most recently The London Air Ambulance, but in the past has seen money raised for the Royal London Hospital Kidney Patients Association & Bowel Cancer UK.

Well over £5k has been raised so far by Miss Banzai over the period of 4 Tunnel Runs. Their idea is to do 2 a year and raise money for Charities that either directly affect members of the club or that are held dear to the community they have built up.

So why would you want to take part in something like this? Apart from the fact that you’re doing proactive for charity, well..it allows you show off the noise of your pride and joy in our capital city among like minded people. Oh and you do get to see some of London’s sights too! do you need anymore appeal than that? Thought not.

So the club organizes a starting point based just outside London late on a Saturday night. From there, after you’ve paid your donation and a small entry fee you are handed a map. This map then routes you through some of London’s oldest and biggest tunnels, you are then unleashed on London at around 11pm armed with a walkie talkie to communicate with the other “tunnelers” and a sat nav that soon becomes useless as you enter the city, but mainly you are all set for a night of being lost and having a complete giggle. Oh and it’s very much a shock and awe experience for the people of London!

The idea is not to race though, that is completely against the principal, and Miss Banzai encourages everyone taking part to drive responsibly during the night. The safety record for this event speaks for itself with only around 3 accidents occurring among Tunnel Run traffic on the nights of the runs. Not bad for an event that has attracted around 500 cars at some of its runs.

Think of the Tunnel Runs as more of a rally with checkpoints, as you pass through the tunnels, you tick them off and head to the next one, of course the City of London being what it is, traffic is completely against you. So more often you end up in a very expensive and noisy Japanese metal traffic jam! Sometimes someone gets a tad cheeky and does a burnout..as captured in pictures by myself in one of the tunnels. However, the amount of cars present on nights like these is quite amazing though, not to mention the various noises the tuned cars make.

Now I’m sure a lot of you are wondering what the authorities make of all this? Well the police are warned and they have a presence at the starting point. On all occasions, the authorities have applauded Miss Banzai on how they handle their Tunnel Runs.

Whilst on the run, the police have been known to pull people over and do various tests on the cars taking part. However, no one has had too much of a hard time from any authorities. I mean if you keep to the speed limits, and the numerous speed cameras in the tunnels and all over London make sure of that, then you really can’t get yourself into much trouble.

I’ve had the opportunity to take part in three of these Charity Tunnel Runs, twice as a driver, and once as a navigator. On all three occasions I had an absolutely amazing time! And as Navigator I only got us lost once, not bad for someone that lives out in the country and avoids cities pretty much whenever possible ;)

One of my favorite experiences on a run was my first time, where I did it in my old T bar Mr2 Turbo. The roof was off for the entire night and the noise we generated in the tunnels was just insane. The cars you ride along with are some of UK’s biggest and greatest Japanese tuned cars and you’re simply overwhelmed by the noises they all generate. There really is no other way to describe it and the fact I was in an open top car just made the experience one I will always remember.

The pictures included in this write up are from the various tunnel runs I have taken part in over the last two year, they are mostly from either the start of the run before entering London, during stops in the tunnels either due to traffic blocking the way or simply to stop and admire some of the other cars on the tunnel run with you!

The night usually ends up with those who managed to complete all the tunnels meeting up at a place just outside the center of London, recap on the run with friends and share each others’ experience, but as this usually ends at around 3-4am, it’s not always that busy at the end point.

However I am greatly looking forward to the next Miss Banzai Tunnel Run, and I have to seriously applaud them for their organization and the scale of people that they manage to attract for charity. Inspiring stuff!

Big thank you to Miss Banzai for all their hard work to make these events happen!

I have genuinely enjoyed taking part in these events on every occasion and have met some very cool people that I otherwise probably wouldn’t have ever met, and that’s just an added bonus. Until next time.

:. Dan Fegent

Plenty more content to follow :)


Thank you for looking! 

Still quite quiet here, I seem to have dragged every possible cough and cold going with me into the new year, but anyway lots of blog posts to come soon :)


Anyway my brother has just finished a photo that I am seriously impressed by!


It was taken on the same day as my shot of him below, and its an idea he's been planning for a while, pretty cool to see it happen!


So here it is...

"I VS I"

"This is NOT to be taken SERIOUSLY!

This one is for all the people who know what it is like to kick yourself.

Inspired by Scott Pilgrim vs the world, and all the classic fighting games.

This is probably the start to a series of photos like this. But in the mean time i invite you join in and challenge me to a dual... haha

Hope everybody is having a good start to the year!"

The original can be seen on my brothers flickr photostream here

Thanks for looking!

Happy New Year!

Capturing the sun set., originally uploaded by Dan Fegent.

This is just a brief post to wish everyone a fantastic 2011!!!

I hope that everything you work and aim for is achieved and that your sights are set high for this new year! Make it happen :D

Well I was without a really "new years" type photo, so you've got one of my brother looking out into the sunset, I like it, like looking into the future :)

Just like a sunset, even though you know what will happen, and what you'd like to see, the results are more ofthen than not absolutely awe inspiringly beatiful, that's how I feel about it :D

I've got quite a lot of stuff planned for this coming year, so I really do hope to share all of it with you as it happens! Thank you for following me :)

So most importantly Happy New Year!