To this day it’s still one of my favourite shoots and the resulting photos are still at the top of my portfolio. I’m proud to say this is my first set of published photos.

Tuning ‘Til Broke ;

ALLAN DODDS AND HIS CREW KNOW ALL ABOUT MAKING SACRIFICES FOR THE LOVE OF THE BUILD.

Story David Pratte
Photos Ben at DigitalOxygen.ca Photography

If buying a bigger turbo instead of paying the worthy of a little Internet fame or even an appearance in this

phone bill sounds familiar, you know a bit about tuning ’til you’re broke. If you’ve bid on an über-rare JDM part on eBay when the rent was due, you’re experienced at

tuning ’til you’re broke. And if your girlfriend has dumped you or your family has planned an intervention related to your car obsession, chances are you’re an expert at tuning ’til you’re broke-ass-broke.

Allan Dodds from Kamloops, British Columbia, certainly has the kind of passion required to tune on the edge of bankruptcy, as does the aptly named Tune ’Til Broke car club he belongs to. And if there’s one project that is specifically designed to test your conviction and your bankroll, it’s got to be restoring and modifying a rusted-out AE86 Toyota Corolla coupe.

Not that an engineless rust-bucket Corolla from the ’80s is the most expensive car in the world, but given how many balls-out builds there are of this chassis, to do something

After doing his homework on engine combos and different powertrain setups, Allan settled on a 4AGZE motor as the starting point for the build.

world-class tuner mag, you’ve got to man up in a big way. And that’s exactly what Allan and his crew have done, start- ing with defying his extremely pregnant wife by buying this car in the first place.

After doing his homework on engine combos and different powertrain setups, Allan settled on a 4AGZE motor as the starting point for the build. But rather than going with a screaming all-motor 4AG, he instead opted for a forced-induction setup. This is, of course, the better choice if financial ruin is your goal, but Allan was lucky enough to meet the Vibrant Performance guys at SEMA and managed to secure himself sponsorship on the intercooler, UJ bends, all the couplers, oil catch can and vacuum manifold.

That’s when life took a very unhappy turn for Allan and his family, his wife delivering twins and a month-long stay in the hospital ending with the loss of one of their baby boys.

Specs & Details

’86 ToyoTa Corolla Coupe

engine 1.6-liter 4aGZE DOHC inline-4 engine Modifications 4aG high-com- pression cylinder head; blue top camshafts; Fidanza cam gears; GReddy timing belt; NST clear timing belt cover; Cometic head gasket; aRP head studs; Technotoy Tuning TVIS eliminator adapter; Garrett turbocharger; HKS black series BOV; EEngineering turbo manifold; 550cc RX-7 fuel injectors; aEM FPR; Russell FPR gauge & oil cooler lines

& fittings; Bosch 044 fuel pump w/ surge tank; MSD ignition coils & wires; NGK spark plugs; Vibrant Performance exhaust, intercooler, intercooler piping, silicone couplers, vacuum manifold & oil catch can; MagnaFlow street series muffler; Koyo radiator; Samco hoses; Moroso coolant reservoir; DEI hood heat wrap; a’PEXi Super Ground Stabilizer; wire tuck

Drivetrain aCT clutch; Fidanza flywheel engine Management Microtech EFI LT10 w/ X4; Innovate wideband; GReddy boost controller

Wheels, Tires & Brakes 16×8″ XXR
513 wheels; Nexen 3000 195/50R16 tires; Transdapt 1.25” wheel spacers; Powerslot slotted rotors; Hawk HPS bake pads; Earl’s SS brake lines
Suspension GReddy Type S coilovers & strut tower bar (f); Whiteline adjustable sway bars; Battleversion panhard bar (r); Technotoy Tuning NCRa & front control arms; Energy Suspension master bushing kit exterior Money Pit Green metallic paint; Vertex style body kit; Origin Lab front wide fenders & rear overfenders; aerocatch
hood pins; VIS CF hood; custom CF light covers, air diverter for rad & license plate holder; Toyota JDM redline taillights; Bosch H4 conversion; alumina HIDs; Vision X LED marker/turn signals
Interior STRI boost, EGT & oil pressure gauges; GReddy remote damper control box; Sparco steering wheel; NRG quick release; yonaka seats (f); Technotoy Tuning short shifter; Optima Red Top trunk-mounted battery; autoloc power windows & locks Special Thanks To my wife & kids; team Tune ’Til Broke: Nick, Scott, Brandon, Matt x2, Dudley, Rob & Darryl for pushing me
to try before I cry; Lordco auto parts for being my sponsor; Vibrant performance, these guys rock & if you ever have dealt with them, you know; my dad for putting
a wrench in my hand; Dorikaze; Club4ag & Revspot; If I forgot you, my bad allan’s coupe showed all the typical signs of decay you’d expect to find on a 25-year old Corolla, but seeing a “before” picture like this only reinforces what an amazing transformation it has gone through and what a truly die-hard enthusiast Mr. Dodds is for resurrecting it.

Grief-stricken and stressed to the max, the last thing on Allan’s mind at this point was his Corolla. But as he explained, the Tune ’Til Broke crew was hard at work. “I was four hours away at the hospital when one night I get a call from the guys. No ‘hello,’ no ‘how’s it going,’ just a ‘listen!’ This was the first time my AE86 was fired up and is exactly the kind of stuff that explains why we’re all are in this scene. Just doing it for the love.”

After that, it was time to take on the rust. As Allan put it,
“I have no body shop skills, so I hired a local dude that has a passion for it. He had a vision and it turned out great. He cut the stock arches out and reinforced the panels for the Origin front fenders and rear arches.” With the body kit fitted and molded in, it was time to pick a color. “I figured I’d been in the doghouse long enough for buying this car, so I decided to
let my wife choose the color. I wanted blue and she wanted green. Off to JB’s Custom Colors we went for a gallon of what I call Money Pit Metallic Green.”

That’s when Allan caught the carbon-fiber bug, another surefire way to empty an otherwise healthy bank account. As he explained, “I met a local retired guy that made CF parts for his old Minis in his basement. He CF wrapped all my intercool- ing piping. Why? Because I could and I liked the look. He made a CF spark plug cover, headlight covers, air diverter, license plate holder and I continue to look for more things to cover.”

“Tuning ’til broke” may not be grammatically correct, but then these guys aren’t writing novels, they’re building bad- ass street cars like Allan Dodds’ AE86, and they’re doing it for all the right reasons. They’re not in it for magazine spreads (except in Modified, of course) or the hipster appeal of going broke to finish an epic project. Nope, as Allan put it, “Never built for the finish product, but built for the process and the friendships it has created. I wanna give a shout out to the people that made this happen — hopefully, it makes up for the late nights, bashed knuckles, upset wives and rough mornings the next day.”

I figured I’d been in the doghouse long enough for buying this car, so I decided to let my wife choose the color.

>;>; Why We picked It
With a paint name like Money Pit Green and a club name like Tune ’Til Broke, this is one aE86 build that oozes character, both from the car itself and the owner and his crew. It’s also a great example of how a project car can bring people closer together and even help them deal with hardships and losses in life, even when the car itself might be causing a few of its own (like pissing off the wife and wearing out the wallet turbo).

;

This is a work in progress.  I will update it if I can find the time.  Please excuse the rough write-up and graphic, it was done in a rush.

Foreword / Cautions:

• This is a hack, plain and simple, the more time I spend experimenting the more issues I find… but if you are really in need it can work.  If you want true 2 way syncing with Lightroom wait for Photosmith version 2.  It will do it all and more, this approach has a lot of steps and limitation.
• I do not work for nor am I affiliated in any way with the Photosmith developers.  I have simply experimented with the unsupported process based on Sean McCormack’s article here and am sharing my experiences in the hopes it helps other while the developers work tirelessly in their spare time on version 2 which will provide this functionality and much more natively.
• Start simple. Start with a single image and work up to a single folder, and then if your feeling brave several folders (this is untested but should work in theory).
• Don’t do anything you’re not sure of.  This is unsupported and experimental and although I have not had any major negative effects undesired things can happen.
• My experiences were slightly different (and more limiting in most cases) than Sean’s.  He did not seem to have issues with differently named files.
• Copyright metadata seems to get overwritten (blanked out) when syncing images with color labels (rated images seem fine) and maybe under other circumstances.
• Share your experiences in the comments!

Setup:

• I am running Lightroom 3.5 on Mac OS X 10.6 using Canon CR2 raw files thus the article is written from that perspective.  The steps outlined here *should* work with other setups but as this procedure is unsupported already there are no guaruntees
• You will need the Photosmith Lightroom plugin installed

What I used:

1. SD card (for transferring photos from computer to iPad)
2. USB card reader (for copying photo from the computer to SD card)
3. Apple’s camera connection kit (for copying photo from SD to iPad)

What you could use:
There are various other ways to transfer the images from your computer to the iPad which I won’t go into here but they <could> include things like the following…

• USB stick
• Compact Flash (CF) card + 3rd party iPad compatible CF reader (they exist)
• Your camera connected via USB

Steps:

1. Ensure the folder structure on your SD card matches the strucuture of the cards formatted in your camera *.  For example Canon’s are setup like this… \DCIM\1234EOS7D\IMG_1234.CR2
2. Copy the image(s) from their source (your hard drive) to the SD card via Finder or export the originals from Lightroom.
3. If .xmp sidecar files were copied to the card you may want to delete them to make bulk deleting photos later easier.  **
4. If the image filenames are non-standard (i.e. not IMG_1234) you will need to rename them back to the standard format. *
   (NOTE: You may also need to rename these in Lightroom later to match.  Again try the procedure with a single image to determine your workflow.)
5. Using the Apple camera connection kit connect the SD card to your iPad
6. Import the desired image(s) into your iPad
7. Open Photosmith and import the photos (should happen automatically when Photosmith opens unless auto-import is turned off)
8. Do your tagging, metadata tweaking, staring, etc.
9. Start the LR plugin and choose the collection to sync.
10. Ensure you set-up the Destination Directory to match the original location of the photos AND ensure the image names match. ***
11. Run the sync and see if it worked.

Notes:
* The iPad will not “see” the photos if the folder structure or file names are non-standard (i.e. don’t match the camera manufacturers standards/defaults).

** Images exported from Lightroom (as originals + XMP) are difficult to delete from the iPad in bulk via Image Capture on OS X, it just won’t do it.  Seems the .xmp sidecar files cause a problem, maybe because the iPad knows they are there (proven by the RAW+xmp watermark on the thumbnails in the iPad photo app) but Image Captures does not and they the iPad is silently denying the request to delete them, nothing happens, no errors… nothing.  They just don’t delete.

*** Image path AND image names should been the same between the iPad and Lightroom during sync.  If either one is incorrect during sync they will not be matched and the plugin will think you are importing new photos and will copy them to LR as new photos rather than syncing the metadata with the existing ones.  I use non-standard image names (i.e. I rename on import) so to get around this I have used some rename presets in LR (IMG_<orignal file number>) to rename the images back to their original names before syncing, then rename them back to my standard afterwards (example BV_YYYYMMDD_IMG_1234).

Known issues / limitations:

• Images must exist on iPad (in the Photo app) when sync is run.  This may be a requirement of the regular sync procedure as well.
• The process will sometimes stall while syncing certain images. Appears to be ones with keywords but can’t prove it yet.  Some metadata would actually get sync’d (like color label) before the stall.
  Cancelling the sync and removing the stalled image from the Photosmith collection before re-syncing usually solves the problem.
• You cannot see existing metadata such as ratings, color labels, etc on the iPad.  Keywords seem to work.
• You cannot see development settings on the iPad.

I had a rough idea of what I wanted to accomplished but no time to scout a location. I came up with a couple possible spots on the way over to his place and after checking the position of the sun upon arriving I cut it down to one location that might work.

Although I didn’t quite get the shots I was after due to the angle of the sun and the hills in the background I was able to improvise with the help of a reflector held by the owner to obtain the first first two shots.

The next two sets were snagged with the use of two Canon 430EX flashes on either side of the road triggered by some inexpensive but quite reliable flash triggers.

Shot with my very cheep but decent (when stopped down) Tamron 70-300mm and on-camera flash bounced off the ceiling/well this shot was only slightly adjusted in Lightroom.  I dusted this lens off while doing some research and experimentation for my latest lens purchase… a Canon 100mm f/2.0.  It’s an amazing lens, from what I see and read online anyway, I’m still waiting for mine to arrive.

The presentation in this piece (and the subsequent one) could be a lot better but it was thrown together on a whim right before I sat down to eat it and well, I know jack about food presentation  In my excitement and rush to shoot it I also failed to realize there were carrots prepared and feta cheese in the fridge I could have added to the pasta salad.  Both would have added some extra pop to the photo.  Maybe next time.

Doing this quick shoot reminded me of another food shoot I’ve been meaning to do a post about.  In the interest of time I will just throw it in here.

Shot the following in the same fashion to the above with the exception that I used white card stock as a backdrop and it was shot with only bounce light from the flash, no natural light as the above shot.  It really deserves it’s own post because it encompassed much more prep and lighting work that the above shot.  Hopefully I’ll find the time one day and do it justice with a proper write-up.

So I was somehow reminded of a Valentine’s Day shot I did a while back and decided to post it on Flickr.  It was one of several I submitted to Fotomoto (which was accepted) for their Valentine’s day theme gallery.  It got me thinking that I should do a few more Valentine’s Day themed shots and put together a small gallery before the holiday for people to use for e-cards and greeting cards.

After that my creative eye was on the lookout for heart shaped objects and other things of that nature.  It wasn’t long before I noticed our coffee mugs had handles that were a beautifully shaped 1/2 heart.  I immediately started running through different ways in my head that I could use these for a shot.  I wanted to setup a couple of mugs so that their two handles came together and made a heart shape.  As you can see from this photo the physics of that are well… difficult if not impossible.

I thought about shooting through the handle of one with the second in the background to see if I could roughly line them up that way, but no dice.  Had a few other fruitless ideas too including just straight up breaking the mugs and raping them for their handles. Not such a great idea since we just bought them and the wife would kill me.  I was almost ready to give up when for whatever reasons I thought about using a mirror and a single mug instead of two.  I had a clear concept now I just needed to execute it.

I browsed around the house for an appropriate mirror but none could be found easily so I ended up pillaging the one in our mostly unused downstairs bathroom.  Check out the BTS video below for more info.

There are many tutorials for DIY Bokeh masks (aka Aperture masks) as well as some kits available but I decided to wing it and dove into the cutting and crafting.  I chose a heart shape to start with in part because of the inspirational photo and also in part because my kids just happen to have some heart shaped stickers around that made a great template.

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

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Have you watched it yet?

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No?  Watch it!

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OK, continue…

This is bar none the most amazing CGI I have ever seen (that’s right, it’s ALL CGI).  Granted I have not actually seen a lot of CGI outside of the average hollywood movie but this whole piece is so captivating and well done in every way you become completely enveloped not realizing it’s not real.  In fact even when I knew going in it was CGI I didn’t want to believe it. Sure there are moments when you can tell, and as the piece progresses those moments become obvious and it’s no longer being hidden but it’s in those first few moments, those scenes when you think everything is real that it really gets you.

The mark of good CGI is when you don’t know it’s real. The mark of great CGI is when you swear it has to be real.

Don’t believe it? Check out the Compositing Breakdown

Compositing Breakdown (T&S) from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Courtesy of the Fstoppers.com post “In The Future, Nothing Will Be Real“

Put together some 3 point lighting for a car shoot for a friend of mine who runs Enhanced Auto Works.  This is his personal project car and we were attempting to create a portfolio of sorts to submit to a car tuning magazine.  They ended up rejecting the photos as they were too ‘artsy’ (my words not theirs).  They were looking for something simpler that showed of more of the cars details.  We have tentative plans to re-shoot but not sure when.  Will try and post a follow-up if it happens.

Strobist Info:

Had intended on taking a shot of the setup and jotting down all the settings but forgot. Here’s what I remember.

• (1) 430EX bare behind the car, pointed at car and bounced back onto shipping container.
• (1) 430EX camera right in 20″ softbox angled along the car.
• (1) 430EX w/built-in diffuser camera left above the car. Handheld pointed towards front wheel area.

All strobes triggered with Yongnuo CTR-301p ‘ebay’ triggers.

Here’s the before and after of the car…

Did some quick shots for a company newsletter today and it was my first real opportunity to play with an off camera lighting setup that involved more than a single flash. The female subject below was actually just assisting me with the setup and we fired off 3-4 quick test shots for gauge the lighting. The shot turned out so good that I decided to keep it and in fact I like it a little better than the ones with the intended subject. The intended subject works in computer security hence the vault door as the backdrop.

Strobist Info:

Dropped my old (free) Pentax AF200T behind the subjects and positioned my trusty Canon 430EX in front to the lower right. Purposely left it bare (no diffuser, bounce, etc) for a harsh dramatic effect. Sure the lighting could have been positioned better in a few respects, but it was mostly an experiment and I think it turned out pretty good considering I took less than 5 minutes to set it up.

Please excuse the adjustments they were done on my Macbook screen quickly. If I have time later I will rework them a little once I’m back at home on my HP2475w.

This shot was lit by my 430EX Speedlite on-camera with a home made diffuser/bounce surface.

The photo is not cropped at all, this is how close I was able to get.  Applied some color boosts in Lightroom really make it pop.

If I get some time I will try and post some of the build photos and the final product.