Mazda Philippines organized a car photography workshop and activity for us media and bloggers, its an activity of introducing KODO, the design philosophy of Mazda, The new design philosophy exist few years ago and this will be the image and design of the car for the next coming years. The Mazda Kodo “soul of motion” design can be seen in a Mazda 6, CX-5, CX-9 and the all new Mazda 3 SKYACTIV.

The Kodo design comes from the five edges of a leopard running in top speed, and this resembles a motion that can’t be match with other high speed running creature. Mazda adapted to this 5 edges that defines the lines of speed, beauty and power.

I’m familiar with Mazda, but their design philosophy made me admire more the form and style of their cars. Now its time for us to capture that soul of motion in photos, we will drive to Clark, Pampanga and meet the team Fujifilm and Top Gear Magazine to understand the basic of photography and the art of car photography.

Mazda Philippines President, Steven Tan, welcomed us at their Mazda showroom in Pasig City.
It was 6am and I’m so sleepy because I didn’t sleep the entire night. I didn’t know that we’re going to drive a Mazda car that day.

Sherlyn Co of Mazda team waves to us as we left the showroom riding a Mazda CX-5. I’m glad that my team is from Top Gear Philippines and I’m glad one of us knows how to drive, my minor problem is that I don’t have a new driving license.

Its traffic all the way to NLEX

And here’s my team mate, a former Top Gear Philippines writer, Steven Yu. Also at the back seat, we have Elaine Lara, from Top Gear PH.

This is my 2nd time to join a drive event, and here I am as a navigator to our team. I’m holding a note for direction and distance computed on where we execute the drive.

After some hours, we arrived here in Green Canyon Resort for the car photography workshop. I was so sleepy and now I blame my self for not taking a nap at home. But I have to survive and learn the art of car photography.

Miko David of Top Gear Philippines, teaches us the basic photography and also how we do the car photography in 3 kinds of capture – 1) basic pose 2) in motion 3) money shot capture

I got serious into it and here I am drafting my thumbnail for the car photo shoot. It looks so easy for photography, but its so hard to get the right branding. That’s how I fail this car photography activity. I totally forgot about the branding.

Mazda 3,6 and CX-5 all lined up for our next activity.
Go out and get the awesome basic photo pose of the car.

Here’s Kuya Eli hopping in to their Mazda 3

Here’s my BASIC PHOTO entry

photo 1

There’s a rough terrain inside Green Canyon Resort, its hard to conceptualize a photo shoot when 5 or 10 MAZDA cars are roaming around the location hahahah.

Here’s my first concept of the photo shoot – I just imagine a poster ad for our Mazda CX-5

photo 2

I heavily used the background and the field, but I didn’t captured here the KODO

photo 3

I told Steven that there’s a good location at the other side of the terrain, then when he drove towards me, I took this photo in burst mode. It was a good shot, but I didn’t like the background. Because I want to capture also the canyon behind it.

photo 4

I submitted this photo as my entry for the photo competition. I got the shot I need, but I failed to capture the KODO in our Mazda CX-5. Accdg. to fellow photographer, the SUV turned to look like a car.

Next workshop, its all about capturing detail.
I just saw some samples by Miko David and It was very well planned and they have the kind of eye that can capture that is hard to see.

so for the 2nd activity. I tried to capture the detail of Mazda.

My Capture the detail entry

photo 1

My 1st attempt to capture that Start-Stop button.

photo 2

Just the radio and aircon control.

photo 3

the fin. I just imagined that this is a shark.
Im just playing around the details of Mazda CX-5

photo 4

The part where I started to be superrrr sleepy. My creative juices went wonky and my brain ran out of battery.

photo 5

I like this shot, it captured the detail and branding of Mazda.. but.

photo 6

I just don’t know why I submitted the photo above as my entry. hahahaha.
Maybe I just fell in love with the black leathery detail of the car seat.

photo 7

Sana heto na lang yung na submit ko.. OR

photo 8.

heto sana.
but that’s okay.

The next activity is a bit hard…… capture Mazda car in motion

My Capture the car in motion entry

photo 1

I love this photo, but there are lots of blurry elements. I submitted this as my entry.

photo 2

We teamed up to another team for the photo shoot. 1st was to shoot them in motion and then 2nd, its our turn to drive and they are the photographers.

Kuya Eli spotted at the roof of the Mazda 3

photo 3

its weird that I captured the same thing again.

The other team are busy shooting the photo of our car.

Sunset time…. below is the lahar

We thought that there will be a category for sunset, then we learned that its for the money shot entry, an entry that can beat all photo category. Its hard to capture it because of our limited time and not so familiar about the location.

But I love my capture here. We chased the sunset and parked the Mazda CX-5 in the middle of the bridge.

I also love this photo, I should have sent this for my basic pose of our Mazda CX-5.
Sayang!

The hours of submitting our photo entry.
Here’s our blogger pal Ted Claudio, he’s a Fujifilm camera user and I think the only photographer in the room with lots of experiences. One of his entry was dubbed as a photo for National Geographic. wow!! congrats Ted!

The next morning… we saw our photo entries posted in a panel board inside the function room of Green Canyon Resort.

I arrived 10 minutes late because me and Ted went swimming in the resort’s wave pool.

We learned that the winning photos will be printed and featured in the next issue of Top Gear Philippines.
wow!

and lookie!!! Enzo Luna won 1st place for the capture the detail category..
astig!!! congrats pre.

Winners receive a Fujifilm Instax camera

For 5th place, Enzo got another award..but then

Mr. Digital Spidey got the 2nd place for the capture in motion category.

All of my blogger friends got their award, I went home happy even without the reward. For me the reward is that awesome massage service last night hahaha. Btw, Ian Bacungan and his team with Angel Rivero, won the over all, all of them went home with a Fujifilm X30 camera… wow!

Our team mate Elaine Lara also won in the basic photo category.. she captured that 2nd photo above.
galeng!!

Also Kuya Eli won in the basic pose…

Ted holds his photo with the National Geographic remark.

Enzo Luna won all the category…. hahahaha..langya pinakyaw na ang lahat ng awards.
congrats

The winners list can be found here

Basic pose - https://www.facebook.com/MazdaPhilippines/posts/907739052580873

Capturing detail - https://www.facebook.com/MazdaPhilippines/posts/905391259482319

Kodo in motion - https://www.facebook.com/MazdaPhilippines/posts/905386246149487

Thanks to Mazda and Fujifilm for the awesome car photography activity. I’m a Nikon camera user, but I did my best to level up with the pro photographers and media group. But the most important thing here is that I learned the art of car photography.

I super love our Mazda photographer vest.

Playing around in Green Canyon Resort hahaha.

Here I attempt to carbon copy Enzo’s winning entry hahaha.

Day 2: we are now back at the showroom in Pasig City. Sherlyn told me that I can take home the CX-5, then they can pick up the car after 2 days in my area. But I told her that I can’t drive bec. I don’t have a license, but since me and Kuya Eli are leaving the place together, she let Eli take home the CX-5.
wooohohoh.