In 2019 the BNR32 was celebrating it’s 30th birthday, and GT-R Festival in Sydney, Australia made sure to honour this marking. A few special cars attended the event, including the famous Group A GIO R32 GT-R. Former Group A driver Jim Richards was also present and spending time with the spectators. I thought it would be appropriate to shoot this event on 35mm, and try to capture the essence of this generation of Skylines with a bit more of “period correctness”.
To do the job I chose a Canon EOS 1N, a fast flagship camera that came from Japan and outperformed most of its competition. It was the top of Canon’s SLRs at the time and It’s predecessor, the innovative EOS-1, was released in 1989. As far as I understand, these cameras were one of the first professional Canon cameras equipped with electronic motors and components to enhance their capability. The similarities with the notorious Skyline GT-R are no serendipitous accident.
I personally like large body cameras as they feel nice in the hands, and even though they are heavier that does not bother me much. As the name implies, the 1N uses Canon’s EOS AF system. It is obviously not fast comparing to modern AF technology, but it focuses quite well. It also shoots at 6fps, a feat not many SLRs at the time could claim. Another reason I chose this camera is because it takes EF lens mounts, meaning I can attach any of my existing lenses to it.
GT-R Festival gathers a large variety of owners and fans. It caters for the collectors, race fans, drag guys, clubs etc. Rare variants of the GT-R are usually popular, but this year I didn’t spend much time shooting those cars as I think they get their fare share of attention elsewhere in the web.
Instead I chose to shoot mostly the entrant’s cars and some of the GT-Rs at the drag strip, as I believe this to be the soul of the event. All images you see here came straight out of the camera. I chose not to correct any of them, not even crop or align. When you’re shooting film you spend more time composing the image, so I thought I would honour my effort in the day and just leave them as they came out.
I chose to use a polariser in the day. The harsh light tends to look a little better when filtered by one in my opinion. On the day I used a 50mm f/1.2 and a 135mm f/2 for all the shots. The Fuji 400H has a mild green tint to it and it combines well with the polariser look in my opinion. Given that I only started shooting with film towards the end of the afternoon, 400 ISO served rather well.
It’s not only GT-Rs that are welcome to park in the main area. Other Skylines, Nissans and makes were also present in the day.
Serious cars come to compete at the Drag Races, and it is quite the spectacle to witness it. I understand basically nothing about it, so excuse the lack of informed content.
On this day, Jun II broke the record for the fastest street Skyline GT-R on the 1/4 mile with a 6.993 seconds pass at 203.83 mph. I foresaw this happening, like everyone else did to be quite honest, and positioned myself nicely for the moment, managing to (somewhat) capture the run on camera.
We have Andrew Hawkins to thank for creating and running this event. Most people do not have a proper appreciation for what it takes to run something this big, and the risks involved for those invested in it.
This year’s GT-R Festival has been postponed due this lovely pandemic we’re living through at the moment, having been rescheduled to the last quarter of 2020. It will be great to attend it for the first time not as a spectator, but as a GT-R owner.
Frederico Estermann 