The first big meeting of the year for the consumers of Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) automobiles is on us in the form of Japfest 2018 at Silverstone and it's one of the biggest gatherings of big wings you will see this year. As a photographer one of the reasons for going to Japfest is the fact that you will have access to the biggest collection of modified JDM cars in Europe in one convenient location. 

So if you are looking for the next new thing in modified cars you can assume that after the winter builds it will be here and you will get the opportunity to photograph it. However good luck with getting an unobscured view. Over 20000 people turned up last year and this year was no different, helped by the fantastic weather. 

Ok listen up education time, the verb modify is "make partial or minor changes to (something), typically so as to improve it or to make it less extreme". Less extreme, very debatable when it comes to cars at Japfest - I would say more extreme. The synonym for modified is more applicable to cars, alter, change, adjust, adapt, amend, improve, restyle, transform, customize, tweak and lower. Looks like someone has synonmed the hell out of this Nissan 370, good job. 

Always looking for something new to attract the punters last year the organizers put on stands to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the launch of the R35 GTR and an Evo v Subaru stand. This year it’s Toyota’s legendary AE86 Corolla which turns 35, while Mazda's RX-7 and Toyota Supra observe 40 years of turning heads and bringing a smile to owners faces around the world. These were shown off and presented to the crowd in the parade area which is a great area to grab some unobscured pictures.

So onto the photography, two areas here the static show and the track. Static shots can generally be split into three areas - wide angle shots taking in the whole car, close up of detail and a bit of both using a long focal length lens. However, photography is more art than science so use my information as a guideline and get creative. Areas that will trip you up fall into two areas, backgrounds and reflections.

Both of these can mitigated by you, very simply, use your eyes . This sounds simple but how many car pictures have you seen with street lights and trees sticking out of the roof. Just by moving the car or your feet a different angle and can be used getting rid of the offending items. At a big show you are not going to be able to move the car so that means you have to move, lower, higher whatever it takes to get the shot. 

The other way of looking at it is make it a feature, people can be blurred with a slow shutter speed however, you might need a neutral density filter. A neutral density filter does exactly what it says, it puts density in front of your lens this means you will need to have a longer exposure which will result in blurring of any movement. Placing the camera on a tripod is a must if you are going to try this at a show.

Reflections are easy to sort in post processing, but why, when you can capture the image correctly in camera, move so that you and anything else is not reflected into the lens? One easy way of doing this and is probably one of the more important bits of kit in your bag for car photography is the Circular Polarizing Filter (CPF). A CPF works like your expensive sun glasses by only letting light through at a certain angle reducing glare and reflections. The difference between a CPF and your Oakley's is once attached to the front of your lens you can rotate the CPF to achieve different results. 

The picture of the RX7 was taken with a CPF. As you can see the colours are more vivid and there are no reflections on the glass however there are some down the side of the car. If you want a clean look you will need to take multiple exposures, rotating the CPF on each shot to get the desired effect then blend them altogether in your image manipulation software. There are loads of guides on how to do this on YouTube. This is not something I would attempt at a show as it's rather time consuming.

So onto the track, only two events for you to worry about, public track time and drifting. The public track time you can treat as general track photography and I will cover this in depth in another article about Silverstone later in the year.

Drifting at Silverstone is mainly at Brookland's leading into Luffield so there ae a few good areas that you can use however, they all have heavy duty safety fencing. One area that you can look over the fencing is in the grandstand at Brookland's. You will need to get in before the drifting starts as it is a popular location. A super telephoto will work from the stands however, it will be challenging as your are not allowed to stand. A better option is the field directly opposite the grandstand adjacent to Luffield.

Here you can get up next to the fence at just before Brookland's and if you have 200mm lens you will nearly fill the frame with a crop sensor camera. As always when shooting through safety fencing, get as close as possible with the widest aperture and try and shoot at right angles to the fence. The cars marshal on the Wellington Straight and then head down to Brooklands at some speed braking about 100m from the corner and sliding in facing you. Ideally watch a few runs and then move to the area directly opposite where they are getting the biggest drift angles and the most smoke.

Once you have some great images move around to Luffield to get some variety in your pictures. Unfortunately I was not able to do this due to the number of people, so I stayed in the one spot to capture some images for you. There are usually three drift runs during the day so there will be an opportunity to come back later and get a different viewpoint.

The drift photographs are ISO 100, Focal Length 200mm, F9 at 1/250 to 1/320of a second

I hope you have enjoyed this write up and photographs of Silverstone Japfest 2018. As always I don’t claim to be an expert on this subject it's just my enthusiastic observations of a day out with some friends carrying a camera and hopefully I will inspire some of you to get out there and take some great images . If you would like to contribute an article to PistonClick drop us an email. The next ramblings of a slightly sunburnt photographer will be Modified Live from Cadwell.

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