Advanced Forced Perspective Motorsports Projects

To celebrate the arrival of summer (which is a very important event for Canadians) I wanted an evening shot on the shores of a lake. This is the northern shore of Lake Simcoe in the small city of Orillia. Orillia is the home of the great and recently deceased singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. And also home of the famous writer Stephen Leacock, and classical pianist Glenn Gould. So you begin by setting up in the fashion that you would normally take such an image in terms of tripod height and camera body attitude. Olympus OM-1 and Leica 9mm f/1.7 at f/4 and focus point on the tree.

My model is an Ignition 1:18 Mazda JDM Savanna S124A Series III coupe modified for racing with a roll cage, fender flares and a deep chin air dam. This was powered by the Mazda 12A rotary engine and was available in this body style from 1976 – 1978 for Japan and North America markets only and known as the Rx3 for export models. The Savanna line started in 1971 and ended in 1978-1979 with the 12A placed in the new first generation Rx7 body (SA22C). Officially the Savanna nameplate continued in Japan with the second generation Rx7 (Fc) but the radical change in VIN model naming from SA to FB and then to FC and FD signals when the model line truly ended. Since the Rx7 family was never offered with a piston engine, the need for a Savanna nameplate was unnecessary. The Rx3 was one of the first of Mazda’s rotary driven motorsports successes in IMSA and SCCA in the US. The Rx3 would routinely beat larger cars through the first corner after a race start because its unusual 9000+ rpm redline would allow the driver to shift into 2nd gear after the first corner rather than while entering it! I used some miniature artificial turf to make the transition to the real terrain easier and raised the second tripod to the proper height and placed it close to the camera to give the proper size perspective. OM-1 with Leica 9mm f/1.7 at f/8 to ensure every spot on the car is in focus with the focus spot on the car.

Because of the setting sun and all the wild fires that have been occurring in both Alberta & BC (to the west) and Nova Scotia (to the east), the white balance was quite off and the first thing was to correct it in PS. I also modified the model by disassembling it and bending the axles and shaving the tops of the rubber tires to give the appearance of a stanced or hellaflush defined car. The use of negative camber (causing the tires to bow out at the bottom and tip in at the top) in the suspension and mounting undersized narrow tires and stretching them to fit the wider rims allow the wheels to be inserted deep into the fender well while still clearing the bodywork. The car also drives significantly lower to the ground. I added additional 1:18 scale decals that you would expect to find on a car such as this. The original model came with a Watanabe windshield banner reflecting the famous vintage Watanabe rims on the car. I replaced it with a RE Amemiya banner from the famous Japanese Mazda rotary tuning company and parts manufacturer.

In Japan, this body style was also sold with conventional piston engines so there is a need to emphasize its rotary power and adorn it with the relevant decals. This is a resin model with no opening doors or hood so it was not possible to install any miniature LEDs to illuminate the headlights. I tried but did not want to risk damaging the headlights. But with an intervalometer, I was able to take images of each headlight lit up with a tightly focused external beam of light. (NOTE: I had not noticed the lower margin of the air dam decal is overextended and visible)

The key to producing a focused beam of light of this specific size (it can’t be too big or too small) is to insert a penlight into a Televue 1.25″ 5x Powermate barlow (which is just like a tele extender but increases the focal length greater than 5x) shown in red. Then a train of intervening 1.25″ wide adaptors is used to extend the separation from the telescope by about 6-7 inches. The telescope (shown in green) is a very inexpensive 60mm diameter, 300mm focal length refractor with a simple two element objective that I use as a guidescope during astrophotography. Note the tightly focused beam of light thrown on the wall. A laser could be used but the definition of a laser is the emission of monochromatic light and no headlight beam is colored red, green or blue.

I copied a section of the air dam onto itself and then a section of the grass beneath onto itself, with that layer placed at the bottom. Using the warp transformation I extended the height of the grass until it covered the protruding decal margin.

The illuminated headlights were cut and pasted and I changed the level curves on the outer headlights to boost their intensity.

Cutting the car out with some minimal feathering and then pasted onto the first image in the series.

The grass is the wrong hue!

Adjusting only the green channel in Hue/Saturation to find a match. Note the natural reflections on the hood and off all the glass made only possible when shooting a model in situ.

I ran the eraser along the outline of the car on the far side to remove some of out of focus foliage that was feathered with the copy outline.

The final result. Because there is no in cropping to remove the borders of the car platform and tripod, the entire default field of view is preserved. The blending into the natural terrain enhances the illusion as do the apparently working headlights.

I’ve adopted the new Leica 9mm f/1.7 lens as my standard lens for these projects over the Leica 15mm f/1.7 because the former has a smaller minimum focus distance. This is particularly useful when shooting smaller 1:43 scale models when the camera must be placed much closer to the model. I don’t like shooting 1:43 models but had no choice since the Mazda RX-Vision GT3 model is only a concept and only exists … in the Play Station Gran Turismo world. Mazda had these models made for distribution in their Japan dealerships and fortunately the creations are of high quality showing detail not normally present at this scale making the images still convincing. I replaced the PlayStation windshield banner with a Mazdaspeed one in post and created the appearance of working running lights and headlights. Note the reflection of the tall building across the street across the hood and the curb off the passenger door.

One of the rarest of Mazda’s vintage rotary vehicles, less than a thousand of the R130 Luce with the equally rare 13A engine were made in the late 1960s. This 1/24 diecast model is shown in front of two iconic live music venues in downtown Toronto, the Jazz Bistro and the Senator. The lines of the car are unmistakably Italian and unusual for a Japanese car of this era because it was penned by none other than a young Giugiaro while he worked at Bertone and echoes the shape of Alfa Romeos and Lancias of that era.

My pièce de résistance, Breakfast at Fran’s . The iconic 24hr diner in downtown Toronto. I must say it is a testament to the city and the country whose constitution prioritizes peace, order, and good government over personal freedoms to create such a large city without danger or garbage strewn streets at 4 AM.

Shot on the day of the annual IMSA race at Mosport, but sadly now without Mazda as a competitor, it seems fitting to imagine a race that will never happen. Between #55 and … #55 – both winners in their own realms. The RT-24P DPi has a 600 bhp inline 2L, 4 cylinder turbo engine and won the 2019 Sahlen’s Six Hours at Watkins Glen and the 787B with the 900 bhp 2.6L, quad rotor engine won the 1991 Le Mans (detuned to 700 bhp).

As you can see, my image made the top 20 finalists in the 2023 Toyo Tires Photo Contest. I did not win the Grand Prize but felt more than honored to be included in the top 20.