Hello!
If you’ve stumbled upon this page, then let me be the first to welcome you! This website will serve as a portfolio for my photography and a blog to share my thoughts. Speaking of photos, if you fancy yourself a print then you can click the store link and purchase a couple of selections.
Now onto the bit where I talk about myself:
For starters my name is Joe. Below is what I typically look like in the real world (shot by a good friend):
Me - The Wild (Taken by P. Yannacopoulus, 2019)
From the header in the top right corner you can see that I am an engineer, photographer, and enthusiast. Let’s address those three things below:
Engineer
My current full time job is a mechanical engineer. I graduated with a BME in May 2016 and scored what many would consider a “dream job” in motorsports. In college I knew I wanted to work in the automotive industry with racing being the ultimate goal. I feel fortunate that I was able to jump straight to my dream career in racing out of college and move out to an amazing city such as Los Angeles.
Photographer
My newfound hobby is photography (unfortunately all of my hobbies tend to be expensive ones). I entered the world of photography a couple years ago when I convinced my dad to buy me my first (and current) DSLR for Christmas. Admittedly I rarely used it because I was too afraid to go around and take photos. This lack of confidence lead to the majority of my photoshoots to be late at night in empty areas with the subject being my car. Below is an example of the type of photos I used to take:
1991 Mazda Miata (NA6) - Industrial Park (2014)
Admittedly there are a few things that are not great about the above photo, but I’ll cover my progress in photography in a later blog post. As stated above, I was too concerned about how I would look walking around with my camera and going to places to shoot photos. How did I break out of that slump? I kinda have my father to blame (thank) for that. Last year (2018) my dad asked me if I still used my camera and I sheepishly lied and said “yes.” I also offhandedly mentioned that I wanted the Nikon 18-300mm lens because I was tired of having to swap between the two kit lenses (18-55mm and 55-200mm) and wanted to have the superzoom as a “catch-all” lens. To my surprise my father got me the Nikon 18-300mm lens for Christmas! However this gift left me in a bit of a bind as I had stashed my camera away since graduating college. I now felt obligated to go out and take photos with the new lens, and this obligation ultimately led me to where I am now with photography. So I guess thanks dad for getting me a gift that “guilt tripped” me into getting deeper into photography.
Enthusiast
If you couldn't tell already from my career choice and my photos, I like cars. Now I like a lot of other things, too, but cars are definitely at the forefront of that list. I’ll discuss my personal car in a different blog post, but for now I’ll go over my personal “taste” in cars.
Everyone has their own personal preference in cars and I happen to prefer the less exotic varieties. What do I mean? I mean that things such as Lambos, Ferraris, Porsches, etc. don’t excite me as much as other types of cars. Admittedly a large reason behind my lack of interest in exotic brands stems from the fact that the abundance of high end luxury / supercars floating around Los Angeles has numbed my excitement for them (first world problem, amirite?). However even going back to when I first started getting into cars (about a decade ago now) I was always more interested in less exotic cars. So what type of cars am I into? I’ll post some examples below:
90s Japanese Sports Cars
Toyota Supra (MKIV) - 2019 Japanese Car Cruise In
Japanese Nuggets
Suzuki Alto Works RSR - 2019 Japanese Car Cruise In
Vintage Japanese Cars (Starting to see a trend here?)
Datsun 240z - South OC Cars and Coffee (5/4/2019)
Rare / Miscellaneous Oddities
Lancia Delta S4 - Saturday Shift (6/15/2019)
As you can see I primarily enjoy Japanese cars along with other cars that are rare / odd / old. My tastes should give you an idea of what photos you should expect to see on this website.
I hope this post helps you to better understand who I am. I also hope you enjoyed this post and I look forward to sharing more with you all in the future. Feel free to leave a comment below.
Thanks,
J. Stitt