What's Happening at Naitove Photography

SEMA 2009 Video

naitovephoto — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 20:08:12 +0000

Well, what else can I say other then the guys (and girls!) at Luxury4play.com guys are the best! I cant thank them enough. I had a pass to SEMA promised to me and then screwed out of at the last minute but Tim at 503 Motoring in Portland, OR came in in the clutch and helped me BIG TIME! He was even able to get my full media credentials so I was one of the few actually allowed to shoot video inside the SEMA walls. As you know, I am a photographer…not a videographer but I was able to throw something together. This is the 2nd video I have ever made. Anyways Tom, my friend who had never met the L4P crew at the time, said to me today, “[this trip] was so good I should be mad at you for ruining my future trips to vegas.” That pretty much sums it up for me as well. After goldRush and this trip, I feel like Vegas will never be the same without the L4P guys. Anyways, I’m editing the photos as we speak and because Blake is always telling me to “prove it” and MTK thinks I dont post enough here is the video.

Once I get some time though I will make a full SEMA write up on here!

Cars & Coffee along with other fun stuff

naitovephoto — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 19:59:29 +0000

(originally posted on luxury4play.com)

Ello, ello. I seem to be having a pretty good time these days so I figured another update is in order. Anyways, this weekend has been especially fun. Friday I met up with a bunch of kids from Semester at Sea and went drinking. Got some reps in but they are on other peoples cameras so hopefully they will facebook them soon and I can post up. Saturday I woke up early (8:30…hey after drinkin, 10:30 is early for me) to go to Cars and Coffee. We ended up going on a little tour of some of the local dealerships instead of just hanging out for a couple hours. Afterwords I headed down to my friends ranch for a little dirt biking action. Today (Sunday) Villian and I made our way to a local car auction where he planned on picking up a Lamborghini Countach as a stable mate for his Gallardo. Anyways, here are the photos…

First stop…Ferrari of Denver

Just as the whole group left, a friend of mine who purchased the above Ferrari 430 Challenge mentioned that the remainder of us should have a look at the service area before we left. I’m glad we did.

Next was the Mercedes Benz dealer. We had stuck around at the Ferrari dealer so long that by the time we had gotten to the Benz dealer, everyone was just leaving. Only was able to snap a few quick photos…

First time I have ever seen one of these in person…SL65 Black Series

Man I love that car. Nothing I would change except for the fact that, correct me if I’m wrong, but it still has a real auto tranny? Anyways, onto the next stop…the Porsche dealer.

The new GT3

Then we were offered a ride in a brand new Panamera 4S. In a nut shell, I was pleasantly surprised with this car. I looks much better in person but the best part was the interior. Everything about the interior is perfect IMO. Loads of buttons instead of confusing Idrive stuff, great seats, whisper quiet ride even at 105mph and super comfortable. I was also surprised that I was actually given the chance to drive the car. For a NA car, this thing felt quick! We were told its basically a detuned version of the GTS motor. This thing screams off the line when using their launch control system as well. The brakes were equally good…almost too good. Hard to get used to at first. Anyways, proof they actually let me drive…

After we watched some F1 qualifying on the big TV inside the dealership, we decided that lunch was in order. A few of the guys were worried about parking in crowded lots in fear of their cars being banged into and whatnot but we finally decided to take a trip down to Wahoos Fish Tacos. If you guys have never been, you need to go. I love this place. Anyway, it was this trip though that proved to be disastrous for one of the guys. Wont go into too much detail here but a friend of mine’s Ferrari 430 Spyder now has a couple curbed wheels and a gaping hole in the front bumper After lunch, I still had time to kill before I could head to my friends ranch to go dirt biking and pick up my snow tires he was storing for me so I went and said hi to Bill down at Lamborghini Denver.

Finally Chris called me and told me to head down to the ranch. Place was really in the middle of nowhere so I got my rally on on their dirt roads. Sometimes I wish I just didnt care about my cars paint because that stuff is so fun! Anyways, heres the last stop of the day.

After just a few minutes, the float got stuck on the WR250F

so we just took turns playing around on ole faithful

My vehicle…

I think we can all agree that tight pants look stupid with dirt bike boots…

Pretty good for one day huh?

Simple gR Vanquish shoot turned into so much more…

naitovephoto — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 19:10:51 +0000

(this is an old thread I posted on Luxury4play.com)

So today I had my first test for my Japanese Film class at 5pm. Against my better judgment, I agreed to shoot Dan’s Vanquish before though. Originally we were supposed to just take a couple of photos but as this thread title suggests, that wast all.

1pm…4 hours until my test, Dan still has to wash his car…

130pm…lets take some photos…

145pm…new spot

Jason and Dan posted up

weird passer by

Yours truly caught in action…

Dirt road in the middle of nowhere and a million people feel they need to get up it…

Sonbol/gR rep WHAT!?

2:30pm…2.5 hours before my test “lets go get some burritos”

2:40pm…burritos turns into mags. I actually spilled my first one after I was half way though it so I had to get a second. Keep in mind these have 3 shots each. That marg conveniently spilled right into our bowl of chips though and actually didn’t spill any on the table. Jason though later knocked over half the table and broke his glass and spilled his marg all over Dan. Good job guys.

“just take another shot…it will be fine” – Dan

Right after Me: “yo man, im too drunk to drive home”
Jason: “well, take another shot or im not driving your car”

3:30…hour an a half before my test. I am too drunk to drive home (I dont drink much anymore) so Jason has to drive my car home.

4pm…1 hour before my test. My drunk ass gets dropped at school by Dan and in a moment of drunken indiscretion, I let Jason hang out at my house unattended until Dan picked him up.

4:25pm…I get a text from my roommate, “who is this note by your cameras to?” “oh boy” I thought, “what did these guys do?” Turns out they pretty much raped my house. (all the following are taken by the bromance crew while I was at school taking my test)

The Note…

Neighbors rocking chair

messin’ with stuff in my roommates room

They eventually made it to my room…

So finally it seems they left my house and I eventually took my test. Fortunately for me, I had done enough studying before hand that I felt prepared. WRONG! The teacher tested on stuff we basically never covered and other students in the class agreed with me that is was a complete BS test. Glad I didnt waste my day studying because it wouldn’t have helped. That being said, and I want to make this clear, I’m not proud of my lack self control before a test. This semester was really important being that it was my last one before graduation and that was stupid. This has never happened before and wont happen again. However, it did make for a super fun day though!

The Day I Passed Out…Twice

naitovephoto — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:27:45 +0000

Earlier today, we made a last minute decision to go to the Rockies game. Our ride was about to be there and I didnt want to have my bike at Corey’s house so I decided to race home and have them pick me up. Corey only left a minute after me so it was a race to my house. I made it back first but I think the heat and the fact that I rode as hard as I could the whole way just got the best of me. Walking up to my house, I started to get super light headed. I have passed out several times before so I knew what was coming. Before I could set the bike down I suppose, I finally passed out. When I came to, I must have looked like I was making a snow angel in the grass. I looked around but luckily it didn’t look like anyone saw what happened…fewf. “well at least I didn’t hit my head on the sidewalk” I thought. Little did I know what was to come. My thumb hurt a bit though and when I looked down I saw why. All the skin on th end of my thumb had pretty much peeled off. I imediately felt sick again. Must have caught the sidewalk on the way down. When I got up and went inside finally, the dizzy feeling came back. I had to pee though so I went to the bathroom. Next thing I remember is waking up with half my body bent over the bath tub. From what I gather I basically just nose dived into the bathtub and smashed my head on the bottom. I don’t know how to describe the lump on my head any way other than an egg. It’s literally the shape and size of a full sized chicken egg. It’s effin huge. Now sweating an insane amount, I went on to the couch to lay down. Luckily, my friend was on his way over to pick me up and came inside to see what was taking so long. I guess I had fallen asleep because I opened my eyes to “WTF happened to you!?” He and his friend were able to patch me up but I knew they had to go to the game so I told them to go. I wanted someone to be there though in case anything happened so I called Seth to come over. He picked up luckly and I explained the situation. He replied ” your a shitty lier” and hung up. Did he seriosuly just hang up on me?! I called him back and this time he believed me when I told him I would give him my car if I was lying and finally came over. We figured it would be best for me to go to the hospital so here I am. I know what your all thinking though, “where are the pictures?!” Fear not friends, I have them on my camera at home and will post when I return. Even got a couple reps in.

That was the post I put up on L4P from my iPhone in the hospital bed. Here are the photos.

This was what it looked like right when I got home from the ER…

This was the bloody mark I left on the bathtub…

Here are some from my iphone in the hospital…

Monday, June 8, 2009: goldRush – LA to Las Vegas…The Final Day

naitovephoto — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:22:07 +0000

Being that this was the last day of goldRush, we were determined to keep with the group this time. We had everything packed the night before, all the cars checked and, just in general, made sure the following day would be problem free. We were able to have the Range Rover parked at the front of our hotel so this made for a quick getaway in the morning. 10am finally came around and it was time to hop in the Range and dangle out the sunroof once again. Just like in San Francisco, we flew down the streets of LA with music blaring, surrounded by millions of dollars in cars and people cheering. The cheers from onlookers really made the experience that much more surreal. I imagine the feeling was similar to what it would feel like to be a basketball player emerging on to the court at the beginning of a home game. Today was shaping up to be an awesome day until we realized that with all our preparations the night before, one thing remained unchecked, the gas level on the Range. We were essentially at empty so stopping was a must. Unfortunately, we were at the back of the pack as it was so this would definitely leave us alone on the road once again. As we rushed back onto the highway, it was clear that there was to be no catching up to the group as we ran directly into stop and go traffic. “Great, another day of driving by ourselves with nothing to take photos of” I thought.

As we were driving down the road, Khaleel got a phone call from Abdullah. Some how this was our only police encounter on the whole trip that resulted in getting a ticket. Notice I mentioned the “resulting in a ticket” part because this will come into play later. After several minutes of what sounded like yelling in Arabic, I was filled in on what happened. The traffic we had been stuck in was partially due to some construction going on which closed one lane of highway we were taking. Abdullah had an idea and when he looked behind him for cops or anyone that could get him in trouble, all he saw was a familiar (or he thought so at least) black Crown Victoria cruiser. As a little bit of pre text though, one of the participants on goldRush was driving a ex police Crown Victoria that still looked like a cop car, save all the goldRush decals. Anyways, this is the car Abdullah believed to be behind him so he decided that using the cones on the side of the road as a slalom course would make for a good video clip from the crown vic’s perspective. While it did probably make for some good footage, it wasn’t that amusing to the real police officers that were behind him. This is where the story gets really funny though. After the cops saw what he was doing they switched on their lights and attempted to pull the Porsche over. Abdullah however, didn’t go anywhere. You know what he did do though? He kept going through the cones and WAVING at the police car behind him. At this point, he still thought it was the guys on goldRush just messing around with him! Not until the police yelled, “pull the vehicle over immediately” at him over the loud speaker did he realize that this was no joke. I don’t actually remember what kind of ticket he got for that but I don’t think it was too bad and he was allowed to drive away. Lucky for us though because him getting arrested would have really put a damper on or trip.

A couple minutes went by until we got another phone call. This time however, it was Dan. By the look on Khaleel’s face, there was a big problem. The car gods really just didn’t seem to be with us on this trip. “You hit a what?!” shouted Khaleel. My face went white (well whiter then it already is which, for those of you who know me, is pretty damn hard). In a group of exotic cars, there was no good answer to that question. The only thing we could hope for is that that answer wasn’t “a Ferrari.” But of course with our luck so far, it was a Ferrari…an F430 Spyder to be exact. Luckily though, it wasn’t Kids Scuderia because that would be quite the expensive fix. Both cars were drivable though so they exchanged info and went on their way. From the sound of it, it was just a fender bender that left Dan in need of a new bumper and the Ferrari guy a rear bumper and rear diffuser. We then decided that it might be a good idea for us to regroup at the next exit.

What a welcome sight it was to see a gas station full of goldRush cars when we exited the highway. Maybe we weren’t going to be by ourselves for the rest of the day after all. When we got out of the car, we were again bombarded with questions and we weren’t even 10 hours late! People were just curious as to how bad the Aston vs. Ferrari accident was. This also turned out to be a pretty good photo op because RAW, Fred and a bunch of other guys borrowed the Saudi Throbes and were running around the gas station parking lot. After about 30 minutes of parking lot shenanigans, it was time to get back on the road. This time though we were fully immersed in the goldRush crew and at any one time, we probably had 50 participants with in a couple hundred feet of the car. This made for some truly epic photos. Being surrounded by all these awesome cars was a rush in and of itself but having people hold onto my belt as I hung half way out a window at 90mph to take photos of them made for one hell of a time. When I jumped back in the car, I realized that a lot of these shots came out blurry. I mean what did I expect at 1/60th of a second and 90mph winds? I HAD to get these shots though to I took my hat and glasses back off and made my way back through the sunroof of the Range Rover.

The thought of cops never really crossed my mind as I looked through the Canon’s viewfinder. Usually I am a fairly cautious person when it comes automotive mischief but at this point, caution flew away with the wind and it almost took my sunglasses as well. At one point, the road opened up and it was completely filled up with rushers. We ripped it up to the front so I could get some photos facing backwards of the whole group. What was weird though is that all of a sudden, the group seemed to be fall farther and farther away. “Slow down Khaleel” I thought to myself. It wasn’t until a frantic yank on my pants did I realize what was going on. When I took my eye out of the viewfinder, the first thing I saw was the flashing lights of the officer on the side of the highway. About 10,000 expletives later, I got back in my seat, buckled up and prepared for the imminent tongue lashing or possible arrest that was for sure coming my way. I watched the cop get closer in my rearview and all I could think was “game over.” I mean, I can’t even imagine what the is called for doing 100mph with a person standing out of the sunroof. I then realized that the ticket would most likely be directed at Khaleel and not me and instantly felt sick. Would he be sent back to Saudi if he got in big trouble? I had no idea what was going to happen but I would soon find out. The cop came flying up on us and actually passed us like he was going to pull someone else over. “Oh man, THANK GOD,” I yelled as I relaxed and slumped into my seat.

As Johnny Tran would say though, “too soon junior, too soon.” When the officer got in front of all the traffic, he began violently swerving across all lanes of traffic, effectively creating a rolling roadblock. That same sick feeling came back. “Did I just cause the entirety of goldRush to get pulled over?!” All I could think of now was the cop saying something like, “alright guys you are all getting tickets and you have this kid right here to thank for them.” I thought I was going to be the first person in history asked to leave goldRush! Finally though, all lanes of traffic came to a complete halt and the officer jumped out of his car. He approached each of the first 10 or so drivers and just took their drivers licenses. After that he just motioned for the rest of the group to pull over to the side of the road. When everyone pulled over, we all got out and walked out to where the cop was standing. I was so freaked out at this point I don’t entirely remember what he was saying but it was along the lines of, “I have been getting complaints about your group since you left LA about people hanging out of windows, speeding, going too slow…you guys absolutely must chill out while in the state of California…I pulled one of your buddies over for doing 95 before…” and so on. I don’t know when this happened or what he said though but he actually was going to let us all off! The crowd of almost 70 goldRushers or so cheered and all crowded around him for a photo op. I don’t think I have ever been more relieved in my entire life. After we snapped a bunch of photos with everyone including the cop throwing up the 4 fingers, we jumped back in the cars and quite a bit more slowly made our way towards Las Vegas.

The rest of the drive to Vegas was pretty subdued because RAW promised the officer it would be. I was still able to get some rolling shots but this time just from the window instead of the roof. When we finally got to Vegas, all I could think about was taking a shower. I mean, I hear that’s what happens when rallying but it had definitely been a minute since I showered. When we went to check in, one of the people in our group didn’t have a room for whatever reason. After waiting around in the lobby of the Wynn for what seemed like forever, they finally came to the solution that any reasonable person would…just get the biggest room in the hotel and we can all sleep in it. When they told me how big it was the first time, I thought I had heard them wrong. He said it again and this time I was just in awe. The main suite in the middle was three thousand square feet and the two connecting rooms on either side were probably about 1000 or so each. This was the Presidential Suite at The Wynn so I knew it was going to be insane. You don’t even want to know what it cost per night though. The suite even had its own massage room in it! Anyways, after we finished checking out the room, I was finally able to take a shower and then it was off to dinner across the street at Sushi Samba. The food here was amazing anyone going to Vegas anytime soon, I suggest you go here. Randomly during the dinner there was a bikini contest for us, in the restaurant. I feel like that violated their policy of “no shirt, no shoes, no service” but I guess that’s what goldRush is about. One of the girls looked like the twin of the actress who plays Ari’s wife on Entourage so we voted for her. The moment that summed up the rally though for me came just after the contest had ended. Where the music was relatively soft for the entirety of dinner, when the next song came on, the DJ turn it way up. It was the Busta Rhymes song that inspired our name, Team A Rab Money. Immediately our whole table jumped up on the backs of the booth seats and started doing the Arab Money dance we had come up with for the whole song. Even people from other groups joined in on the party. Like many others have said, this was a part of the rally that I will never forget and was a fitting conclusion to the most fun weekend I ever had.

Or was it? The whole ride home doesn’t really warrant a whole story but I just wanted to rub it in your guys faces a little bit that I drove an Aston Martin Vanquish S 170mph…faster then even the owner has driven it! Who wants to touch me?

Alright, seriously though, this is the end of my goldRush shenanigans and I really want to extend a huge thank you to all the people who made it possible. I never thought I could have this much fun in one weekend and cant wait for next year. To be honest, I cant believe you read this far! Anyways, Team Arab Monay in bringing the Arabian Desert heat in 2010 so watch yourself!

Here is the link to the rest of the photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/coopernaitove/sets/72157619563567424/

Thanks for looking

Friday, June 5, 2009: goldRush SF to LA aka the 22inch Rim Jihad

naitovephoto — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:00:49 +0000

This morning was the first driving portion of goldRush. Epic is the only word to describe what it feels like to be standing through the sunroof of a Range Rover barreling down the road, blasting techno with Michael Schumacher’s F1 car incorporated into the beat, and photographing/recording over 50 exotic cars all at once. There were people on the side of the road cheering, people hanging out of windows, tires smoking…it was just crazy. All this fun however was short lived. Right now I am sitting inside that same Range Rover outside of a tire shop about 75 miles away from where we started. Why you ask? Well, the BMW M6’s wheels must be cursed. At about 80 mph they believe, their tire exploded. This wasn’t even the same wheel that needed fixing yesterday…same side but this time it was the rear wheel. It is now 4:30pm and we have been sitting here since about 10:30. We missed the big lunch and the pool party scheduled for today and essentially half of the goldRush festivities. Needless to say, I was pretty bummed. After several hours of waiting for the tire shop to get the tire they need, they realized they ordered the wrong size. They said it would be a couple more hours until they would be able to get in a proper sized tire from the warehouse. In the mean time, we decided to take another trip to In n’ Out for lunch. For whatever reason, we started talking about one of the biggest buzzwords of the early 2000s — Jihad. I was told that what it actually means is the death of someone or something before it’s time. So I asked them if Mohammad was on a Jihad against 22inch, 3 piece, BMW wheels because he had killed two of them in such a short period of time. The guys agreed this was a good example. After lunch, we returned to the tire shop to find out more info. The new tire had not arrived so yet again; it was again time to play the waiting game. I spent the next hour or so in the car editing photos and generally being sad thinking about how we were basically missing half of the rally. Finally, the tire truck arrived and it would be no time until we would be back on the road. While that was the case, it was not under the circumstances we had hoped for. Once they put the tire on, the wheel no longer sealed properly. The whole pressurized assembly was put into a tub of water to check for leaks and there were loads of bubbles coming from all over the wheel. This was not going to work. The only option now was to have the car flat bedded back to LA. So long story short, we waited around all day for the tire shop to get their shit together and in the end it didn’t matter because they couldn’t do what they said they could. We might not have missed everything if they had just been upfront in the beginning and said they couldn’t fix it. When we finally left the tire shop with the 3 remaining cars, we decided to take the 101 instead of highway 5 because it was more scenic. We figured that since we were going to miss everything anyways, we might as well see the ocean. Wrong again though. The 101 is fairly boring until you reach the beach and by the time we did, it was almost completely dark…awesome.

At 11pm, we finally arrived at our home for the next 11 hours, the Mondrian Hotel. Many of the participants were down in the lobby, about to go out and party for the night. Being that we were probably like 6 or 8 hours late, we got bombarded with questions as to what had happened to us. My story ranged from us all getting arrested to getting lost and ending up in San Diego just to keep people talking. When we finally walked inside, we were greeted at the door by Craig Lieberman. He is the the main part of the camera crew for this trip. On a side note, it was Craig’s R34 Skyline GTR that was in the movie 2 Fast 2 Furious. He was also the technical advisor for those movies so I wanted to work for him SO bad in highschool. I never got an email back though so thanks Craig! Haha Anyways, the tire that blew off the M6 actually smashed up the front bumper of his RS4 camera car. He introduced us to his friends, one of whom was a girl named Kristine who, it turned out, was from Westchester, NY as well (where I am from). Her and I got to talking later that night at SkyBar next-door and I realized we knew some of the same people. I was not expecting what she told me next though. The reason she knew my friends was because she had a gutted and highly modified Evo 9 MR and so did the kids I knew. The even bigger surprise was when we talked about what she did to afford the mods for the Evo. Turned out, she was a pop singer with music videos on MTV and whatnot and had one or two pretty big hit singles. I was surprised I hadn’t heard of her before but I guess I don’t watch all that much TV or listen to the radio anymore.

Kristine had to wake up early for some meetings or something so I went upstairs to try and find the guys. Nobody was to be found though. I went back into my room to watch TV and I guess from what I was shown on someone’s camera the next morning, I passed out mid text message, still holding my phone. What I saw next however was not as funny…for me at least. I’m going to spare you the gory details but they used some hair conditioner and some other props to make it look like something gnarly was going on. I’m still deciding if I will post those photos…

Shannon, what the hell were those for anyway?

Friday, June 5, 2009: goldRush – Arriving in San Francisco

naitovephoto — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 02:16:50 +0000

Last night was the beginning of goldRush and it was pretty much everything I expected. The parking lot where were the group parked their cars was absolutely full of ridiculous cars such as gold wrapped Scuderias, Lamborghini LM2s and Brabus G Wagons. The people were equally as outrageous. One guy even walked into the room with a dildo stuck to his forehead like it was no big deal. I later found out this this little guy was known as “The Hammer” or something disturbing sounding like that. Not exactly what I was expecting from this crowd but hilarious nonetheless. At this point, I would usually write some long-winded description of how cool all of this was or how excited I was that goldRush had finally begun. However, it was the end of the night that is currently sticking out in my mind.

My friend Rachyl was in SF with her friend so she came out to the goldRush kick off party with us. It was pretty much just another club night save the random dildos stuck to some guy’s heads and more dudes dancing on tables then girls. Anyways, we just kind of sat around for a while until about 2 when we decided to go back. On the way back into the hotel a drunk guy yelled, “where’s the party attttt?! I’ve got some party favors” at Rachyl and I but we kind of shrugged it off. He was still there when I got out of the bathroom and somehow we all got to talking. Turns out these guys are in the same field as Rachyl just got her degree in, industrial design. When pressed, we found out they were the lead designers for a very prominent computer company. When she heard this, Rachyl freaked out and started asking them all a million questions. I can’t really tell you the questions we asked because it would give away their identities and it is important I don’t do that for reasons that will be discussed later. We ended up talking for quite a while in the lobby and by now it was probably about 3am. The German guy who will remain nameless decided that it would be in our best interest to start drinking. “Lets raid the mini barrrr!” he yelled. Unfortunately, since they weren’t even staying in our hotel that meant my mini bar. My Jewish side told me that a shooter of Grey Goose was going to be ridiculously expensive from our hotel (The Clift) so I was hesitant to say the least. I could tell Rachyl really wanted to hang out with these guys though so I finally gave in. When I went into my room, sleeping bodies were strewn about the floor. It was quite the feat making it across the room without stepping on a face or someone’s nether regions but I finally made it to the mini bar. When I opened the closet it was in, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was locked. Perfect excuse…or so I thought. When I broke the news to them outside, the German informed me that all I had to do was go down to the front desk and ask for the key. Lucky me. Anyways, once we got the key, the German said that he wanted to come with me to get the booze from my room. This guy was loud as hell and already drunk so I immediately said no. He insisted however so I again gave in and went tiptoeing through the room again but now with the German in tow. All I could think of were the dollar signs adding up in my head as he wrangled up all the booze he could find. After some drinking, the stories started flowing from the English guy. He was the head of the design department and right hand man to the guy who runs the whole company. He decided that we should not just believe who he was because he said so, but he should have to prove it. Out comes the iPhone with photos of him and Bono and just about every other celebrity one could think, photos of him driving 2 million dollar classic Ferraris in Italy and he also broke out the Amex Black Card. I had never seen one of those in person until then. These things are cool as shit. It’s actually made of titanium and is cold to the touch. It’s considerably heavier then a regular credit card as well. Now unfortunately is the point that this story needs to come to an end. Not that the story is over, far from it, but things happened that should not be said on a public blog such as this. It could be damaging to all parties involved but it definitely left Rachyl and I with a kinda what-the-hell-just-happened-over-the-last-3-hours feeling. All and all though with all the weird stuff that happened, these guys were super funny and really cool so if you are reading this after Rachyl sends you the link, thanks for the 60 bucks and your secrets safe with me.

Hookah bar in LA we got totally ripped off at. The bill was 270 for 3 hookahs, a plate of desert and 10 bottles of water. One thing that should be cleared up I imagine is what the 4 fingers means. It stands for the 4 in luxury4play.com and tends to get thrown pretty frequently during affiliated events.

Our hotel

Only gangsters sleep on the floor with LV blankets

Alright so thats that. You can check out the rest here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/coopernaitove/sets/72157619462061314/

On the Road to goldRush: Denver to LA – Part 2

naitovephoto — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:07:29 +0000

So last night, I was driving the Porsche when I realized the little light blinking at me for the last hour or so meant I was low on fuel. When I finally realized what this light was, I clicked through the information screens until I got to the one that showed the remaining distance my current fuel could take me. “8 miles” it said. I had been cruising along at a fairly good pace and didn’t realize the rest of the group was a ways back. Being that the next gas station was only a half-mile away, I slowed down in the right lane so that they would catch up in time to see me take the exit.

Until the highway patrol car switched on his blue and reds, I didn’t pay much attention to him. Usually by the time you see a patrol car on the side of the road late at night, its already too late and the next several minutes become very expensive. When your doing 40 in a 75 though, a cop car isn’t that scary of a sight anymore. Like I was saying though, just after I pulled off the highway, the patrol car I just passed showed up flashing in my rearview. “What the hell am I getting pulled over for this time?!” I yelled as Abdullah woke up. This was the 4th time I had been pulled over in the last three months when I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong and it was really getting old. When the officer came up to my window he asked the usual question, “know how fast you were going?” Before I could stop myself, I said in a kind off pissed off tone, “Um, about 45.” “40” the cop said, “you were going 40.” I just kinda gave him a puzzled look. He then went on to ask what I was doing and I explained that my friends were far behind me and that I was trying to reconnect with them. I imagine he thought I was hammered or high or something because once I explained the situation he just wanted to make sure we were OK. He then directed us to the next town over where we could get something to eat because it was about 1am and we were all starving.

More shenanigans ensued once we arrived at what seemed to be the only open gas station/convenience store in a 100-mile radius. A couple years back I drove from NY to CO in my WRX and it got a surprising amount of attention from the local kids in the middle-of-nowhere towns. Judging from this I knew that a loud, crazy looking 911, a straight piped Aston Martin Vanquish, a slammed Range and an M6 on dubs would cause quite the stir with the local Utah folk. The convenience store also appeared to be the local late night hangout for the town teens because when we pulled up, about 10 jaws dropped to the floor. “Holy hell,” one yelled. “Goddamn, I am in the wrong business!” another said. The funniest comment by far though came from the biggest, self-proclaimed, redneck in the group. As I stepped out of the Porsche in my road trip attire (grungy sweat pants and a sweatshirt), the kid yelled “Jesus man, all these cars together just gave me a huge fucking boner!” We all laughed but tried to make our way inside to get some snacks to tie us over before we could find some real food. Dan however stayed outside to chat with the guys about his car. Not only would they not believe that his car was not the exact one from the James Bond movies but one kid insisted it was turbo charged. He pointed at the vents in the hood and kept yelling “You’re a liar, I see it right there!” Another comment I found pretty funny was one kid said something like “man, if I had those cars I would be making my own Girls Gone Wild videos.”

As far as problems go, we have really only had one major one so far. After a decadent Del Taco feast, I noticed that the M6’s front passenger tire was low on air. We didn’t think much of it at the time and just filled it back up and went on our way. Luckily, someone decided they needed to pee right before we got back on the highway we turned around and went back to the gas station. Again we saw that the same wheel was low on air and only a couple minutes had gone by. We dripped some water on the wheel and immediately discovered the problem. One of the M6’s 3 piece wheels began coming apart slightly in the middle and was leaking air at an alarming rate. Fortunately Khaleel, Abdullah’s cousin with the Range Rover, had a portable air compressor with him so the problem was fairly manageable. By manageable though, I mean we had to stop every 30 minutes to fill the tire up with air again. We dropped the car off at a wheel shop today so hopefully the problem is solved by tomorrow morning so we can bring it to San Francisco. If it isn’t, we will leave it at the shop and hope it is done by Friday when we will be back in LA.

(I will update this with photos when I get a second)

10:57 on 6.4.09 T Minus 2.5 hours until we are supposed to be in SF…we are going to be laaaaate. Here are some photos from the other day

Ordering dinner is a group effort…

Dan waking up from his date with the Louis Vuitton blanket

Khaleel dealing with the M6 issues when we first discovered the problem

I slept for about an hour and woke up in Vegas

More to come later when I find some more internet. Just a note, as always, you can see everything I have uploaded on my flickr most usually before I am able to get it posted here. Here is the link to this album: http://www.flickr.com/photos/coopernaitove/sets/72157619084658025/

On the Road to goldRush: Denver to LA (6.2.09)

naitovephoto — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:04:45 +0000

Well, today is the day we have all been waiting for. The plan was to leave to LA once Abdullah was finished school at 11am but as Lenny and Carl have taught us, even the best-laid plans always go astray. Let me back up a little bit though. My day started at 730am because my ex girlfriend Maria was bringing Bandit, her dog, over for me to babysit while she went to her court date. I asked her to bring him over though because he has to be sent back to her parents’ house in Vegas on account of him, as cliché as it sounds, biting the mailman. Maria and I dated for about a year and a half so he kind of felt like my dog too by the end. Anyways, Bandit and I hung out for a couple hours until Maria was done with her court date. My back had been absolutely killing me for whatever reason for the last couple days so I figured it might be a good idea to go to the chiropractor. A week-long road trip didn’t sound like fun with a bad back. Unfortunately, the adjustment didn’t really seem to help. By the end of my appointment, it was 11am and Abdullah had just finished class. As I was standing in my living room looking at my bags of Nikes, New Eras, Jeans and white t-shirts I thought to myself, “how the hell is this going to fit in his Porsche?!” The vehicle my bags were to go in really didn’t factor into my packing so I was a little worried. At around 11:30, he called and said he was outside.

Where I expected a white Porsche 997 sat a white Honda Accord. “uh oh” I thought to myself. “What’s wrong with the Porsche?” He said that he was getting a weird vibration in the steering and that he had his cousin drop the car off at a shop to get it realigned. While that solved the luggage problem, I was crossing my fingers that this “vibration” wasn’t anything serious. It was about noon once we reached the shop. The diagnosis wasn’t terrible but unfortunately it wasn’t something that could be completely fixed at that time. There was a small dent in the front right wheel, some problem with that tire as well and a bubble in the right rear tire. We figured a new set of tires would solve the problems. All they had was a set of Falken in his size (305/25/20) and he was not too excited about buying those because of some previous experiences he has had with them. Reluctantly though, he swiped his card and sent the car around back. I spent the next hour or so wandering around this wheel warehouse jokingly wondering how the 22inch, white with polished lip, HREs would look on my Subaru. After about an hour or so, they made an announcement over the loud speaker saying that his car was done. Abdullah was on the phone with someone back in Saudi so his cousin and I took it for a drive to see if the vibrations had gone away…they didn’t. The whole drive so far, his steering wheel has been shaking more violently then Mohammad Ali and The Pope shaking hands and the car feels like I am in one of those 80s workout machines that basically shook the fat off or something. Anyways, once we got back from the tire shop, Abdullah still hadn’t packed. The rest of us waited around eating some Arabic candy Abdullah brought home from his recent trip home while he packed. The next thing on the list of things that should have been done yesterday was to pick up the police lights that we are going to mount on the roof of the Porsche as well as the loud speaker. I mean, what kind of rally would this be without a loud speaker? On the way to the post office I realized that I too was unprepared. I had forgotten my only dress shirts I had dry-cleaned specifically for this occasion back in Boulder. Guess I have to go shopping in LA! It was about 4:30pm when we actually left and here we are, on the road to LA. From here on out I will just update this post as we go along with fun things along the way.

(Our first stop…5minutes into the trip. We decided we should probibly eat before driving 17 hrs.)

5:05pm: Ahhh snow at the Eisenhower Tunnel! I wonder how a Porsche and Aston Martin on summer tires will do…

6:20pm: Almost got yanked by a cop. Saw him radioing to his friends so we decided to slow down a little bit.
6:38pm: 10 minute stop in Vail because Dan’s Aston Martin hood was flapping around and he was worried it was going to fly up. M6 missed the exit so he had to wait for us on the side of the highway. Snapped a couple photos…

OK…im getting hurried out of Starbucks…ill post more later

Todd Z’s Car Collection

naitovephoto — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:04:51 +0000

So about two weeks ago I woke up to the sound of Michael Schumacher’s F1 car blaring from my iPhone. It was about 9am on a Saturday and I had only been asleep for around four hours at that point. Even though it was a phone number I didn’t recognize, I picked up. “yeah?” I mumbled. The woman on the other end asked me if this was Cooper Naitove the photographer, and said she was interested in setting up a photo shoot for her husbands upcoming birthday. “ohhh! Yep, thats me!” I said in my best, no-I-didn’t-just-wake-up voice (as if she couldn’t already tell). At this point though, I was a little confused because her tone was kind of leading me to believe this was going to be a different kind of photo shoot that I wasn’t necessarily down for. Luckily enough though, she explained that her husband had a car collection consisting of an Ariel Atom, Lamborghini Gallardo, Ferrari 360 Modena, BMW M5 and a late 80′s convertible Porsche 911 that she would like to have photographed for his birthday. Right up my alley I thought. We were able to set a date for May 29th at Red Rocks, one of my favorite backdrops for photos in the state. The light was pretty intense being that it was about 1pm when we finally were able to get all the cars together but we made do.

Once all the individual and group photos were done, it was time for the rolling shots. This when the photographer shoots a car from the passenger seat of another one in order to get blur in the wheels and background. Usually I find it best to shoot from the lowest vehicle possible so the choice of car for me was obvious, the Atom. Visions of the wind in your hair, the sun beating down on your face and the whine of the supercharger in your ear are all sensations that come to mind when imagining what its like to ride in an Atom. There is one tiny little thing that one fails to think about when envisioning this ride however…and that thing is rocks. At rest, pebbles are relatively harmless to anything other then say puppies who enjoy eating them for whatever reason. However, when hurtling towards your face at 90 miles an hour, pebbles can F you up prettttty good. In a state like CO where they cover the road in these little bastards instead of using salt to deal with the snow, it makes driving around in an Atom quite the treat. Just to give you an idea, each one of these little guys feels like a bee plunging its stinger into your skin. 20 minutes and about a bazillion pebbles later, my forehead looked like I had chicken pox and my head was pounding. Luckily enough though, none hit my camera, skin heals, and we finished with the rolling shots. For the ride home though, I chose the less dangerous route and rode home with Todd in his 360. This was only the second Ferrari I had ever been in, the first was Darren’s F430. Both of these cars were equipped with a Tubi exhaust but for whatever reason, 360 sounded infinitely better. Honestly though, as corny as it sounds, there isn’t too much on this earth more impressive sounding then the scream of a 3.6 liter Ferrari V8 at 8500rpm. Todd’s three friends took off in the Atom and the Gallardo because they were late for something and Todd, his wife Sarah, and I all headed back to Red Rocks to pick up the M5 that was left behind. Not until we arrived however did we realize we had a problem. As impressive as the M5 was, it could not drive itself home. I guess we all kind of forgot about the poor little Bimmer. As nonchalant as possible, I offered to help out and drive the M5 (hadn’t driven one of these until now) over to Club Auto where it would be safe until they were able to drop off another car and come pick it up. Todd agreed that would be the best idea and once the M was dropped off at the club, I got another ride in the 360 back to Red Rocks to pick up my car. Oh, the sacrifices I make to keep my customers happy.

“They look spectacular. Met all my expectations — and more.” – Todd Z