“Hello? Y0… Can anyone hear me? Meh…Is this thing on? Oh…Wait, there you are. Good. You can hear me. Just got these new fangled internets here and it comes and goes.” A gentle breeze passes through while one of the local tribesmen standing on the cable goes to the ocean and throws it all off.

Kidding.

All is the same though. The number of Americans I’ve met in the past who are amazed at the fact that we have television here in Scotland is outstanding, but hey that’s another story. We are up to date over here and more importantly our motorsport and car culture is, surprisingly, one of the best in the world (even though we pay over $9 a gallon for fuel here).

Hopefully, as of, well, now, me and my old blogging team from Stile-Auto should be able to bring you the best of what goes on in the UK and Europe. Mike Cabuco and I share a mindset which is a bit different from a lot of people. Also the fact that Mike and I have never met each other than through some Facebook’ings while sharing all the same viewpoints was an opportunity for myself and Fitted Life that neither of us could miss.

A little bit of background on me. A/S/L? lol. 23/Male/Glasgow, Scotland. Ever since I received my first camera at 21 I knew that what I wanted to do was create brilliant imagery. I knew that I had been given a brilliant opportunity when I opened the box and removed the Canon 400D from its small bubble wrap bag. Never being a fan of instruction manuals I stuck the memory card and battery into the body and got stuck in. Always good fun when you have never used an SLR before…So I picked up a series of books from Amazon for a few pennies written by Scott Kelby (Here on Amazon) . They are now a series of 3 I think and they helped me immeasurably and I cannot recommend these enough. In this day of the digital age, I believe that 50% of the work is done at the shoot and the other 50% is done in post. With the dawn of readily accessible and affordable SLRs and processing software, keeping up to date with equipment and constantly evolving my editing techniques helps to keep me at the head of the curve. So much is achievable in post that is not achievable on the shoot and when you are in the job of creating imagery this is a necessary evil.

As time went on, life in one way went to shit as I lost my full time job. Now the timing of this could not have been worse as my other half Amy and I were looking at buying our first house together so this put a bit of a downer on things and kind of left me feeling a bit crap to say the least. However, I came round to see that this was one of the best opportunities of my life, all be it that I may not have steady income for a while it got me out of a dead end job and allowed me to do what I wanted to do full time, photography.

So I made the move and acquired my father’s old office which had being lying derelict for 2 years and spent a few months, a few gallons of paint, 1 wall, some flooring and a trip to Ikea later and built my studio. Out of here I am able to do anything, except fit a car in sadly, and it’s just a great place to work.

With opening a new studio I decided it was time to drop some savings and invest in some new gear, so I replaced my 400D with a 5D MK2 and a 50D and a selection of B-E-A-utiful glass. I can’t stress enough to those who are interested in their photography, invest in good glass. It will last you for a lifetime and 90% of the time holds its resale value very well as long as you look after it. Since I got a hold of the 5D, etc. I have constantly been adding to the collection. I love the 7D that I now use for live motorsport work and prefer it over the 5D due to the high FPS that is achievable compared to the 5D.

Then the game sort of all changed when I realised that my 5D MK2 could produce stunning video. So I got myself some bits and bobs and put together my first video of one of the summer BBQs held by Monster Unit which, especially for being my first video, came out and was received rather well. This tickled my itch and ever since then video is what I have been concentrating on. It’s a difficult market, but I have been lucky and landed some great chances. Filming two of the JDM Allstars rounds of 2010 at the Donnington Alpine circuit and the Nissan Sunderland Factory allowed me to create my first real video, This Is JDM Allstars which took off like wild fire and really helped to get my name out there.

JDM AllStars – This Is JDM AllStars from Fraser Gordon on Vimeo.

This really is just the beginning. With all the development ideas that Mike and I have you will be seeing some amazing additions to Fitted Life with some all new angles being looked at and new areas of ground being explored. I can only hope that the excitement and passion that Mike and I share for pushing things forward will give you the same enjoyment to read, watch and truly be a part of.

All the best.

:. Fraser Gordon

(If you are interested in providing content for Fitted Life for the UK & Europe then drop me an email to fraser.gordon@fittedlife.com with a link to your work. We are looking for photographers and videographers from all walks of life)

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