Street & Track life with Joel Hedges from New Zealand and Jesse Streeter from Japan. A Spring day well spent at Meihan Sports Land with these boys x

Rolling through the middle of Shibuya with Hiroyuki-San and his PS13 from Team FREEE’S ☆ x

Since returning back to Australia from Japan I have been thinking how I can somehow preview my work to each of you individually as a solid, in your hands, in front of your eyes. These days everything, as you know is on the computer with a few clicks of the mouse. I thought about doing a café styled booklet however the budget for half a dozen of them is out of my range, for now anyway. Compensating that idea I’ve thought of a more balanced solution – 2012/2013 Automotive Volume Shirtstuckedin Calendar.

These past few weeks I’ve been scouting through my galleries and archives from my trips to Japan trying to source the best possible images to use for print. Above is the design I will be looking to go ahead with for the front and back of the calendar. I, however want your help as an audience of Shirtstuckedin to submit in a comment below what image(s) pop into your head that you think are worthy of getting featured in this calendar that could potentially be hanging in your garage, workshop, kitchen, work office or even the bathroom. Whatever, wherever you hang it I don’t mind, I just want to make sure I can proceed this idea in the best possible way for you all.  The calendar will be from December 2012 through to December 2013 therefore 13 specific images must be chosen. It will also be showcasing a handful of images that are yet to be leaked all over the internet which I’m really excited to show you all. If you’re willing to share your opinion, comment below. Really looking forward to this! Thanks a bunch, Casey! x

The madness continues from the most recent RB Meeting at Nikko Circuit. R32 Skyline battling it against an old school C34 Laurel powered by a RB26. Nikko is definitely one of my favourite tracks to shoot, especially in the Spring time x

Since returning home from Japan I have been posting daily updates on what I captured in the seven weeks I spent overseas. Since then I haven’t really spoken about what I really did on the trip, it has just been non-stop random posts from my archives. I feel as if I need to get more of a point across to you, as readers of Shirtstuckedin so here is my attempt to do so. The main idea of this site is somewhere that I can publish all that I’ve captured during my travels to Japan from my home, Australia. I want to show each and every single one of you how amazing and versatile the Japanese car culture really is, after all the majority of styles, trends and cars come from this archipelago. Since my first trip in 2010 I have been completely blown away in how the Japanese people create what they do. In saying that I don’t want to force you to be a fan of some of the styles or trends that is evolving in Japan. I don’t want to force you to like everything that gets posted, but to respect what these incredible people strive to create. Whether it be a Hellflush inspired style EG Civic with sticker bombed guards or a 600hp drift car, 110% will go into it and that is what you learn to respect. With the internet and social medias booming like no other it’s really sad to see the amount of hate being thrusted upon styles. As quoted by Charles Kha “We should remember that we all share the same underlying love of cars.”

Getting back on track, my most recent trip was by far the best I’ve experienced. Traveling to Japan for a few weeks is nothing short of a life changing experience. Just under 2 months transformed me for a number of good reasons. In that time I not only spent countless hours shooting and meeting some of the coolest cars and people I’ve yet to come across, but gave me a better understanding on how things flow. I have to hand it to all the foreigners who live in Japan, it wouldn’t be an easy country to get settled into so I have immense amount of respect for those who are making it work. What I have also learnt is to do what you really want to do. All through high school all I wanted to do was to travel to Japan and take photos of cars that I have drooled about for so many years. I’m not saying that I have reached my goals or got to a stage in life where I’m content, actually far from it. I’m saying if you want to do something like travel to Japan, do it. The world is at our fingertips, you probably hear this everyday, but seriously it is. Yeah, it might cost a few thousand dollars but we live once, if you’re into cars and an amazing culture such as Japan, which I know all of you who are reading this are then I urge you to do it. It will change you for good, freshen your mind and make you appreciate every individual style people aim to create which is what I’d love to see my audience do. It is one thing to create a blog, or a Facebook page these days and post photos that others have captured over the past 3 decades in Japan. Not saying that is necessarily a bad thing but it is sad to see how much time is being wasted looking, reposting rather than doing. Like I stated above and you all know, we live once, so live and experience it! Traveling and exploring a culture such as Japan will really make you appreciate.

During my last week in Japan I decided to walk around a few areas, more specifically Shinjuku and Shibuya. There were a few afternoons where I would go to the main crossing and just take it all in. Above is a photo I captured on a gorgeous spring afternoon during peak hour. As clichéd as this area is to photograph it is seriously breathtaking so I had to post it. Don’t go anywhere because I have hardly scratched the surface on the content from my previous trip. The updates will continue as always. I hope you have a better understanding on how I’m trying to direct each of you individually. Thanks for your support as always, Casey. If you’re wanting to explore previous Japanese photo galleries on Shirtstuckedin, you can simply click 2011 or 2010 and browse freely. Enjoy x

Japan 2010

Japan 2011

The ever so famous motorFIX E7 wagon from the Kansai region of Japan, Nagoya. This car is seriously cool in real life, so much to look at but have to resist touching anything! x

This will conclude my posts from Japan. Not from what I’ve shot but this will be my final article from Japan before I board a flight back to Australia. I have spent just under 2 months, once again venturing this limitless country. In the 7 weeks of being here I have met so many new faces, travelled just under 5,500km’s by car, train and foot to witness some awesome events, shows and sights. Within those 5,500km’s we have stretched from the Northern prefecture of Miyagi-ken (Sendai) all the way down to Hyogo-ken (Nishiwaki). Each and every time I come to Japan I never really know what I am in for, this trip has once again sprung out at me like a punch in the face with each day progressing into something extremely exciting. Every weekend has been spent shooting constantly which means 1-2 hours of sleep from Friday morning to Sunday night if we were lucky. Throughout the weeks have been more relaxing, checking out places I haven’t the past few times being in Japan and occasionally making our way out to track days or meeting up with friends. Here are some people I’d like to say thanks for everything, especially meeting you after speaking for so long. Park, Joel, Jesse, Ewan, Travis Emily & Andy. Team DLK – Kushunoki Takashi-San, Kimura Shou-San, Ryogo Saitoh-San. Team REVIEW – Shota Sasada-San, Kenji Ariki-San, Nakagawa-San, Idekawa-San, Umeda-San and Sato-San. LOWBRAIN – Yuu-San, Shingo-San, Abe-San Muko-San, Takuya-San. Team Freee’s ☆ – Ryohei-San, Hiroyuki-San, Tatsuya-San and the rest of the team. RWB – Nojima-San, Shinji-San, Nakai-San and Tomotake-San. Luke, Dino, Mark, Max and Tim all the way from the USA for the Hellaflush Kansai at Central Circuit. Honda Boys – Nakamaru-San, Shota-San, Seita-San and Kato-San. Also, my american friends from the base: Colin, Curtis, Charles & Rod. ありがと 皆さん！

With just under 350gb’s, approximately 24,000 digital photos captured and a handful roll of films I’m really looking forward to showcasing what I’ve frozen over the past few months here in Japan. Stay tuned. Casey x

A weekend away in Nagoya couldn’t have possibly gotten any better. From a full day trawling through shops such as Up Garage and truck stores. Then, to a very special workshop which I will go in depth on a later date. Concluded by a round of MSC at the ever so scenic ヒガシ YZ Circuit. A team I’ve been following for years are the R32 Low Down Style crew from the Nagoya region which surprisingly were at the event. We have had around 2 hours sleep over the weekend so it’s time to get some rest x

I just completed editing the majority of the images I shot during my time in India a few weeks back. As we were walking through the local markets in the back streets, there just so happened to be a group of kids posing in front of an old, vintage door which of course, screamed out for a shot. Not long after a couple of families came running over with their kids posing for photos. At the moment I, alongside another person are working on a new personal project which we will release on a later date. For now, I thought I’d share this photo with you of a father and daughter in the streets of Northern India, just north of Ludhiana, Punjab. Yeah, this site might be full of cars from Japan but after all it’s still a lifestyle blog x