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Art of Formula D
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Art of Formula D: A 2009 Season Retrospective
Organized By:
John Pangilinan.
The IDAgency and Formula DRIFT
theidagency.com
Sponsored By:
NOS Energy Drink, Alpinestars, SeibonCarbon, Indy Car, Belle-1 communications, and OC Weekly.
Special thank you to the Downtown Long Beach Associates.
DowntownLongBeach.org
Entering the seventh season of competition the Formula DRIFT series has grown to become the most recognizable drifting series in the world. Drifting calls for drivers to control high-horsepower vehicles through tight turns and often inches away from the wall and other drivers. This gallery represents the bond between man and machine and the sheer beauty that is drifting.
In 2009, Chris Forsberg became the first driver in the history of Formula DRIFT to win both the championship and the Tires.com Triple Crown. Witness and re-live his journey round by round though the eyes of Formula DRIFT staff photographer, Jose Martinez, SpeedHunters.com’s Linhbergh Nguyen, and LA’s own infamous Estevan Oriol.
The gallery features a photographical round by round account of the 2009 season and a champion’s wall featuring NOS Energy Drink / Seibon / Alpinestars driver Chris Forsberg and his Nissan 350Z Roadster. A never before seen video by Will Roegge highlighting the 2009 season will be premiered. Alpinestars will have on display a collection of rare race suits including Formula DRIFT champion Chris Forsberg, IndyCar’s Danica Patrick, and Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher. Seibon will display a championship hood and memorabilia from Chris Forsberg Racing.
ARTIST BIOS
Estevan Oriol
Estevan Oriol began his career in the entertainment industry in the late 1980’s as a club bouncer at Los Angeles’ most popular Hip Hop clubs and infamous Hollywood hangouts. It was there that Estevan first linked up with his Soul Assassin brothers from South Gate, Cypress Hill. Eager to expand his knowledge of the business, Estevan secured a job as tour manager for the rap group, House of Pain, in 1992. Estevan invoked his unique photography style to catalogue the outrageous experiences he had on tour and began taking pictures of his neighborhood homies and the low rider culture. He had a gift for capturing the raw essence of street life through his photography. Within a short time, he became one of the most sought after photographers of the Urban and Hip Hop community. His work has been featured in magazines world-wide including: COMPLEX, FHM, GQ, ID, Details, Vibe, The Fader, and Rolling Stone. In 1995, after collaborating on various projects with Mr. Cartoon, a world famous Los Angeles based artist, the two joined forces in 1995 to create Joker Brand Clothing. The Joker brand has been solid as a rock. While numerous other clothing franchises have fallen by the waste side over the years, Joker has grown into a mature brand, garnering world-wide recognition and praise in the market place. A decade later, Mr. Cartoon and Estevan expanded their empire, using their unique talents to assist brands and companies in reaching the coveted Hispanic Urban market place through the establishment of SA Studios Agency, a multi-cultural multimedia design/art company. SA orchestrated a highly successful collaboration art show sponsored by Nike called Cultura, based on the line of shoes completed for Nike. SA’s clients include Harley Davidson, Nike, Toyota, T-Mobile, Xbox, Universal, Overture Films, and Rockstar Games. In 2006, Estevan teamed up with clothing powerhouse, Upperplayground, noted leader in specialty artists’ inspired t-shirt lines. Estevan’s line expresses his photography on limited edition t-shirts. In its 5th season, the line and its following continues to grow at a tremendous rate. Today, in addition to being CEO of Joker Brand Clothing and his full time career as a photographer, Estevan directs music videos for groups including Eminem, Cypress Hill, D12, Linkin Park, Blink 182, Paul Wall, P.O.D., and Xzibit. He devised shooting campaigns for Nike, Rockford Fosgate, and Cadillac. He has directed new media projects for My Cadillac stories, MTV, and Apple Computer. Recently, Estevan Oriol entered the feature film industry as a director. Brian Grazer and his company, Imagine Entertainment, along with Universal Pictures, chose to partner with SA studios by requesting from Estevan a three picture deal in which he could direct three movies of his choice. In late 2009, Estevan Oriol released LA Woman through Drago book publishing. www.EstevanOriol.com
Linhbergh Nguyen
Linhbergh Nguyen was born and raised in San Jose, California, which is now known as the Silicon Valley, there was little support for his artistic flare as he was surrounded by the explosively fast high-tech world. What support he did have, mainly his family, helped him continue his liberal arts exploits throughout his early years. In college, he absorbed as much artistic culture as he could. He took countless art history classes, which he attributes his photographic style to the great masters of art to have influenced him the most; namely the abstract expressionists of the 1950s and 60s.
In the early winter of 2005, Linhbergh moved to Southern California to pursue his artistic passion fully. In 2007, he purchased his first ever digital SLR. During that time, he was an active part of a local Mazda Miata club and saw the combination of his two passions, car and art, to come together.
In 2009, his photographic style and extensive coverage of the local Miata scene won the attention of the online automotive blog, Speedhunters.com, which he is now part of. He primarily covers the youth automotive culture as well as various motorsports with a very distinct style and personal style. His artistic background of fine art, graphic design, and extensive art history knowledge bring a whole new level and look to the automotive culture.
He also just recently started a photography project
Linhbergh is a photographer based in the greater Southern California area.
Will Roegge
Born in Pittsburgh, PA and raised in Cleveland, OH, Will Roegge; 26 years old, has been working in digital filmmaking since re-locating to Los Angeles, CA in 2006. His hobbies include photography, sketching, chocolate chip cookies, growing a fine beard, black coffee, and snowboarding. Will is the Director of Medium Monster, a Los Angeles based digital film making production company. A graduate of Bowling Green State University, Will worked as an editor, post production supervisor, and video producer before stepping out on his own work. As a video director for Rice Boy TV, Will shot the entire 2008 Formula Drift season and was exposed to drifting through Rice Boy sponsored driver Patrick Mordaunt. In 2009, he started his own production company with journalist turned producer Ricky Chu. Currently, Will is the digital film director for SpeedHunters.com. For 2010, Will is self financing and co-directing his first feature-length project entitled Keep Drifting Fun along with motorsports director Joshua Herron.
Jose Martinez
Jose Martinez was introduced to composition and form at a very early age. Born and raised in the Dominican Republic, he spent his childhood accompanying his father, a noted architect and Director of Urban Planning, to construction sites and it was there that he first felt the desire to capture the impressive structures he saw, although he would not get his chance until much later.
In autumn of 2000, Jose moved to New York with his mother and brother. Shortly after that, he was given his first camera as a gift: a simple Sony Cybershot. He put it on the shelf and forgot about it until a couple years later, when he used it to photograph the city of St. Louis. He bought his first DSLR a month later, a Canon EOS 40D, and he has been freelancing ever since.
Jose has been published extensively in such periodicals as Urban Velo, Vapors Magazine, Tuner Performance Reports, London’s Fixed Magazine, and Japan’s Ollie. Flavorpill, an online lifestyle magazine, recently partnered with BMW and together selected Jose to capture New York’s unique landscape. Since then, Jose has collaborated with Nike, shooting pictures for their sportswear store in SoHo.
Jose joined the Formula Drift staff in 2008 as the staff photographer, the partnership continues in 2009 as well as the 2010 season. In the future, Jose aims to expand his knowledge of the art by continuing to experiment with night photography, portraits, sports and landscapes. Jose currently lives and shoots in New York City.