Year 1 Recap.

I still find it weird that another year has felt like a complete flyby in the midst of uncertainty and confusion. What I thought was going to be a quick restart in 2020 has rolled over to 2021 as another lost year. When I look back at the past 2 years, I find it hard to differentiate the events and reflect on what has happened in both 2020 and 2021. A lot of us might ponder about what could have been if we never saw or heard about Covid-19, but these “could haves“ and “would haves“ are nothing but a daydream.

For this article I wanted to look back at the previous year. I wanted to reflect on what has happened and express my gratitude to each and every single person who has helped me grow both as a person and a as a photographer. To all of you who have helped make this page possible, and hopefully to many more along the way that will join us in our journey to growing this platform.

I still remember that night where I stumbled upon this underground garage somewhere in Markham. On one spontaneous night, I contacted a friend late at night to come out for a photoshoot. For some reason, I told him to meet us here. At the time, I didn’t know there was an underground parking at the plaza I told him to meet me in. As the night got colder, I walked around the plaza and found an entrance to an underground parking. Hoping to find a new photoshoot location, I walked into an entire basement filled with some of the rarest cars — some covered in plastic/car covers, and some looking like it’s been forgotten there.

To see an entire basement filled with such cars was quite shocking to me. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at and was insanely confused about the whole thing. “Who owns these cars?“ “Why are these cars here?“ “Am I trespassing right now?“ These were some of the questions that was endlessly running through my mind. I just couldn’t believe what I found.

To clear up the air, I wasn’t trespassing and the underground garage was actually a public parking. After about an hour down there, an old lady pulled up in a Hyundai Elantra and casually parked in one of the vacant spots. I was waiting for a reaction from her — perhaps telling me to leave maybe? But she got out the car, smiled at us, waved and walked out. I stopped her and asked if she knew what these cars were doing here. She responded and said, “I don’t know. I just park here every night” and shrugged her shoulders and continued to walk away.

As I continued to walk around in awe, I just had to admire what was around me. I soon heard some speculations that all the cars down there were owned by one person, and that he was in the process of relocating his cars to another storage unit. I did notice that on some of the cars, there was a ticket that stated the he had paid for the spaces he was occupying for a whole month.

The year had plenty of spontaneous night drives, and fortunately I have the habit of bringing my camera everywhere I go. On one of those nights, we took the Bentayga for a spin together with a friend’s Huracan to the airport to snag a few photos in the empty streets. Us car enthusiasts found ourselves rejoicing the fact that the streets are empty in the midst of the pandemic, and that we can enjoy the cars without any disturbances.

With both cars filled with a tank of gas, we enjoyed the cruise in the city as we admired the ambience of the peaceful roads.

As we got there, we parked the cars and I took some photos just for the heck of it. Sooner or later a couple of officers pull up and we had quickly assumed we were in trouble. This nice officer was the first one who came up to us, and he did look like the supervisor amongst the other 2 he pulled up with. He quickly radioed and said “I have no problem with them being here. There is no disturbance being caused.” I quickly asked him if he needed us to leave and he was quick to say no. He even requested not to move the cars so he could take a photo of it.

It’s instances like these that keep the nights interesting. We had a chat for about half an hour with the officers as we talked about the pandemic and a couple of things about cars.

While we’re on the topic of late night drives, here are a couple in which I had the camera in my hands and a few good people to drive around with.

…with some Sunday visits at Yorkville.

Throughout these experiences, I had met a lot of people that continue to help me in more ways that they might imagine. I always had this idea to launch some sort of platform that shares more than just photos alone, but also add a storytelling aspect to it. For the longest time, I didn’t know how to go about it until around October.

On October 7th, I finally launched PROJECT1 — the platform where I can share the stories in my journey as a creator and explorer of the car scene, with hopes to further expand the car community into something greater. Now running for 3 months, below is a recap of everything I have covered and featured, with some sneak peak of more features coming in the first quarter of 2022.

COVERAGES

FEATUREd

UPCOMING FEATURES

We are looking forward to what the year 2022 has to offer. The upcoming features posted above are the photoshoots we were able to squeeze during the last few moments of 2021. As soon as we enter spring 2022, we will be reconnecting with many more people in the community who has agreed to take some time with us in order for us to be able to share their stories with you guys.

Happy New Year from the PROJECT1 family.

You can follow us on instagram and connect with us: @projectoneig

A Recap — 2021

Year 1 Recap.

COVERAGES

FEATUREd

UPCOMING FEATURES

let’s work together.

A Recap — 2021

Year 1 Recap.

COVERAGES

FEATUREd

UPCOMING FEATURES

Kickin’ It Old School

The Relentless Pursuit

let’s work together.