Modifikasi.com Photography Community MOD
From Mod Mania
Modifikasi.com Photography Community Background of www.modifikasi.com
Modifikasi is Indonesian word of modification. It is one of the largest Indonesian car modification forums with 80,294 members on it. This forum also has 87 sponsors. The sponsors itself can sell a lot of thing in this website as the advantage of being a sponsor. This forum founded by Tommy in year 2000. Tommy becomes the admin and the leader of this forum who have the right of this forum. This website also have more then 20 moderators who help the admin to control the forum and check the member who brakes the rules in modifikasi.com. Starts from year 2008, people call this forum as modcom stand from (mod) ifikasi. (com). Modcom was created to gathering the automotive freak in Indonesia. This website also created for social purpose, they also make sub forum about daily life and hobbies like photography.
Modifikasi.com has a lot of threads; most of the threads are discuss anything about car, from parts of engine, car audio, exterior, market place, etc. There are also some threads discuss about anything else such as photography, music, film, and many more. There are 5 main forums in Modifikasi.com:
1. Rules and FAQ forum In this forum there are threads where the moderators and admins explain all about Modifikasi.com. Thread about the rules, critics, advice, and any latest news about Modifikasi.com. Some of the threads also talk about some problems that members found in Modifikasi.com
2. Show Off Forum In this forum the member can show their car, whether the stock cars or modified car. There are more than 20 threads inside and each thread represents the car manufacturer.
3. Car Modification Forum
This forum could be the main forum in Modifikasi,com because in this forum all the members can get all the information’s about car modification. Car Modification Forum divided into 7 sub forums:
- Car Audio
- Engine
- Tire, wheel, spring, suspension
- Interior
- Exterior
- Exhaust system
- Accessories
4. Market place
Another essential forum not only in Modifikasi,com but also in every forum. In Modifikasi.com’s Market place there are 8 sub forums:
- Car Audio
- Engine
- Wheels, Tires, suspensions, springs, etc
- Exterior
- Interior
- Second hand cars
- Second hand motorbikes
- General selling: This sub forum is for the members who want to sell
anything else such as electronic devices, pets, clothes, etc.
5. General Forum
In this forum the members can discuss anything from car. Such as Photography, gathering schedules, news and update about car, music, film, books, etc.
In this essay I will discuss more specific about one of the most famous sub forum in Modifikasi.com, which is about Modifikasi.com Photography Community. I will explain about the background of Modifikasi.com Photography Community, the activities within the forum, and the techniques of photography used by the members
About Photography (I would delete this section because it is not too necessary)
Photography is a recording process of making a still or moving picture by radiation in photographic film or Electronic sensor (digital imaging). Photography words come from Greek, photos means light and graphe mean drawing. So photography is drawing with light because light is the source of the photos. Without the light there will be no photos that can be captured.
Here is how SLR (single lens reflex) camera taking a photo:
The image show the detail inside a SLR camera, Single Lens Reflex camera is different with other pocket camera because we see what will the camera shot through the viewfinder. The light that come through the lens will reflected by the mirror the to the pentaprism so we can see through the viewfinder. On the other hand, when we press the shutter button, the mirror will flip up and the shutter will open so the light will come to the film or electronic sensor(for digital SLR) that will produce the photo.
Background of Modcom Photography Club
The hype of photography was one of the reasons why the Modifikasi.com Photography Community was created. The demand and development of DSLR camera created such a big impact for everyone including Modifikasi.com. Since the Modifikasi.com Photography Community has created, the enthusiast of photography within the Modifikasi.com was developed. There were more people interested in photography. The number of posts in the photography thread is still increasing. There are better quality photographs of cars coming along in the forum.
www.modifikasi.com Photography Club is an Indonesian community of people who likes photography that created in one of the largest Indonesian car modification forum. This photography club was found 19th June 2007 at 03:47AM by one of the modifikasi.com member, he’s user name in this forum is tUkanGtAmbELban (in English we called it the tyre man). This forum was created base on his friend idea Triplelicious(member of the forum). This community was created due to the popularity of SLR camera on that time in Indonesia. Here is the 1st photo that was posted on that forum by tUkanGtAmbELban
This photo was taken by canon EOS 300D with canon ef-s 18-55mm f3,5-5,6 kit lens. This forum title is “Photography,, Share your snapshots”. At the beginning, most of the photos that were taken by the members are photos of landscape or portrait of models. After a year that this community was founded, most of the members were posted photos of cars due to many member started to like automotive photography. At the moment Nyam (member and moderator of this forum) become the head of this photography community. He overtook this forum because the founder was out from this forum due to some reason. Nyam or William (his real name) is one of the famous Indonesian automotive photographer. Nyam is famous with his HDR and RIG photography
Here is some example of his photos:
The purpose and activities within Modcom Photography Club
This community was created for photo-sharing purpose. In this community, they share their photos to get feedback and comment of their photos. In this community they also can share more information about cameras and photography. For example, they share information about new camera gear that just came out or released. They also make a comparison between few camera to give more idea and suggestions for new member who wants to buy a new camera. Not only camera, they also share information about lenses that they use and gave comment about the lenses that they have. Furthermore, photoshop also have discussed in this community. Some of the member also gave a bit tutorial about Photoshop and other software like Photomatix HDR. Those 2 programs are the most used software in photography.
The members can also share the techniques of photography, because some of the techniques might be very hard to do and needed a lot of efforts. It is very important to improve the member’s skill in photography and also maintain the relationship between members by sharing information.
The Photography Forum is open for everyone, not only for people who have a lot of experiences, or expensive and hi tech gears, but also for those who just entered photography world. It is very useful for all the new members to get in touch with all the professional photographers within the forum and share their photos. It is also very useful for the new members, especially the ones who still want to learn more about photography.
Activities within the forum
Sometime, this photography community likes to do a gathering together with other member that live in the same city to do photo shots together. This gathering help them to know each other more in person and make everyone get closer to each other. There are also scheduled Gatherings within the car community to take a photo shoot. Sometimes the photo shoot will be held in the same time with the scheduled gathering. For example one of the Car Communities in Jakarta named EXCITE, has their own photographers to do the documentation of EXCITE’s member’s cars and the gathering itself.
One of the photos from EXCITE’s gathering
One of the most essential activities within the Modifikasi.com Photography Community is about sharing information. By sharing the experiences, techniques, and tricks in photography from the senior and professional members to the new members will maintain the relationship within the community. For example, here is the quote of one of the members and also the senior in Modifikasi.com Photography Community, who asked the techniques about editing in Photoshop to another member (, “Could you help me to get the Vignett on Photoshop?”, and here is the reply, “FILTER>>DISTORT>>LENS CORRECTION, there you can adjust the effect and get the Vignett effect.”
The photo, which has Vignett effect (black spots on the edges of the photo)
Techniques
There are many techniques of photography used by the members of Modifikasi.com Photography Community and some of them are:
1. Panning Shot: it is been used usually for take moving objects, such as cars, bikes, running athletes, etc. By using slow shutter speed and captured the object while it is moving will create the sense of speed in the panning shot
Example of panning shot.
2. Car Rig Shot
Rig Shot
In this technique the photographers need special tool called the rig and the pipes. The idea of Car Rig Shots is similar to the panning shots. By using the rig and the pipe as the tripod then attach them on to the car and capture while the car is moving will create different angle and sense of speed. To finalize the Car Rig Shot, the photographer then has to eliminate the pipe from the image by using clone, heal, and brush tool on Photoshop.
The rig
Before the elimination of the rig and pipes on Photoshop
After the elimination
3. HDR (High Dynamic Range)
One of HDR shot done by a Modifikasi.com’s member
High Dynamic Range (HDR) is one of photography techniques that offer a great sense of contrast between the lighter and darker area of an image. To do this technique is quiet simple, the photographers should take 3 or 4 images with different exposure, and then combine the images together using Photoshop or Photomatix Pro (special software for HDR).
My Experience
Since late 2009 I started to join this community, I started to share my photo in this community forum. I started to learn and improve from the comment and feedback that I receive from the other member. Before I joined this community I felt really shy to show my photo work because most of the member have really good photos. Then I started to realize that we learned from our mistake and that’s nothing wrong with trying to show our work to get feed back. The 1st photo that I posted in this forum is a photo of tram restaurant that I want to use for my project in foundation.
The photo above is the edited version after I got the feedback from other member, which is to increase the brightest and the contrast a little bit. Until now, I learned a lot from this photography club, I have improved my photography skills (especially in automotive photography) from their suggestion and information about photography technique.
Here is some of my photo that I posted in the forum:
In conclusion, this community was created to share photos of Modcom member and as a community where they can share their idea, comments, or information to every photographer in this community. All members that joined this community want to share the work to improve their skills. Furthermore, base on my personal experience, I improve my photography skills a lot since I joined this community. It helps to motivate us to improve and to catch up with other member improvement. And lastly, this community keeps growing in the number of the member and also the number of photos that have been shared.
Additional references
Bentley, O 2007, “Everything You Need to Know about Rig Shots”, viewed 25 September 2010, http://www.ob-photo.com/2008/08/Oliver-Bentley/helpful-article-everything-you-need-to-know-about-rigshots/
Fordrule, 2008, “Rig Shots”, Garage Talk, viewed 25 September 2010, http://www.newcougar.org/forums/garage-talk/127958-rig-shots.html
Nyam, 2009, “Share Hasil Jepretan Kalian”, Photography, viewed 25 september 2010, http://www.modifikasi.com/showthread.php?t=11956&page=188
Piponk, 2010, “Connection Auto Community Bandung”, viewed 25 September 2010, http://www.modifikasi.com/showthread.php?t=95857&page=31
Wikipedia, 2010,”High Dynamic Range Imaging”, viewed 25 September 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging
Williams, B 2007, “ And MORE Panning Shots!”, viewed 25 September 2010, http://www.audio2u.com/?cat=132
