Wow!! That's how I felt the entire time I was shooting this meet. This was the 3rd annual Honda Collective Meet hosted by PrimeNYC.co and Not Another Ricer with a special guest Joey from The Chronicles.
This was an invite only type of meet with a very select group of people and cars that were sent the locations and times for the day. I basically had to apply and wait and was extreme lucky to receive one of these invites. 2 days before the meet. Remember I'm in SoCal and the meet was across the nation in NYC.
I received the invite at 10pm and had my flights and rental car locked down within an hour.
So the flight was a redeye which landed me in NY at 630am. I headed over to the rental car a headed out to the first location. A park in NJ.
It was actually a little refreshing, it was a nice green space the fields and running paths and a huge parking lot. I figured I'd see a handful of cars, we'd meet up and head out. I had no idea that they were going to fill the parking lot and have a full on Cars & Coffee meet at the first location.
With the size and quality of cars that came out I knew I was in for an epic day. But now it was time to get to work, no time to talk just scope out the cars and start shooting, everything. Every car that came through was content worthy with very few "project cars". every car that rolled through looked that a completed build.
After a couple of hours I was in my groove and started to settle in and finally I was able to start talking to the other drivers. I found cars were coming from as far as PA and Mass for this meet, some driving for hours.
I was happy to see a lot of RHD drives and that the JDM scene was strong in the North East. Now the big debate which you can comment on is who does it better. SoCal or the North East.
Car for car the North East can definitely hang with some of the best I see on the West Coast and I couldn't have been happier to see all these beautiful Honda's. Well, I didn't think it could get better that is until we moved to the next spot.
I had seen pics from downtown NYC (specifically Harlem) but until you're actually there it's hard to explain the controlled chaos of the entire location. So, it's an open street. Not a closed down, we have a permit to be here type of location. But like I said it was controlled with people directing and helping park in ever open space while still allowing the general traffic to flow.
If you've ever been in one of these pop-up type locations you know it normally gets burnt out real quick, the cops will show up and shut things down. For me I got back to work. Shooting some of the coolest shots of some of the coolest Honda's. Things don't get better than this.
I looked at the clock and realized I had been shooting for over an hour. At this point they were parking cars in the middle for the most epic shot you could get with the road, the bridge overhead and just the whole ambiance that NYC had to offer. This made the whole flight lack of sleep and sinus pressure that I was pushing through.
Finally the cops shut us down and it was time to move to the last spot. Or what was suppose to be the last spot.
For what was a couple mile drive it was like being back in LA all over again. It took me about 45min to finally get to the location and find a parking space. Oh and I finally found some time to eat. At this point I had shot all the cars multiple times and was finally able to relax shoot a couple cars and just talk and hangout. I spent the last couple hours hanging out and talking with the remaining owners and hosts.
I was very pleasantly surprised that everyone I interacted with was super chill, now we were all car enthusiasts and Honda guys but I was still surprised that everyone was super cool. I was finally able to talk with the hosts and thank them and of course discuss the whole redeye flight and that I was back on a flight to the west coast once I left the last location.
The only thing I missed which I'll hopefully get a chance to do next time is a very small group went to Time Square that night and lined up for one last epic shot. Well there is always next year or Sevens Day. Looks like I'll have to make plans for next year
Youtube Vid from the meet
Everything Else. Enjoy!!
