Royal Enfield Hunter 350 Launch Bangkok
Over the past few years, I have been lucky enough to work on pretty cool projects with Royal Enfield Australia, from launch events to track days. I have learnt a lot working with the team and got some pretty cool photographs along the way. This time I was lucky enough to get my first overseas work trip to launch the new Hunter 350 by Royal Enfield in Bangkok, Thailand. The bike is nimble yet fast on the lower end, suited to being ridden in a busy city. This is why Bangkok was the perfect launch location, it really gave journalists from around the world a chance to experience that.
The launch was held in the heart of the city, staying in a lovely hotel with 400 other journalists from around the world all meeting up for the love of motorbikes. I was flown over to get photographs of the event, the bikes, and the rides and Matt was flown to capture video of the week, both capturing content for the journalists to use in their launch pieces.
The event was held over 5 days, with a night ride, a content day, a couple of events, parties, and presentations on the bike. On the night ride myself and Matt were not able to get on the back of a motorbike to get the dream shots we wanted, we met the journalists at a halfway point which was a gocart track that had been hired out for the night in Bangkok for everyone to race around on the bikes. The riders came out in groups allowed to ride 4 laps each, the journalists all dripping with sweat, smiling ear to ear after racing through the Bangkok traffic and experiencing what the bike is built for.
The content day was self-guided, we had 2 locations to choose from, one being a park in the city and another being a long road near the airport to get tracking shots. I and the Australian journalists chose to hit up the long road to get the tracking shots first in case the rain came later. We had about 20 minutes there before unfortunately the police showed up and denied that our permits were valid and wanted more money, this shut down that session fairly quickly. By this time we had been advised that the other spot was also shut down by the local Bangkok authorities who also were looking for bribes to keep it open.
While we had a lot of factors that limited us in getting content we also managed to get some great shots, some awesome shots of this great bike. We also had a lot of downtime during the event to enjoy the city, the hotel and the experience. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I can’t thank Royal Enfield enough for the great trip, I made some lifelong memories and got to spend some time with great people.
Equipment used on the trip
Sony a7iii
Sigma 24-70mm f2.8
Sony 70-200 f4
Sony 50mm 1.8
