The beauty of Balochistan and the king of drift

Watch winner of Red Bull Car Park Drift 2015 and 2016 Ahmad Daham's drifting video near the 'Princess of Hope'

Daham says it was an exciting experience to shoot on a public road. PHOTO COURTESY: RED BULL

KARACHI: Winner of Red Bull Car Park Drift 2015 and 2016 Ahmad Daham recently shot a video near one of Pakistan's most beautiful tourist spots — the 'Princess of Hope' in Balochistan.

The 29-year-old shared his experience with The Express Tribune in an exclusive interview during the shoot of the video.

"This is the first time I am drifting on a public road with mountains surrounding it," Daham told The Express Tribune during the shoot of Red Bull's first-ever drifting video in Pakistan. "The experience was really nice. It was not much different from drifting on a track; however, the view of the driver is much different and the environment is more dangerous."

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He added: "It's not only about getting to know the track or the bends; it's also about not making a life-threatening mistake. Because, if you commit an error, you don't get a second chance."

Director's view

The director of the video Bilal Khan revealed why he selected Princess of Hope as the venue. "When we visited this place to see how safe it is for drifting, my colleagues and other staffs were not really sure about the safety of drifting on these roads," he said. "But I knew Daham can do this and shooting here would be risky but exciting too."

According to Bilal, three different cameras were used for the shoot including Phantom HD Gold for the main and slow motion takes, a drone camera for top shots and a DSLR for the wide angle scenes.

Bilal also opened up about the problems his team had to face during the shoot. "One of the main issues while drifting on these roads is that there is fast traffic present since it's a highway. So, we took security with us to stop traffic for a while. However, we didn't disturb the traffic much – mostly five minutes for each scene."

He further explained the shoot: "We first go on the spot, make all arrangements, set the cameras and then block roads for the shoot. It was not only exciting for us but people passing by enjoyed too."

Still photographer's view

Jafar Hasan, who was assigned to take stills of the drift, talked about the difficulties of taking photos of a high-speed drifting car.

"The idea is to capture the best shot of Daham while drifting," he said. "It was a bit difficult as we are allowed to be on a certain part of the road because he needs the other side to drift and the car goes really fast, so I have a really small window to get pictures."

He continued: "So I have to time everything and have to see what angles would be the best to capture the branding, the driver and the car in one shot. It's a little tricky but I like it.

Jafar had to take between seven and 12 shots every two seconds. All in all, he took more than 2,000 pictures during the shoot.