Red Bull Tokyo Drift: A Photographer's Perspective

Working in Japan as a professional photographer has allowed me access to some pretty crazy shoots over the years. Freestyle Motocross in front of Osaka Castle, trials mountain bike riding on top of Nagoya’s TV tower, world finals of breakdance in a sumo venue, and many more. This weekend I was able to add to this by being one of five official photographers covering the Red Bull Tokyo Drift event held in a giant shipping warehouse. It was a crazy day with an insane end, and one shoot I won’t forget for a long time.

(©Red Bull Content Pool/Jason Halayko)

Although the main area of the event was inside, covering several floors of the shipping warehouse, my day of shooting actually started outside. For large events like this, we often need to cover the large crowds entering the venue, any outside displays or branding, and any pre-event activities that might be taking place outside the main venue.

As it was one of the first warm days of spring I quite enjoyed this first hour of shooting outside. It gave me the opportunity to say hi to and chat with several friends that were attending the event that day.

(©Red Bull Content Pool/Jason Halayko)

Finding My Spot

Once the doors were open to the general attendees, it was time to head in and find a shooting location for the first of four rounds of drifting to be held throughout the day. The first floor of the warehouse was set up for drifting, the second floor for live music and display cars, and the third and fourth floors as a giant exotic car meet up. I was mainly tasked with capturing the drifting action on the first floor, so I needed to hurry and find a good shooting spot before the area filled up.

(©Red Bull Content Pool/Jason Halayko)

Normally for an event this large, I would attend a rehearsal that morning or even the day before, but previous commitments made this impossible. So for the first few rounds I was not allowed course side (the red security bib area) so I needed to find shooting spots away from the main course (the blue security bib area), standing alongside the thousands of people in attendance.

Picking a spot to shoot from at these events is an art in itself. Not only do I need to capture the best action, I also need to show the event/Red Bull logos as naturally as possible, while also navigating through other random photographers and people of the press also trying to get the best shot of the day.

Capturing High-Speed Action

Once I had my spot, it was time to get ready and enjoy some crazy drifting action! A couple tips if you do find yourself shooting this kind of fast paced action: use the burst mode on your camera and be prepared to shoot way more images than you might normally shoot.

(©Red Bull Content Pool/Jason Halayko)

My Nikon Z9 can shoot 20 frames/second, and I was using all those frames every time a car came by. Because of this, I got extremely lucky when a burst of fire came out of one of the drift cars as it drifted right in-front of me.

The fire was only there for a fraction of a second and there is no way I would have captured it if I wasn’t crushing my shutter button and taking images through the car’s entire drift. Consequently, this was one of my best shots of the day, and has been picked up by many media, and even featured on the Red Bull Photography Instagram page.

(©Red Bull Content Pool/Jason Halayko)

One other quick tip is shoot at a slower shutter speed than you might expect. With fast action I normally shoot at fast shutter speeds to freeze said action. But with motorsports photography, if your shutter speed is too high, it can stop all the movement in the wheels and make it look like the car is just sitting in the road motionless. It can be scary, but try slowing your shutter speed down until you at least get some motion blur in the wheels. And if you want to go really slow it’s best to pan your camera with the movement of the car, but this is a skill even I need a lot of work with!

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Unexpected Opportunities

Covering the crazy action of these events is amazing, but with large scale events like the Red Bull Tokyo Drift, I am often asked to cover things that pop up suddenly out of the blue.

One example of this was during the quiet period between drift sessions, when I was exploring the pit area. This is where the racing cars and drivers are located. I noticed Red Bull F1 driver Yuki Tsunoda preparing to be interviewed. No one else from our photography team was there, so after getting the OK from the Red Bull Japan staff present I began photographing his interview.

F1 driver Yuki Tsunoda (©Red Bull Content Pool/Jason Halayko)

When he was done, I was told to wait around as they wanted pictures of Yuki, Liam Lawson, and Arvid Lindblad (other Red Bull F1 drivers also attending the event) with all the Red Bull Japan motorsport athletes in attendance. This was super cool, and a fun little mini mission I fell into, which happens all the time. The proverbial, being at the right place at the right time.

F1 drivers Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad. (©Red Bull Content Pool/Jason Halayko)

From there I spent the next session located inside the course area (with the red security bib!) to cover the special VCARB livery reveal. The cover of the car was set up on a wire that would be pulled away by a car driven by drifting legend Mad Mike. Being inside the course for the first time I was honestly a little nervous, but everything went off without a problem and I was able to get the shots of the cover being pulled off as I was requested.

(©Red Bull Content Pool/Jason Halayko)

The Final Drift

The last action of the night was the craziest! For the final action of the event, a handful of the drift cars were scheduled to drift up and down the spiral road located outside the warehouse trucks used to go between floors when delivering goods.

In total there were four floors, but for this last action I was not given a specific spot to shoot from. In these cases, I always go early to stake out a spot, and since I still had my red vest on I was basically allowed to go anywhere I deemed safe (to a point).

I walked all the way to the top floor because there were so many people on the other floors. There I was able to find a decent spot that was safe(ish) and got ready to shoot. As I waited our head photographer Joerg Mitter joined me and suggested I stand at a different location, located a little back down the road, where I could see all the people trying to watch the drifting on the lower floors as well as some great Red Bull branding.

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Fire and Fury

Photography-wise the spot was perfect. And although it seemed like I was exposed, I was actually hidden behind some concrete outcropping, and located on the inside of the turn, so safety wise it was quite safe as well. Still, after the fourth or fifth car came drifting by less than a meter away from my position, I did notice my legs shaking uncontrollably.

From here though, I was able to get one of my favorite shots of the day. For the actual final, the two Red Bull drift cars in attendance did a tandem drift from the first floor to the top floor. While they were coming up, Mad Mike was really pushing his car and it was actually catching on fire!

As they went by the group of spectators I could see from above a big flash of flames came out and lit up the whole area. Again, I was shooting on burst so got the shot, and it was actually the top photo used in the official press release as well as by many other media outlets online, yea!

All in all it was a crazy event, and looking online it seems like a lot of people in attendance really enjoyed themselves as well. Big thanks to Red Bull Japan, and Red Bull for having me cover the event, and to all the drivers for showcasing their amazing skill and 1000% killing it the whole day. I hope there is a Red Bull Tokyo Drift 2027!

Author Jason Halayko

Jason Halayko is a professional photographer specializing in action sports and portrait photography. Follow him on X and Instagram.