- 426
- Armagh
- Shelby 427 1965
Hi everyone! Welcome to my little story to share.
For those that don't know me (probably a lot if not all of you) my name is Tomo, and I'm from Ireland, and last year I made my Gran Turismo dream come true by building the car I always wanted as a kid - the Impreza WRX STI GF8 Wagon in Cashmere Yellow.
This year, on our first proper road trip in her, me and my girlfriend decided that we would try the west coast of Ireland, as we'd not done it before. Galway was the place that sprang to mind. A three hour drive and 142 miles, in a car that hadn't reeeally had the chance to prove itself to me yet. After an early start and a long trip, we made it to the beautiful coastal town of Galway.
However... There was something about the idea of "Galway" that was in the back of my mind that I remembered that first night we stayed there... Lettermullan.
To some of you, that might not mean anything. To the GT Sport photographers here, it may mean something - but to me, it meant a lot. For you see, "Lettermullan" is one of the Scapes locations in GT Sport that meant a lot to me when I first saw it some four years ago on launch day - because frankly, Ireland never gets included in nice things, so when I saw we had some scapes locations, I got a nice fuzzy feeling.
With a big thanks to the Gran Turismo group on Facebook, I asked if anyone had any pics off-hand of the scape location that I could use to try and find it.
Thankfully, someone delivered with exactly what I needed.
The key thing here for me was that shot with the gate - that's the one I most wanted to recreate. But first, I had to find it.
After spending about an hour tracing the roads on the island on Google Maps in our Air B&B (which was lovely, by the way), I eventually found it. I was looking for the tower that you can see in the background, as commonly in Ireland around the coastlines of islands we have these lookout towers, many of them leftovers from previous battles and wars, which told me it must be (most likely) going to have a view of the main island itself near it.
Eventually... bingo. There it was.
"Trá Mhór", Lettermullan, County Galway, Ireland. Let's go.
It turned out, Lettermullan wasn't just an island, but part of a series of islands on the coast, all joined to the mainland via lots of small walled bridges. Both amazing and terrifying at the same time, especially on a blustery cold November morning.
What also didn't help was that being in the Gaeltacht area of Ireland, all of the signs were exclusively in Irish.
Thank god for Sat Nav, eh?
However, after driving around this tiny little island and feeling both lost and like I was definitely trespassing, in the distance after turning a corner, there it was.
The tower.
We were on the right track.
And lo and behold... We had found it!!
Now, first I had to scan the scene and see where these shots were taken. It seemed to be that all of them were taken on this rock, which overlooked both the gate scape shot, and the road shot. No limits in the pursuit of the perfect shot.
I climbed up, and there it was... The view.
I must say, it was a very surreal feeling. But I couldn't believe that I was seeing it in person. This spot, that the team at Polyphony all the way over in Japan saw and thought "hey, let's put that in our game", was right in front of me.
First of all, here's the in game shots...
And now I present to you... the real deal!
Side by side:
As you can see, there's a couple little differences in the 4+ years since they came here to see it.
There's now a warning sign at the gate about trespassing, and there's a small pillar with a walking symbol on it on the other side.
As for the road shot, there's just been some tidying up of rocks but generally it's the same.
I really enjoyed our adventure to find this place, and I hope you enjoyed seeing the pics
Thank you, and a huge thank you to the Gran Turismo group on Facebook, and special thank you to Chikara Kitabatake, Official Gran Turismo Landscape Photographer, who spotted the post on there and said some very kind words to me for discovering the place that "they found by chance".
Cheers everyone, til next time!
Tomo
For those that don't know me (probably a lot if not all of you) my name is Tomo, and I'm from Ireland, and last year I made my Gran Turismo dream come true by building the car I always wanted as a kid - the Impreza WRX STI GF8 Wagon in Cashmere Yellow.
This year, on our first proper road trip in her, me and my girlfriend decided that we would try the west coast of Ireland, as we'd not done it before. Galway was the place that sprang to mind. A three hour drive and 142 miles, in a car that hadn't reeeally had the chance to prove itself to me yet. After an early start and a long trip, we made it to the beautiful coastal town of Galway.
However... There was something about the idea of "Galway" that was in the back of my mind that I remembered that first night we stayed there... Lettermullan.
To some of you, that might not mean anything. To the GT Sport photographers here, it may mean something - but to me, it meant a lot. For you see, "Lettermullan" is one of the Scapes locations in GT Sport that meant a lot to me when I first saw it some four years ago on launch day - because frankly, Ireland never gets included in nice things, so when I saw we had some scapes locations, I got a nice fuzzy feeling.
With a big thanks to the Gran Turismo group on Facebook, I asked if anyone had any pics off-hand of the scape location that I could use to try and find it.
Thankfully, someone delivered with exactly what I needed.
The key thing here for me was that shot with the gate - that's the one I most wanted to recreate. But first, I had to find it.
After spending about an hour tracing the roads on the island on Google Maps in our Air B&B (which was lovely, by the way), I eventually found it. I was looking for the tower that you can see in the background, as commonly in Ireland around the coastlines of islands we have these lookout towers, many of them leftovers from previous battles and wars, which told me it must be (most likely) going to have a view of the main island itself near it.
Eventually... bingo. There it was.
"Trá Mhór", Lettermullan, County Galway, Ireland. Let's go.
It turned out, Lettermullan wasn't just an island, but part of a series of islands on the coast, all joined to the mainland via lots of small walled bridges. Both amazing and terrifying at the same time, especially on a blustery cold November morning.
What also didn't help was that being in the Gaeltacht area of Ireland, all of the signs were exclusively in Irish.
Thank god for Sat Nav, eh?
However, after driving around this tiny little island and feeling both lost and like I was definitely trespassing, in the distance after turning a corner, there it was.
The tower.
We were on the right track.
And lo and behold... We had found it!!
Now, first I had to scan the scene and see where these shots were taken. It seemed to be that all of them were taken on this rock, which overlooked both the gate scape shot, and the road shot. No limits in the pursuit of the perfect shot.
I climbed up, and there it was... The view.
I must say, it was a very surreal feeling. But I couldn't believe that I was seeing it in person. This spot, that the team at Polyphony all the way over in Japan saw and thought "hey, let's put that in our game", was right in front of me.
First of all, here's the in game shots...
And now I present to you... the real deal!
Side by side:
As you can see, there's a couple little differences in the 4+ years since they came here to see it.
There's now a warning sign at the gate about trespassing, and there's a small pillar with a walking symbol on it on the other side.
As for the road shot, there's just been some tidying up of rocks but generally it's the same.
I really enjoyed our adventure to find this place, and I hope you enjoyed seeing the pics
Thank you, and a huge thank you to the Gran Turismo group on Facebook, and special thank you to Chikara Kitabatake, Official Gran Turismo Landscape Photographer, who spotted the post on there and said some very kind words to me for discovering the place that "they found by chance".
Cheers everyone, til next time!
Tomo
