Thrasher
Well-Known Member
I don't hardly visit this forum anymore but thought this might actually interest some people who like to shoot motorsports events. I myself shoot motorsports almost exclusively in series such as ALMS, Grand-Am, and Indycar, for various web, print, and personal clients.
People ask me all the time "How do I get a media pass? How do I get closer?" and sometimes I think that they see "getting closer" as the ultimate goal, as if being closer to track (and having expensive gear) is the key to being a better photographer. This is just not the case. Thinking about how to tell a story in an image is the most important part.
I took a moment this past Friday to go shoot something I don't see very often, and to shoot it as a fan/spectator. The main premise behind me doing this was that you don't need media credentials and the biggest/baddest/most expensive to have fun shooting an event. You don't even need be inside the track property either. I took one camera and one lens and shot some rally cars.
Disclaimer: What I used was Nikon D3 and 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. If any of you know about camera equipment, you might be able to figure out that that's around $5k for that stuff. Okay, so this doesn't really make a great case for not needing expensive cameras, but I was just using what I currently have. I still stand by all the aforementioned points I've made.
I've copied the next bit from my blog here: http://www.camden-thrasher.com/blog
"Traveling all over the world following the motorsports circus is a truly amazing life to live. I get to see the best cars, the best tracks, and the best drivers. I wouldn?t trade it for anything. Being a photographer, I get the best access to all these things, to get all up in their grill if I?d like. However, I often find it entertaining to take off my working-photograper hat and instead put on the having-fun-as-a-spectator hat. Being a spectator, I?m essentially forcing myself to see an event in a different fashion, literally a new perspective, than I normally would. I challenge myself to shoot this way as a bit of a mental exercise to come up with different or interesting images.
Each year the first stages of the Oregon Trail Rally are held around the service roads and part of the road circuit at Portland International Raceway. Realizing that I hadn?t shot any rallysport in close to five years, I decided this would be a fun way to spend a Friday evening. I grabbed a single camera and a single lens and headed to the track. Knowing that I wouldn?t be able to capture a great deal of the driving action on any of the stages, I decided instead to focus on some of the smaller details that make up the cars, the teams, the drivers, and the sport in general."
I limited myself to just the 70-200 so I wouldn't be tempted to try just shoot all tightly framed car-action shots and nothing else. Even at 200mm, it's still pretty loose framing from the distances I was limited to as a spectator. There's much more to a rally event (or any event) than just the cars going around a corner.
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People ask me all the time "How do I get a media pass? How do I get closer?" and sometimes I think that they see "getting closer" as the ultimate goal, as if being closer to track (and having expensive gear) is the key to being a better photographer. This is just not the case. Thinking about how to tell a story in an image is the most important part.
I took a moment this past Friday to go shoot something I don't see very often, and to shoot it as a fan/spectator. The main premise behind me doing this was that you don't need media credentials and the biggest/baddest/most expensive to have fun shooting an event. You don't even need be inside the track property either. I took one camera and one lens and shot some rally cars.
Disclaimer: What I used was Nikon D3 and 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. If any of you know about camera equipment, you might be able to figure out that that's around $5k for that stuff. Okay, so this doesn't really make a great case for not needing expensive cameras, but I was just using what I currently have. I still stand by all the aforementioned points I've made.
I've copied the next bit from my blog here: http://www.camden-thrasher.com/blog
"Traveling all over the world following the motorsports circus is a truly amazing life to live. I get to see the best cars, the best tracks, and the best drivers. I wouldn?t trade it for anything. Being a photographer, I get the best access to all these things, to get all up in their grill if I?d like. However, I often find it entertaining to take off my working-photograper hat and instead put on the having-fun-as-a-spectator hat. Being a spectator, I?m essentially forcing myself to see an event in a different fashion, literally a new perspective, than I normally would. I challenge myself to shoot this way as a bit of a mental exercise to come up with different or interesting images.
Each year the first stages of the Oregon Trail Rally are held around the service roads and part of the road circuit at Portland International Raceway. Realizing that I hadn?t shot any rallysport in close to five years, I decided this would be a fun way to spend a Friday evening. I grabbed a single camera and a single lens and headed to the track. Knowing that I wouldn?t be able to capture a great deal of the driving action on any of the stages, I decided instead to focus on some of the smaller details that make up the cars, the teams, the drivers, and the sport in general."
I limited myself to just the 70-200 so I wouldn't be tempted to try just shoot all tightly framed car-action shots and nothing else. Even at 200mm, it's still pretty loose framing from the distances I was limited to as a spectator. There's much more to a rally event (or any event) than just the cars going around a corner.
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