I dragged Rachel (my girlfriend for those of you who are unaware) along to the Wyedean rally, this is on the border of Wales and England just over the river Severn, the old bridge of course, which is a rare treat these days, it lacks the high sides of the new bridge so you can see much further and clearer, although as I was driving I had a limited viewing experience.
Rachel claims to share my motor sport enthusiasm, and she seems to enjoy it, but I'm not sure if its the sport she enjoys or just being somewhere that's not our living room... or Reading. I'm incredibly pleased that she shares my interests anyhow.
The day was brilliant, although a little tiring, 2 hours drive there, 5 hours walking around a rally stage and a 2 hour drive back meant that we were knackered, my legs were sore the next day, although not as bad as I had expected, maybe the walking around work I do all week has had a hidden effect.
I want to talk about my photography for a moment, a little bit self indulgent but y'know, its my blog, so I can do what I like!
I love taking pictures and I'm quite proud of most of my work, although I still have a huge amount to learn and experience, and I still have to get over my largest fault, which is and has always been my confidence in myself and my work, I've never bigged myself up, I don't find it easy and I get badgered about it all the time (Thanks Rach).
My most recent adventures have been quite car based, I'd love to get into Automotive photography a bit more seriously, along side my band photography. My only real experience has been at race meets, both touring cars and rallies and most of my pictures have been quite typical, run of the mill style motor sport snaps but a few are a bit different, the shots that I've thought about before taking them, one's that I've had in my head, planned and executed. Only a few of these actually end up how I wanted, I think more success will come with practice and more experience.
Under this paragraph is and example of such a shot, you can troll through Flickr all day long looking at pictures of rally cars (and I often do) You might notice that most of them will have the car filling the frame as the main focus point, I like to step away from that, make the environment the main feature and show the car almost out of place in the shot, as if its driving though a shot of the surroundings. I think one of the best features of a rally is that you're not stood at the side of a tarmacked race track between grandstands and burger vans but you're in the middle of a forest, in a valley, watching highly strung rally cars flying through the woods at unlikely speeds, running along the track to your next vantage point before the next car comes racing through. I have had good comments on this kind of picture from rally drivers, I think that means I'm doing something right!
Feel free to have a look through my flickr sets, look out for these kind of pictures in my rally collections :-) There's a night shot in the "Tempest" That was particularly liked by a driver, I think his comment is still there! Here's my photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amphlett/
The best piece of advice I have had from an automotive photographer was that when taking the picture try to think of the picture without the car in it, if the car isn't in the shot is it still an interesting shot? It should be!
Thanks guys, sorry for the 6 month delay between posts. .x.
