Pimping a friend

My buddy Ben has posted his photos from the third W@W race. See them in all their glory at his gallery. Cool stuff!

W@W photos posted

Got the photos from yesterday's Wednesdays at Wakefield race posted. Did I already talk about the slow-shutter speed technique I was trying? Did I mention how I'm not so good at it yet? Ok, good. So you don't have your hopes set too high, then? Great. Now that we're all ready, have a look:

http://www.pbase.com/gmr2048/wednesdaysatwakefield71807

I did manage to sneak in a couple of not-terrible shots. These are a couple I liked:

Gwadz in his first of two races (madman).


Mr. Happy, Butch, pre-riding the course.


I don't think the guy behind was trying to scream and scare the shit out of the guy in front...but that's how it looks to me. And it makes me laugh. (Best seen larger size).


And the gun show. Who could resist posting this one? He was nice enough to give me this pose on two laps!

W@W #3 (7-18-07)

(Crossposted from that other blog of mine, since I don't know if anybody knows that this one exists yet).

The threatening rains held off, so a friend and I were able to go out and shoot the third Wednesdays @ Wakefield race last night. He got some amazing shots using some fancy off-camera flash techniques. Really cool stuff (and depressingly better than my own stuff!). Once he gets his images posted online, I'll put a link here (and on all the usual message boards) so people can see his work.

For my shots, I was attempting something different. (Different from Ben's stuff, and different from my usual stuff). I was using a flash while shooting at a really slow shutter speed and panning along with the riders as they passed. (Called "Dragging the shutter"). 1/80s, 1/60s, even down as low as 1/30s. Consider that I usually shoot at 1/250s and wish I could go faster (and still be able to use a flash), those are some slow shutter speeds. This gives a really cool effect when you can pull it off correctly. The problem is that its really hard to pull off correctly. I shot about 450 images over the course of the evening. I've only given them a cursory going over and I can already tell that there are a lot that need to be culled. I think I got a few really nice shots. But for each nice shot, I probably have 20 or more throw-aways.

Anyway, I'll be processing/culling my images tonight, so hopefully I'll have them online by tomorrow. They'll be in their own directory here:

http://www.pbase.com/gmr2048/biking

I'll post to all the usual places when they're up. Thanks to the riders who had nice things to say to me last night. It's always cool to hear that people are seeing and enjoying your work.

Damn weather.

So they canceled the 3rd Wednesday at Wakefield race tonight. Spotty rain throughout the day and heavy rains around the park conspired to do us in.

My buddy Ben (aka Rasmussen Photo) and I had planned on attending the race to shoot some pictures. Unfortunately by the time the organizers decided to call it we had already left work, driven to the park, and hiked to the far end of the power lines...in the rain. What are you gonna do? Sometimes the optimism just oozes forth from me. C'est la vive. Some days you're the statue.

If there's a speck of good news to come from today, it is that the gent in the Potomac Velo jersey who told us the race was canceled also mentioned that they might re-route next week's course to include the new slalom downhill section (in all its banked-turn glory). On the walk out to our shooting location today I had mentioned to Ben how that would be a cool place to get some photos. I'll have to make sure I get out there early next week and stake out my favorite turn. Stay tuned.

On the horizon...W@W #3

Tomorrow is the third race in the '07 Wednesdays at Wakefield race series. I'm pretty excited to go out and shoot it, since I was out of town for the last race. I've had a lot of great comments and talked to a ton of new people because of the photos I shot at race #1. Hopefully this race will provide more of the same. Ego stroking is always a good thing (in my book).

I just noticed that the race sponsors, Potomac Velo have been kind enough to link back to my pbase gallery from the official Wednesdays at Wakefield site. Thanks guys!! It's definitely appreciated!