My Life as a Photographer

I slept well last night and woke up before the alarm went off.  That is pretty unusual for me.  I’m a night owl by nature but was pretty tired after the full day of shooting yesterday.  After checking out of the hotel, it was off to Starbucks like yesterday for the morning brew.

It was much easier this morning arriving at the track since I already had our credentials for the weekend.  Also having yesterday’s experience under my belt,  I had at least an idea of where I wanted to shoot for the day.  Since we got to the track pretty early, Bob and walked over by turn 14 to scope out some new shooting locations.  I decided to start my day shooting there.

I shot a few shots at the location we had scouted out but I really wasn’t getting the shots I wanted.  So I worked my way back around turn 14 to where I could capture the cars cresting over a rise and under the foot bridge.  I shot there all morning and got some interesting head on shots and some pans against the green hills.

For the afternoon, I crossed over to the other side of the track at turn 14.  I am always very cautious when crossing a track, even when it is “cold” (no cars on the track).  I waited for the corner worker to show up and asked permission to cross.  He said, “come on over”.  It is very important that I get an “ok” from a course worker before crossing since they know what is going on on the track (they are in radio contact).  Better safe than sorry.  I shot all afternoon in the field between turns 14 and 8.  The lighting was really good and I think I got a lot of good images.

After the last race was finished, we packed up the car and started heading north towards home.  It feels good to be getting back in the rhythm of shooting again.

Woke up to a sunny, cool morning.  It’s definitely not summer yet.  After getting equipment organized and loaded in the car, it was across the parking lot to Starbucks for a coffee and scone.  They are everywhere, aren’t they!

We arrived at the track in plenty of time since it was only a few minutes drive from the hotel.  We stopped at the gate and signed the mandatory insurance waiver, then headed off to registration to get our credentials which this time was a pink hospital type wrist band.

This being the first time at this track I wanted to ask someone where the good locations were.  Other photographers have always been very friendly and helpful when it comes to this advice, and today was no exception.  With my new found knowledge, now I was ready to start shooting!

I spent the morning shooting head on shots with a long lens hoping to get some nice bunched up group shots.  The green rolling hills made for a great background.  I hear that later in the year the hills turn brown and aren’t nearly as photogenic.  But today they were perfect and saturated with nice morning light.

In the afternoon I moved up on a hill overlooking turn 1.  With the sun at my back, I thought it would be a good location to shoot from.  It was not very close to the track but I  figured that I could reach it with my long glass.  As it turned out, it really wasn’t the best location to shoot from.  It just didn’t match my style of shooting.  I got a few good images but nothing spectacular.  With the first set of races completed, I started heading back toward the pits to find some different locations to shoot from where the sun would be at my back.  On my way I noticed a cutout in the fence looking right down the front straightaway.  I had totally missed seeing it on the way up to the hill.  I shot there the rest of the the day and got some good head on and pan shots as they entered turn 1.

I am still a bit rusty from not shooting events during the winter.  I forgot to format my memory cards last night and it really messed me up.  I have a “system” I use for empty versus full cards.  Not formatting the cards really threw me off.  It just makes it harder to know I’ve downloaded all the images when I get back to the hotel.

With racing completed for the day, we loaded our gear and headed back into town for a bite to eat.  Then back to the hotel to the familiar routine of downloading images to both my Hyperdrive and laptop and getting ready for tomorrow.

Got up early this morning to drive down to Portland to meet Bob.  We are off to an HMSA event in Northern California this weekend.  After a 3 1/2 drive, I met Bob at his house and loaded my gear in his car.  I’m glad he is willing to drive.  We left his place around 1 PM got on Interstate 5 and began our nearly 500 mile journey to Willows, CA.

The trip was mostly uneventful and I was fortunate to be able to sleep a bit in the car.  We ran into a little bit of snow on the passes in southern Oregon and northern California.  The only real hazard we encountered was from the highway department gravel trucks spewing rocks at Bob’s car.  Hopefully it didn’t do too much damage.

We arrived at the hotel in Willows late in the evening and checked in.  After taking our gear to the room, we met one of our photographer friends who was also staying at the hotel and talked for a bit.  Then it was back to the room to get prepared for tomorrow and for a good night’s sleep.