Aasbo Vs McNamara, BDC @ Trax Show, Silverstone Circuit, UK
1/4000th, f/2.8, ISO50, 400mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & Canon EF400mm f/2.8L IS USM

Hello Speedhunters. I hope you're enjoying our Photos of the Year 2011 edition! Like you, I'm finding it quite interesting to look at the various Speedhunters Photographers' take on these series of articles. Whether it's Larry Chen, Jonathan Moore, Ross I'Anson, Linhbergh Nguyen, or Paddy McGrath's images, you can look at each shooter's work and start to see their photo language at play. Why have they chosen the photos? Is it the car? Is it the memory of the moment? Is it the composition of the shot? Or the emotion? Sense of light and style? What are the common elements to each of their shots?

There is no right or wrong answer to any of these questions, but ultimately each team member is trying to create images which in some fashion or another will cause a reaction in you, the viewer. This emotional response is itself an automatic process; in an instant you'll likely have decided if you like, love, hate or are indifferent to a Speedhunters picture.

Jonathan's Gear, FIA GT3 European Championship, Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, Portugal
1/4000th, f/1.6, ISO100, 35mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF35mm f/1.4L USM

But, there are some scientific processes at play here too.  To those schooled in the art of light, cinematography, colour theory, composition and design, one can technically break down what makes a strong photograph. And it's these elements which I'm going to attempt to articulate in the following photographs and discuss some of my own rudimentary camera techniqes and creative processes. This is with the caveat that I'm not the strongest of photographers in our team lineup, but as the CD of Speedhunters, it is my job to oversee the entire Speedhunters operation, so I do have some creative insight I can provide.

Let's get started!

 
Audi TTRS, Nurburgring 24Hs, Nurburgring Nordeschliefe, Germany
1/4000th, f/2.8, ISO50, 200mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM

I'd say that for a normal looking racing photograph, this image is one of my best of the year. A lot of this has to do with the composition but also the direction and intensity of the light. The shape of the track is perfectly framing up the car, with the brightness of concrete on the inside of the corner contrasting nicely against the darkness of the front and side of the car. Stare at this image long enough and you should be able to sense the light moving across the Audi's roof before falling off the front of the car. It's a good mix of white, grey and black tones, all perfectly in balance with a nice graphical composition.

For the hour that I spend shooting around the outside of the Karussel at the N24, there was only maybe a minute or so of sunlight, which was just long enough for me to catch this one shot. You'll notice that I'm shooting with an extremely fast shutter, open aperture and a very low ISO. I like doing this to get a narrow depth of field effect going, with the low ISO allowing for a big aperture.

Zakspeed Capri, Nurburgring Museum, Nurburgring, Germany
1/40th, f/1.4, ISO100, 35mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF35mm f/1.4L USM

Aside from this being one of my favourite race cars of all time, the Zakspeed Capri, I also like the composition of this shot. The brown wood floor and dark background are just as important visually as the foreground Capri itself. The red curve of the spoiler creates some good sense of direction and depth to the composition.

Blowfish Engine Bay, SEMA Show, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
1/160th, f/1.4, ISO100, 35mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF35mm f/1.4L USM

Last month, the team decided to try and capture a wide variety of engine shots at the SEMA show. Of the bunch, this shot of the Blowfish Bonneville racer was my personal favourite. But why is it a good photo? Two reasons: firstly, the monochrome colours give the image a strong visual aesthetic not unlike a black and white photograph, and secondly, the black shadows make a perfectly balanced image. Try this: squint your eyes and look at the black instead of the colours. You'll notice that the visual weight of the black sections – the negative space, balances the positive space.

VW Golf MKIs, Edition 38, Overstone Park, UK
1/1600th, f/2.8, ISO50, 90mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM

Why do I like this image? It's the repetition of elements from the yellow Golf to the blue one. This leads your eye nicely from left to right and pulls you into the frame. The blurriness of the background also keeps your eye focused on the cars.

Ferrari 458 GT3, FIA GT3 European Championship, Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, Portugal
1/4000th, f/1.4, ISO50, 50mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF50mm f/1.4 USM 

I personally love a sense of depth and a clear sense of direction too. In this case the two people look straight to hidden driver, creating a left to right direction and at the same time your eye is led from the back of the car to the front, again converging on the driver. The use of colour here also creates a clear hiearchy for your eye to follow. The colour red dominates the visual composition and works perfectly with the depth of field.

Oh and the car is cool too! This was one of my first shots of the then new Ferrari 458 GT3.

Tommy Milner in the Pitlane, Dubai 24Hs, Dubai Autodrome, UAE
1/1600th, f/2.8, ISO50, 200mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM

I'd say this photograph is perhaps more about capturing the excitement of the moment, than being one of my greatest photographs. Here Tommy Milner is waiting in anticipation for the Team NFS BMW Z4 to fly into the pits at the Dubai 24Hs. There's a strong sense of adrenaline when shooting in pitlanes, as it's the closest that a motorsports photographer will get to the race action, you are literally in the thick of it, and need to be very conscious of everything happening around you.

Shooting with a fast shutter makes sure the moment is captured in perfect clarity… I also added a slight purple tone to the photograph in Lightroom, to try and capture the essence of being in the cool January desert setting.

AMG Mercedes GT3, Spa 24Hs, Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium 
1/400th, f/2.8, ISO160, 400mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & Canon EF400mm f/2.8L IS USM

 I just love hanging out in pitlanes with my trusty 400mm lens. There
is never a shortage of moments to capture! The 5D MKII is also great
for shooting in low light conditions like the dead of night.

Miki Taka, Nurburgring, Germany
1/60th, f/1.4, ISO100, 35mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF35mm f/1.4L USM

One thing that I'm always looking for in photographs is a control of colour. Too many colours and the image starts to break down, with the eye randomly jumping from element to element. A photograph with a reduced colour palette will likely always be strong composition.

Case in point: here we have a simple snapshot of Miki Taka during her trip to the Nurburgring this summer. The colours in this shot are very simple. The only colour values in the shot are her face (plus Andy Blackmore in the background), the slight green wash in the car windows and the monochrome soft tones of the car's interior.

Squint your eyes and all you'll see is her face. This means clarity of focus in the composition.

Linhbergh Nguyen, Aria Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
1/1250th, f/1.6, ISO100, 35mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF35mm f/1.4L USM

I grabbed this snap of Linhbergh in Las Vegas last month while waiting for a taxi to take us to the SEMA show. Here you have a nice separation of a deeply exposed, high contrast foreground with a low contrast, overexposed background. It's textbook stuff but it works.

Maxxis Tire Model, BDC @ Trax Show, Silverstone Circuit, UK
1/1000th, f/2.8, ISO50, 400mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & Canon EF400mm f/2.8L IS USM

You can see the same thesis at work in this shot too. It's a clear separation of foreground along with a strong colour element. I snuck this shot in with my 400mm telephoto lens during a lull in action at the British Drift Championship at the Trax show in September. Sometimes if you take the time to observe what is happening on the other side of the track's barriers it's often just as interesting as the cars themselves.

Fredric Aasbo Belted Radial, Gatebil Festival, Rudskogen Motorsenter, Norway
1/2500th, f/1.4, ISO50, 35mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF35mm f/1.4L USM

I caught this shot of Fredric Aasbo as he was changing tires at the Gatebil festival in Norway. In true hooligan style he had worn his tire all the way down to its steel belts. Everything but the frayed steel belts are out of focus, which is of course the intent! Here the content itself tells the story of the photograph in a subtle but cool way. You get a sense of Fredric's personality.

Julie Dovetta, FIA GT3 European Championship, Circuit Park Zandvoort, Netherlands
1/2500th, f/1.4, ISO50, 35mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF35mm f/1.4L USM

In a previous life, I used to direct music videos, and had to draw on this experience while shooting one of our new models, Julie Dovetta at Zandvoort circuit in the Netherlands. When it comes to portraiture you need to be aware of your light sources and shadows. You must be very careful here if you want to create a sense of style and clarity. So here I made sure to have direct sunlight off of Julie's face to avoid hard shadows. The sun is only picked up by the edge of her face, acting as a bit of a rim light and back-lighting her hair. Her face remains smoothly and softly lit.

The sun is also bleeding into the face of the lens glass, creating a nice washed out look to the left side of the frame.

Daijiro Yoshihara in driver's meeting; Prodrift @ Japfest Ireland, Mondello Park, Ireland
1/400th, f/2.8, ISO320, 400mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & Canon EF400mm f/2.8L IS USM

You can see here again how I am looking for a diffused light source to cast a nice soft sheen into the face of my subject, in this case Formula D Champion, Daijiro Yoshihara. The right side of his face is picking up the light, while the left side is disappearing into darkness, likely helped by me under exposing the shot slightly.

We can see here a few of my bag of tricks: reduced colour palette, clear highlight colour (red), a sense of movement of light and a defocused background. Also note that I am shooting indoors with a 400mm telephoto lens. I was literally on the other side of the room from Dai when I shot this, he likely didn't even notice at the time, as he was busy listening to Pro Drift's judges in a driver's meeting.

The Speedhunters arrive at the 'Ring, Nurburgring 24Hs, Nurburgring, Germany
1/125th, f/1.4, ISO50, 35mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF35mm f/1.4L USM

Let's start out this photograph with our squint test. Narrow your eyes and unfocus them. What do you see? An area of black and an area of white. White takes up more visual space than black, so less area of it is needed to balance out the dark areas of the image.

The shot itself was very spontaneous. I saw something happening visually and grabbed it.

9ff CT9-CS, Essen Motor Show, Essen, Germany
1/60th, f/1.4, ISO100, 35mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF35mm f/1.4L USM

I love very formal styles of camera lensing and take some inspiration from Chinese film directors like Zhang Yimou who is noted for films like "Raise the Red Lantern", "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers" among others. Watch his films and you will see very clear uses of colour blocking and compositional line-direction. This shot is a perfect exact of this type of formal colour blocking (look at how I have placed the blue, orange and beige colours).

Audi B5 S4 Avant, SEMA Show, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
1/1250h, f/1.6, ISO100, 35mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF35mm f/1.4L USM

This is an even better example. Compare the green to the gold to the concrete.

Green Pair, Gatebil Festival, Rudskogen Motorsenter, Norway
1/2000th, f/2.8, ISO50, 200mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM

Are you still with me here? We now understand the concept of colour blocking yes? Here I'm taking my art college 2D design class from oh so many years ago and am putting it to good use.

Sound Installation, Porsche Museum, Stuttgart, Germany  
1/20th, f/4.0, ISO1600, 17mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & Canon EF17-40mm f/4L USM

When it comes down to it, there is very little difference to this simple graphical layout from the Porsche museum. It's all about line, form, tonal range, colour value, positive-negative space.

The Jackal. SEMA Show, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
1/5000th, f/1.6, ISO100, 35mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF35mm f/1.4L USM

And here's the last example. Sometimes it's a good idea to get right up close to a car and explore the details. Custom fabricated cars like hot rods are especially good for this type of macro viewing.

 
Audi 50 in the wet, Ring Classic, Nurburgring, Germany
1/25th, f/2.8, ISO50, 200mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM

Race tracks are often very messy places visually. You have all sorts of stands, buildings and junk in the background which often can muddy up the clarity and purity of your lines. So one way of coping with this, is to slow down the shutter as you pan your camera with the cars. This has the net effect of blurring out those messy backgrounds and artificially creates more smooth lines and colour blocks.

D-Mac '86 in the drift, Prodrift @ Japfest Ireland, Mondello Park, Ireland
1/25th, f/22, ISO50, 400mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & Canon EF400mm f/2.8L IS USM

Shooting with slow shutters also helps to capture, in an abstract fashion, a sense of speed and violence. Look at this photo and you should be able to feel the action, the bellowing smoke, perhaps almost imagine the sound of that screaming 2 rotor as it eats up yet another pair of Falkens.

Ferrari 458 GT3, FIA GT3 European Championship, Silverstone Circuit, UK
1/30th, f/14, ISO100, 800mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & Canon EF400mm f/2.8L IS USM +2.0x

Yes I am indeed shooting 800mm with a 1/30 shutter speed. Rather than just keep shooting the same thing over and over again, I like to constantly change camera settings to go after different feelings.

Nissan S15, Prodrift @ Japfest Ireland, Mondello Park, Ireland
1/15th, f/25, ISO50, 400mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & Canon EF400mm f/2.8L IS USM

I find that shooting with slow shutters requires you to place yourself in different places in relationship to the car direction-path than if you are going for fast shutter work. For slow shutter work it helps that the car is some distance away from you and travelling perpendicular to your placement. So you pan side to side. From there you can start to slow the shutter speeds down. And slow some more… and more… In this case I was down to 1/15 shutter speed. My aim was to wall this S15 in with the blurring-but still sharp guard rails. The crowd behind I wanted completely blurred out so all you could see what the cars plus sharp lines.

It's worth noting here, that the shutter is open for so long with these types of shots that all you see is blackness. You literally have to pan with the car without being able to see it.

Volkswagen Golf24, Nurburgring 24Hs, Nurburgring Nordeschliefe, Germany 
1/800th, f/2.8, ISO50, 400mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & Canon EF400mm f/2.8L IS USM 

Here's a totally different use of the 400mm camera lens. You can see here the cars are moving directly away from where I'm standing, hence the need for a fast shutter to keep everything sharp. I love creating depth in photography, and the out of focus car on the left of frame is helping you to sense the space between the camera lens and the VW Golf in the mid-ground.

Grip Vs Drift, Gatebil Festival, Rudskogen Motorsenter, Norway
1/2000th, f/2.8, ISO50, 400mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & Canon EF400mm f/2.8L IS USM 

This is what fast shutters are good for: they create a sense of status. All the action is totally frozen, which in itself creates visual stylization.

Ford Escort, Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, Portugal
1/25th, f/29, ISO50, 400mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM

A slow shutter does the opposite. You get a sense of motion and speed… a totally different effect, but equally as interesting. My rule with slow shutter work is that one section of the car should always be sharp -usually what ever lights are closest to the camera lens.

Porsche Martini Replica, Ring Classic, Nurburgring Nordeschleife, Germany 
1/320th, f/2.8, ISO50, 400mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & Canon EF400mm f/2.8L IS USM

Sometimes it pays to play with the aspect ratio. A vertically oriented shot is often more powerful than a horizonal one. I was literally shooting through a crowd of people to get this picture!

Blacked out Mercury Lead Sled, World of Wheels show, Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada
1/30th, f/2.0, ISO160, 35mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF35mm f/1.4L USM

So what else is there to say? Here we have a fantastic '51 Mercedes lead sled. I love this machine.

Time Capsule Toyota AE86, Belgium
1/60th, f/1.4, ISO100, 35mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF35mm f/1.4L USM

And now a white car, one which caused a lot of discussion this past summer in AE86 communities around the world. By the way, a few of you wanted to know WHY the owner of this car had chosen to park it when new. While he wants to remain anonymous, I can at least reveal that he was involved with many Toyota based motorsports projects in the 1980s and 1990s which is why he chose to preserve one of their production models. At the time he was deeply involved with building and maintaining many Toyota race cars.

Volkswagen Golf24, Nurburgring 24Hs, Nurburgring, Germany
1/200th, f/2.8, ISO50, 200mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM

Ok I am running out of things to say now, having done enough "artspeak" for many months.

Sticker handout, Prodrift @ Japfest Ireland, Mondello Park, Ireland
1/640th, f/2.8, ISO100, 400mm, Canon EOS 5D MKII & Canon EF400mm f/2.8L IS USM

I'll leave you with this shot of a lucky Irish drift spectator receiving a free Speedhunters sticker at Prodrift Mondello Park. I actually orchestrated everything occurring in this photograph, and sent the models into the grandstand with the intent to shoot the proceedings from the neighbouring drift juding tower. Sometimes if you have an image stuck in your head, you just have to make it happen. At least that's the way I think

Thanks for reading!

:Rod

Photos of the year 2011