F E ATUR E: MOTORSPORT PHOTOGR APHY
of high profile clients (including F1.com) and suddenly gave my images an audience of millions. It wasn’t all plain sailing though and the learning curve was steep. Initially I failed to grasp the importance of the background of my shots. By season’s end, I realised that nailing this was one of the major differentiators between an average shot and a great shot. Portable toilets and cranes are to be avoided, as too are empty grandstands. Often moving just a few metres left or right enabled me to avoid ugly distractions in the background which enhanced my images. This meant the early shots I took from testing and the Melbourne event at the beginning were pretty ordinary. However there was one exception that would turn out to be one of my year’s best and it was taken on just my sixth day as an F1 photographer. A Melbourne photographer was kind enough to tell me about a location that would make for a great shot. “Only the Red Bull and Force India cars spark at turn six and they only do it for the first couple of laps when they are heavy with fuel.” he explained. I knew there would be potential to shoot a dramatic image here. I headed out to the location for the Saturday morning practice session and was surprised to see there was no photography hole cut through the wire. It was only then that I realised that using a 500mm lens at f4 helped render the wire invisible. My Melbourne colleague had already suggested I shoot at 1/60th of a second so the sparks had some length to them and when Max Verstappen came through the first time, I shuttered away on my Canon 1DX Mk2. I shot about 20 frames of which just two were sharp and the image [you can see it on page 22] was the winner. I showed it to Max in the paddock at the Shanghai GP and his assistant contacted me that afternoon saying Max “would love a copy of it for his Monaco apartment”. I delivered it to him next race and had him sign a copy for me.
BEHIND THE WHEEL One of the most crucial shots at any race is the start shot. You only get one chance and it must be sharp. I shot these at 1/1200th or faster at f/8 so all of the cars were sharp and in focus. Sometimes I set up a second camera shooting wide and fired it using a remote control linked to my main camera, doubling the number of shots on offer to me. When shooting motorsport, perfecting shutter speed is a crucial consideration. If cars are coming straight at you there’s no problem shooting at 1/1,000th of a second or faster, however when shooting side on, I dropped the shutter to around 1/320th or slower so that there would be some blurring of the logos on the tyre wall and background. This showed the viewer the car was moving. At times I would go as low as an 1/8th of a second. No matter what shutter speed I used, I almost always panned with the car. The lower the shutter
KYM’S MOTORSPORT TIPS When trying to shoot motorsport, here are four tips that will result in better images for getting the perfect picture: 1. Spend time scouting for locations. The cars will always be there, it’s the background that really makes a shot pop. 2. Vary your shutter speed – after you’ve nailed a sharp, fast shutter speed shot, go low and blur the background. 3. Use a polarising filter. These enhance colours and reduce reflection and glare. 4. Consider the foreground. Putting people or trees in front of the cars or shooting through a fence can provide different shots.
| 25 | APRIL 2018 | AUSTRALIANPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
LEFT: The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is run at dusk which provides dramatically different light to almost all of the other grand prix events. Canon 1DX Mark II, 24-70mm f/2.8L II lens. 1/640s @ f7.1, ISO 800. ABOVE: Shooting low and incorporating the rumble strip adds a different dimension to this shot of Sebastian Vettel doing his track walk. Canon 1DX Mark II, 135mm f2 lens. 1/8000s @ f2.5, ISO 125.