[ratpack] Re: Hide the razor blades

  • From: Ray Buck <rbuck@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: ratpack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:44:42 -0700

Yep. Overdone. Michael's rotated Corvette looks good....although I might have rotated it in the other direction so that it didn't have an off-camber look to it. Or maybe not. Hard to say.
I do the same thing as Paul when the mood strikes: rotate the camera. Many times it's simply to get the subject into the photo without too much extraneous bs. I've noticed that I've been doing a lot more portrait-oriented shots than I did...say, a year ago. There are two reasons behind that. First is to cut out the stuff that I didn't want in the shot and the second is to use the sky as a part of the photo's drama. I think I mentioned the way kool cloud formation that I saw on the salt at World Finals. But I'll post it again, just for the hell of it. :)
Well, instead, I edited a couple that I hadn't posted before. They're both of the same car...ok, Modified Mini Pickup is the class it runs in. First shot is a plain vanilla landscape shot. Not bad, but nothing special. The second is a portrait-oriented shot with a coupla twists, I guess you could say. First part is the downward-looking perspective. I got that by holding the camera above my head and doing it until I got it pointed right. Second is the location of the subject in relation to the sky. I wanted those clouds in the photo, and that seemed to be a good way to include them, yet draw the eye down to the subject.
The third is an arbitrary crop based on what I thought looked good. If it were in a magazine, no problem. But to print it might be a little interesting and would take a custom frame/mat.
I don't know if these really worked or not. You be the judge. Except for Carl. He'd think it was the pinochle of one thing or another. Just kidding, Carl. But there is summa that aesthetic stuff in there. Aww, ok, Carl. You can play, too. 

RtR


At 08:54 AM 11/13/2009, you wrote:
I agree about that the flat plane composition can be boring after awhile. I do a lot of tilting the camera at the track and sometimes I rotate the pictures in editing. I do think that the red Ferrari tilt is just a little over done. 

Paul
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:mcwellsphoto@xxxxxxxxx>Michael Wells
To: <mailto:ratpack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>ratpack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 8:44 AM
Subject: [ratpack] Re: Hide the razor blades
At the enduro race I did a bit of experimating and instead fo rotating my pictures during post processing I simply rotated the camera. It gave me some interesting photos, anything on a flat plane gets to be boring after a while. As an example <http://www.pbase.com/twistedlight/image/118789717>http://www.pbase.com/twistedlight/image/118789717 this Vette looks much better than this Vette (in my opnion)<http://www.pbase.com/twistedlight/image/119003333>http://www.pbase.com/twistedlight/image/119003333 because of the angle. I have been looking at some racing photography sites and cars on a flat plane are just boring after the first few cars. 

But that's just me.

Michael
On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 12:23 PM, Ray Buck <<mailto:rbuck@xxxxxxxxxxxx>rbuck@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: 
At 09:24 AM 11/12/2009, you wrote:
Going to the TACK? Hmmmmm..... That's tacky, tacky, tacky! Beautiful photeaux, altho a
Ferrarri, or any car for that matter, appearing just short of stall speed, running up a 20%+ grade just doesn't turn me on. 

Well, if ya mean this one:
[]
I agree with ya, I don't think I have a real good grasp on rotating images. I know that I've done some that have turned out acceptable, but I couldn't give a recipe for creating 'em. Larry does a wonderful job of this.
Maybe we otta ax him to give us a demo on how he does it and what makes a good one or a bad one. Something to think about.
"Course, Ray will tellya, I ain't got noooo aesthetic sensibilities atall atall. 

Well, I wasn't gonna mention it, but now that you did....
Still thinking seriously about the tack tho. HOW he does what he does obviously costs him some $$, (not in equipment, although he has $ome $erious gla$$ and, no doubt dark boxes. But that's the photo biz amongst those on the pinochle of excess. Us hackers just do the best we can with what we have, and dream.... My hero has always been Peter Gowland. Carl
The "pinochle of success?" That almost caused me to spew soup all over the monitor and keyboard. I haven't played pinochle for a coon's age. I guess that ain't too politically correct, but political correctness is to me as aesthetic is to Carl. :)
I found that a photographer named Andy Southard made several books like "Hotrods of the 50s" and 60s...you get the picture (double entendre intended) which helped me with certain areas of shooting static photos of cars. I wouldn't call him a hero, but he did some pretty good stuff. And one real unlikely source of automotive photography is George Barris...."The King of the Xustomizers" (self-proclaimed.) He's definitely not a hero figure to me (hell, he got a start with his Kustom shop by...let's say, "dismantling cars for their component parts"...not necessarily with the permission of the owner, if ya catch my drift. Yeah, he and his brother ran a chop shop in the LA area before George took credit for a lotta stuff that his brother did (like the Hirohata Merc, the original standard by which kustom 49-51 Mercurys were judged.) The one thing I've gotta give him credit for is learning photography so he could get photos of his cars into the magazines like Hot Rod and Rod and Custom. Nobody at that time was shooting anything like that so he took the bull (or Rolleiflex) by the horns and did it himself. I'll give him credit for that. Btw, here's what he was doing in 2008: <http://www.chevyasylum.com/cruisin/cruisin2008/080302/2008GeorgeBarris_01r8_jpg.html>http://www.chevyasylum.com/cruisin/cruisin2008/080302/2008GeorgeBarris_01r8_jpg.html He's on the left, in the yellow jacket, selling autographs for $10 a pop. Sad. I guess nobody wanted to play shuffleboard at the old folks' home.
I gotta go put hot compresses on my eyelids again. I can hardly see to type. Apparently I have a disorder that changes the composition of the tears and it's a 3-way feedback loop and if one part gets outta whack, the other 2 go nuts. If ya wanna read all about it go here: <http://www.contactlens.org.nz/extra1.aspx>http://www.contactlens.org.nz/extra1.aspx No, I don't wear contacts...but the disorder seems to be almost endemic on folks 60 and older.
I thought I had it under control, but today...well, just picture me lying flat on my back with a warm washcloth over my eyes (sorta like Mike's glove photo) but with an electric bass lying across my belly. Sorry if I scared any children with that mental image but no animals were harmed, yada, yada. At least I can turn on the XM radio (blues station, 874, I think) in my bedroom that I run from the DirecTV receiver to a small stereo amp and some very vintage speakers (like from 1969 or so) that still do the job. And I can play with my eyes closed. So I'll go amuse myself with that, since I the eyes are starting to cloud over again, every time I blink. Damn. 

Ray (the half blind) rat.




---- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Knight" <<mailto:Larry.Knight@xxxxxxxxxxx>Larry.Knight@xxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <mailto:ratpack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>ratpack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 8:01:32 AM GMT -07:00 US/Canada Mountain
Subject: [ratpack] Re: Hide the razor blades

Ok this guy is good, but there is some info we don't know about him.
Because he is everywhere at the right time I think we have to consider
that he may have sold his sole to the devil to be at the right place at
the right time, every time. He also has some big mm lenses!!! The
picture of the reflections in the glass he is using a 600mm lense with a
1.4 converter, wow, now that is some big zooming. He also shoots with a
lot of high iso and I don't see much noise (or course we can't blow them
up as big as our own shots) Very interesting site Ray, I think you are
right though Ray, we can all learn from this guy.

I found an interesting site the other day with some fantastic panning
shots. <http://www.freezingspeed.com/g_race_cars.html>http://www.freezingspeed.com/g_race_cars.html. click on the 
ferrari challenge link and then click on the Ferrari 355 link. Ok I am
biased toward the 355 as my almost all time favorite Ferrari, but the
panning shots are fantastic. And most of them don't blur the back end of
the car. I wish I could see the exif data on some of these. I am not
sure how many photogs support this site, but I was impressed (not sure I
like the cartoon word balloons though) I am sorry about the Nikon
sponsorship on the page, I didn't realize was there till after I started
this email.

It looks like crappy weather on Sat, anyone still planning on going to
the tack?? (Ok another little side note, we are surely lucky to be able
to say that "anyone going to the track". Before MMP, when I was making
my pilgrimages to Laguna Seca I always imagined two buddies in Monterey
asking that question to each other on a Sat. and now we are saying that
here in SLC, life is good, Thank you Larry Miller).

Later
Larry
-----Original MessLOGNULL NowTransReader::ReadIt() JJFileMT::Truncate(18678514) LOGNULL NowTransReader::ReadIt() JJFileMT::Truncate(0) age-----
From: <mailto:ratpack-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>ratpack-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [ mailto:ratpack-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
On Behalf Of Ray Buck
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 7:29 PM
To: <mailto:ratpack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>ratpack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ratpack] Hide the razor blades

A couple of year ago, Paul, Larry and I were ready to slit our
throats after comparing our photos to those shot by Jeromy (official
MMP photographer and I can't remember his last name...Camp
maybe?)  When I saw some of his shots from the World Superbike race,
I wanted to spend some time sobbing uncontrollably before I did the
throat cutting.  His photos were orders of magnitude better than mine.

I believe that we've all become better photographers and I think our
shots compare favorably to his.  But.  (Why is there always a
"but?")  I've been following Mark Rebilas' blog (I posted the url for
it here a coupla weeks ago) and I'm not sure that razor blades are a
good thing to have readily at hand, especially when I see the way he
does stuff like the photo journal of the NASCAR weekend at Texas
Motor Speedway:
<http://markjrebilas.com/blog/?p=6975#more-6975>http://markjrebilas.com/blog/?p=6975#more-6975

I once read a comic strip (Ziggy) that said, "just when I figure out
'where it's at,' they move it."  Seems that the bar has been raised a
coupla notches...at least.  Not only in the "pop and drama" that Paul
likes to talk about, but his journalism and his apparent ability to
be everywhere at once make for a VERY effective and high quality blog
entry.

I guess I better be prepared to work on my craft a bit (no, a lot)
harder in the coming year.  I spose seeing work like Rebilas' helps
with seeing things differently and...well, whatever it is that I can
learn, including the presentation of the photos and line copy (or
accompanying text, if you like.)

I better ramp up the learning curve again.

RtR





--
Michael Wells
MCWells Photography
<mailto:mcwellsphoto@xxxxxxxxx>mcwellsphoto@xxxxxxxxx
801-850-7279

JPEG image

Attachment: 20091010_0974r8.jpg
Description: JPEG image

Attachment: 20091010_0981r8.jpg
Description: JPEG image

Attachment: 20091010_0981r8a.jpg
Description: JPEG image

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. ratpack
  3. Archive
  4. 11-2009