I am back at Photoshop World again and had the pleasure to join Moose Peterson and company on the Photo Safari pre-con. I think this is my fifth or maybe my sixth Safari, and I always have blast on each one. This year Moose was as helpful as every answering tons of questions and showing some of what he was up to this summer. We then piled onto the buses and headed out to the Las Vegas International Speedway to photograph the exotic cars that were racing at the track.
The amazing team at Exotics Racing runs a short-track race driving school where you can either rent or ride along with one of their professional drivers in some of the fastest and most expensive race cars around. You can choose from a variety of Porches, Lamborghinis, and Ferraris. Exotics Racing is the amateurs car racers fantasy.
We got a great location to shoot from as the cars behind the safety of a concrete wall. The cars would make their rounds around the track and come through a slight curve and onto a short straightway as they zipped by. The hardest part of the day was getting my hands and arms wrapped around the panning required to get the shot I wanted. In order to get a shot with the car in focus, background blurred and tires blurred for the sense of speed, you have to move the camera parallel to the car at the same speed while keeping the camera smooth and level. If it sounds complext, it isn’t but it does require practice. Needless to say, I haven’t practiced in a while and it showed, but I was able to get a few images that I liked. I also found a closeup of the Lamborghini wheel that I fond exciting.
After shooting the cars, we spent some time with Sabrina and Kelly who were amazing and gracious models before heading over to Fremont Street to close out the day by getting us off the hot blacktop of the racetrack. All in all Moose and team hit another home run of a day. I learned a lot, met some new friends and was reminded of the importance of keeping the basic skills sharp with a little more practice.
Tomorrow starts the first full day of the conference so more to come….