When Mark asked me if I wanted to go to the South to shoot some boat drags, I could not turn him down. Being from Arizona and never traveling east of New Mexico, I was blown away when we arrived in Alabama. It was green and covered in these spectacular, huge trees; deciduous trees as Mark ever so kindly informed me...over and over and over...
On our drive to Georgia I fell in love...with the south. The small towns, the country, the homes, the accents! It was amazing!
Mark continued to prep me how boat drags tend to be tedious, however if you get one crash it will make your whole weekend. Once in Augusta, he set me up with his mono pod and 400mm. It was a bit intimidating at first but by the end of the weekend I was hand holding it no problem.
We got there just in time for the top fuel hydro boats on Saturday during test and tune practice. As Scotty Lumbert and John Haas took off for our first set of boats for the day, I was so excited when Scotty turned sharply to his right and actually barrel rolled acrossed the water. No crash though.
Saturday made for a much better day. The weather was beautiful; sun, a breeze and no humidity! We lucked out.
I started out the day playing around with slow pans since Mark was shooting near me and I knew the possibility was high that our stuff would turn out the same.
With plenty of down time in between boats, Mark and I fooled around a bit.
Top fuel hydro driver Ron McLellan.
Jarrett Silvey was testing out a new propeller and as he launched off the starting line, instead up popping up into the air, his top fuel hydro boat dived nose first into the water. The boat ended up sinking to the bottom of the Savannah River. They began searching for the boat at the end of the races and he still raced the next day!
Sunday started out slow and hot!! Below are a few slots of the top fuel drivers as they made their pass to the starting line. I few a played around using some HDR techniques.
They start racing.
I wanted to try a few new things with the wide angle. They did not turn quite the way that I had hoped. I leaned over the dock and laid the camera just above the water as the boats made their way to the starting line. If they were closer the shots could have potentially made for a great shot. Although the seaweed was cool.
I took a huge risk taking use the wide for a top fuel boat, however I wanted to try it just in case it turned out cool.
Final round!
Nice to see an update. great shots btw!
ReplyDeleteKermit