May 19, 2008..............................................................................HOME................................................"Oblivious With A Mind In The Gutter"
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Camera: Nikon D3
Lens: Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8
Capture: NEF
Metering: Matrix
Release Mode: Aperture
ISO: 800
Shutter: 1/6400
Aperture: f/8
It's a funny thing being a photographer. It's possible to become so adept at entering the creative zone that you spend a lot of time there. So much in fact, you can get a little oblivious to what's happening in the world around you. Now I can hear my wife thinking, "Wait a minute. Is "oblivious to what's going on around you" being a creative photographer, or being "male"? I think I need some help from my female photo friends to dig my way out of this one. Fortunately, Cindy is not only a forgiving and supportive photo spouse, she is a second set of eyes for me in the real world, and some days she's looking out for me when I'm not.
That's what happened a couple of weeks ago when she read in the newspaper that a local weekend festival, not a mile from our home, would include an entire day of serious bicycle racing with both amateurs and professional riders. While cycling is not a sport I've ever photographed, the colors and drama of competition seemed a great reason to "get oblivious" and spend the day shooting.
Some sporting events are so familiar from a lifetime of TV exposure or personal participation that little advance scouting is necessary to prepare. Racing events, unless they take place in a defined oval venue, probably do demand some serious thinking if you're to have any chance of being in the right place at the right time. For me it was easy since races started in the morning and ran all day. This meant I could walk around and shoot half seriously early on and get a feel for the kind of results I was getting, as well as a sense of how the light on the course might change during the day. Unaccustomed to how the riders would flow around the course, I also learned "on the job" about the line through curves and straightaways that might be rewarding.
Like most sports, I figured I'd need some significant telephoto to "get into" the action, so planned to use both my Nikon 70-200 2.8 VR zoom and 300 2.8 fixed focal length lens. While the zoom gives a lot of flexibility, the extra perspective compression from the 300mm just can't be matched by shorter tele lenses. It also doesn't hurt that the Nikon 300 2.8 is almost legendary for its optics. An f/2.8 lens is a major plus when shooting action as you can use faster shutter speeds and/or lower ISO to ramp up image quality. Just before I walked out of the house with this great range of long glass, the thought struck me that having a wide angle in the bag might be good insurance, so I picked up a 17-35 2.8 zoom.
As I looked at the LCD during the morning, it quickly became obvious that the dramatic shots were coming in the 200-300mm range, so I shifted gears mentally to "see" long, searching for topography within the course that would be exciting compressed, as the bikes poured through the viewfinder. No matter how good a photographer you may be (and I still learn every time I go out to shoot), the odds of a great shot increase exponentially as the number in your frame counter goes up too. Get it? SHOOT A LOT OF IMAGES! This is especially critical when dealing with action subjects. So over the day, I exposed 1,000+ shots. Isn't digital fantastic? Can you imagine how I would have handled this event shooting film? 1,000+ images? Not likely without a second home mortgage.
So, 700 frames into the day, my cell phone rings while my brain is crammed in a viewfinder (translated as "oblivious to the world"). "Mark, have you eaten lunch yet?", came the thoughtful inquiry from my wife. Now, she wasn't even there to see that I'd foregone food and fluids chasing the elusive perfect picture. How does she do that? Guess it's that "eyes in the back of her head" thing from raising kids. Anyway, during lunch when I checked out a long string of telephoto shots, I thought, "Hmmmm. What about that wide angle in the bag? Is there anywhere on the course it would make any sense?". The track was just a two lane road wide, but even in that close distance subjects quickly got lost in the field of view from a 17-35mm lens. BUT, I had noticed that racers go through turns really tight on the inside of the curves. I found a turn where I could stand up to the course rail literally 10" from the riders as they blew past me at 30mph. A hundred figure blur pushing a wave of air across my face, accompanied by the finely tuned buzz of tires on pavement. It was a rush just to stand there. The problem was, standing there and shooting, the background sucked. The course passed through a grocery store parking lot. "Kroger" in the background didn't cut it (not to diss Kroger, "Piggly Wiggly" would have been just as bad ... well maybe a little worse), and the angle on the riders wasn't great either. What's a photographer to do?
Well I always say, if the creative juices aren't flowing, put your mind in the gutter. Whoa! What I mean is that to get a dynamic low perspective shoot the subject from as close to ground level as possible. By shooting up, the drama increases and the background clutter decreases. But, that day low perspective did mean putting my mind in the gutter, literally. The course was defined by metal fencing about 10 inches out from the curb. If I turned on my side and lowered my shoulder into that 10" space, I could angle my lens through the opening within a foot or two of the tires whizzing by. As onlookers questioned the sanity of a grown man laying in the gutter to take a picture, I stayed there until muscles started cramping, running my D3 motor drive at 11 fps @ 1/6400 of a second every time the race passed me. I know I saw some of the riders looking down at me as they barreled through the turn. I guess they were wondering about me too.
Sometimes oblivious is a good thing.
The moral of the story:
After you've worked your sport 16 different ways with your telephoto, get down and dirty with a wide angle. Put your mind in the gutter and shoot up! This may sound like the path to eternal damnation, but it really does make for exciting photographs.
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Mark Alberhasky is a Nikon Mentor for the Mentor Series Worldwide Photo Treks.
Join him as he travels and share his enthusiasm for photography and learning.
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