Author Archives: Lewis

Ma5da Racing Silverstone Test

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Last week Ma5da Racing had their pre-season test/media day at Silverstone, before the first round of the championship there on the 28th March. I tagged along to get some photos for them, it was good to be back shooting motorsport again, after what felt like a very long winter break, which was infact only a few months long.

I started the day at Priory, as by the time I’d waited for the circuit office to open and said hello to various people there wasn’t much time to get a good location, so Priory, next to the paddock had to do for the first of 4 sessions:

 

Jonathan Greensmith - Ma5da Racing Test

Jonathan Greensmith - Ma5da Racing Test

As the International circuit was in use, which was a first for me at Silverstone, I decided to take a wander round the far end of the circuit to try some new angles, at the end of my wander I found myself at Bridge corner, which is part of both the International and GP circuits, another angle I’d not shot from before. In addition to some decent slow pans as the cars came round Bridge corner there was the added compositional element of the bridge itself:

 

Under Bridge - Ma5da Racing Test

Under Bridge - Ma5da Racing Test

For the third session I went to Abbey and climbed the terrace to shoot over the catch fencing. On the full GP circuit Abbey is pretty much just a straight, but on the International circuit, it is a hair pin:

 

Abbey Hairpin - Ma5da Racing Test

Abbey Hairpin - Ma5da Racing Test

For the last session of the day I headed to Luffield, a corner which I’ve always avoided at Silverstone, due to all the other photographers being there, but since I was on my own I decided to try it out. I was quite pleased, I was able to get shots of both the entry and exit of the double right hander, so may give it another shot when I return for the race at the end of this month. This shot from Luffield was my favourite shot of the day:

 

Leading the pack round Luffield - Ma5da Racing Test

Leading the pack round Luffield - Ma5da Racing Test

Cadwell Park

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Earlier today I was going through some pictures from last season, mainly the ones that I shot for myself and came across this picture (and quite a few others like it):

TR5 Cadwell Park Hairpin

It reminded me of a great day at Cadwell Park last September…

I’d had a very early start from Rugby to get to Cadwell Park in time, somehow I managed to get there early so had plenty of time to get signed on and scout the back of the track (where the public aren’t allowed). Cadwell is split into to parts, from the start it is a large open loop round to the mountain, after which the track becomes very twisty through the woods, very Nurburgring-esque.

It was the non publicly accessible wooded area that gave be the angle for this photo and quite a few more like it. At this part of the circuit you are slightly lower down than the cars, giving a great viewpoint and the backgrounds are largely uncluttered, this combined with the proximity to the cars allows for some great photos to be taken, certainly some of my favourite from 2008.

This TR5 was in immaculate condition and the baby blue paint job sets it off nicely. Not only was it one of the best looking cars there, it won the Swinging Sixties race, which is why I went for this shot over a few of the others I found.

That day I shot many images I was happy with, met up with some people I’d been meaning to see for a while and also got the chance to try out some new techniques. A bonus for the day was that I managed not to get sunburnt, frozen or rained on, the only race meeting where I didn’t suffer from at least one of those!

I can’t wait for my next trip to Cadwell on the 18th April!

Landscape print

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Yesterday I made a large format print of one of my favourite landscape photos from 2008, this view across Derwent Water taken in December.

Derwent Water Print Mockup

The detail in the full size print is incredible,  it will be hung in a 70×50 frame and has been mounted with proportions similar to the mock up above (when it is hanging I will post a photo of the real thing).

To get to the required file size at 360 dpi for the printer we needed to create extra pixels, Lightroom 2.2 seemed to do this very well and quickly, however for the file we printed Genuine Fractals was used, this is a plug-in for Photoshop and is the industry standard for enlarging images. It had more controls than Lightroom (an took much longer to generate the file), but to my eyes the resulting 192Mb tiff files looked the same.

Goodbye Subaru

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Late last year a sad announcement was made, Subaru were pulling out of the WRC. As one of the many people following the WRC for the last 15 years the blue and yellow cars were synonymous with the WRC. One of my favourite motorsport memories is going to the RAC Rally in 1998 and being just feet away from both Colin and Alister McRae’s Imprezas. I really hope that  Subaru return to the WRC soon as it won’t be the same without them.

This shot was taken at the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2008 and is the only shot I have of the 2008 Impreza WRC car:

New Years Eve

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While my blog was updating itself at the start of 2009, I was at a party with some of my closest friends from school. I took advantage of the lowered inhibitions to take some candid portraits, all were taken using my 50mm f1.4 lens and flash bounced off the ceiling.

Ali

Dan

Thanks must go out to Bec & Dan for stepping in at the last minute and hosting a great party.

New year, new blog…

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Happy new year!

After 18 months of not blogging I have started this blog, which will mainly focus on my photography, with updates on what I am up to as well as showcasing recent shots.

For 2009 I will continue to follow the Ma5da Racing series, which I covered in 2008, with more cars registered for the championship this year, the racing should be closer, hopefully resulting in some great images. I will also be covering other motorsport events throughout the year.

In addition to motorsport, I am planning on taking more landscape photographs, after a recent successful weekend in the Lake District. Portrait photography will also play a bigger part this year, with a few shoots already in the pipeline.

Stay tuned to see details of my new website which should be going live soon…