A belated Merry Xmas to all my followers!
This shot was taken on Xmas day on the North Inch park in Perth while I was out for a pre Xmas dinner stroll in the snow, I did try a black and white conversion, but felt that this colour version worked the best.
Those of you following my Twitter may realise that I am up at my family’s place in Perth (Scotland, not Australia), we’re just chilling out waiting for Santa to arrive, so I grabbed my Dad’s new lens (Canon EF 85 f1.8) and shot this image of Simon, my little brother, doing what he does best.
I shot it wide open and the quality of the lens really shines through, hopefully I’ll be able to borrow it more over the next few days!
Is the one that’s with you.
Not only is it a book/website by Chase Jarvis, one of my favourite photographers, it is a great way of thinking!
As part of his project Chase and his team have created an iPhone app, which makes post processing and sharing phones from the iPhone really easy, combining two of my passions.
Most of my images taken with my phone are posted on my Twitter feed, but can also be found on my part of the Best Camera website.
One of my favourite arty shots, taken with my iPhone, at the Trafford Centre, I love the simplicity of the black and white conversion:
Fountain iPhone photo
Over the next few weeks I will be uploading my archive of images shot over the past 2 seasons for at for Ma5da Racing.
I’m starting with 2008 which seems ages ago now, hopefully by the time it comes to post the images from the Winter event at Brands Hatch on the 7th November I will be up to date!
This photo was taken from the gantry at Woodcote and shows all the drivers at the start of Ma5da Racing.
It was a sunny Friday morning at Silverstone for the practice for the Ma5da Racing Autumn Championship. The following image is my favourite from the practice session, click through to visit the full gallery:
It’s been a while since I’ve updated, but I’ve been busy out taking pictures!
I’m in the process of designing a new website, the first part of it is my new portfolio of landscape images.
Landscape – Images by Lewis Craik
The Ma5das had pretty much gatecrashed this BRSCC meeting, having only been invited 4 days before the event (but still managing to have the largest grid), the headline race of the day was the Don Truman trophy for the 500s. I’d never seen 500s before, but I liked them, they are old style cigar shaped single seaters from the ’60s, powered by 500cc period motorbike engines, on skinny tyres and they look like a complete hoot to drive, with drivers leaning right out of the cars to aid weight distribution. Both races were won by Nigel Ashman in car #1.
Nigel Ashman - Don Truman Trophy Winner
Other races were more conventional BRSCC series, the Porsche 924 Championship and the BRS Recovery Ford XR Challenge. The Porches provided some good racing in both of their 2 races, with Matthew Upchurch leading the first race until a few laps from the end before suffering mechanical failures and Kamal Kalsi winning. On their second race Kamal Kalsi continued where he left off and led for most of the race, but had a reliable car so finished at the front too.
Kamal Kalsi - Double race winner in Porsche 924 Championship
The Ferrari brothers (Ferraris driving Porches? Confusing!) had matching cars with a similar paint job to Rob Boston’s MX-5 race car, who inspired who?
Seb Ferrari - Copied Rob Boston?
The remaining series is the XR challenge, which was mainly XR2s, but a few XR3s too, the XR2s did seem a fair bit faster, which surprised me, but cars #68 and #2 (Simon Robinson and Michael Blackburn) had a close battle but the #2 car wasn’t able to overtake Simon Robinson.
Simon Robinson - BRS Recovery XR Challenge winner
Serge Smith
Jonathan Blake and Alyn Robson stayed very close to each other through the practice, probably to get slipstreams, which worked well, as both placed high up the grid and it was also entertaining to watch!
Jonathan Blake & Alyn Robson - Qualifying
For the first Ma5da Race I drove round to the John Cooper Esses which give a few head on angles as well as some opportunities for side on panning shots with the cars riding the kerbs. The strangest shot though, was seeing Martin Tolley coming round on his out lap with the bonnet flipped up over the windscreen. Doh!
Martin Tolley - Doh
By the time the drivers got round to the Esses, Jonathan Greensmith had overtaken pole sitter Scott Kirlew, which was the order they finished the race.
Jonathan Greensmith & Scott Kirlew battling for the lead on lap 1
I’d been looking forward to the second race all day, as it was being run with a reverse grid, so lots of overtaking expected! I’d also saved my favorite angle for this race. The hairpin is the only slow corner on the lap, the spectator area is very close to the track and there is no catch fence.
The first few laps the Ma5das were streaming round 4 or 5 abreast as the faster cars made their way to the front.
Hairpin, lap 1 - race 2
Then the race calmed down (but only slightly) Jonathan Greensmith managed to pull away from the rest of the pack (17s on a sub 1m lap), however that was probably due to the 5 way battle for 2nd place which was eventually taken by Matt Robinson, with Carl Powell 0.097s behind him, despite being in front for most of the race.
Race 2 - battle for 2nd
A special mention has to go to Wayne le Montais for the best paint job I’ve ever seen on an MX-5!
Wayne le Montais - Love the paint job!
My #1 aim for 2009 has been achieved! I managed to get two of my images published in Autosport magazine.
The images the chose out of the selection I sent them were a side on pan of Tom Roche, winner of both Ma5da Races taken at Barn (a very similar shot to the one of Scott Kirlew in my post reviewing the race) and a shot of Steve Twist’s Uno leading a gaggle of Fiats through Hall Bends.
Sorry for the rubbish iPhone shot, I will edit the post with a proper shot or a scan later.
I’d heard that yesterday was “Flickr day of the donut”, so while buying Autosport (see next blog post) I decided to pick up some tasty looking ring doughnuts (for photographic purposes only of course).
The shot I had in my head, was that the top/front doughnut should have the sprinkles in focus, but that the second doughnut should be blurred. The shot below was my favourite from the brief shoot (and the doughnuts were yummy).
