BTCC Media Day/Launch

[dunganick]

Yesterday was the BTCC Launch, it was as per usual at Rockingham so after a Uni hand-in at 9.30 in the morning i made the 2.5hr drive up there. Was lovely and sunny, untill i started to get near when it became overcast and grey :dapprove: My spirits only lifted by the excellent roads.

Got there about 12.30 spent 1 hour trying to find the sign in place (as i was about 4/5 hours late than all the other media) Only got track time, none of the actual media time. Having not shot Rockingham before i wandered aimlessly/followed the sea of green media bibs (which seemed to be given away with cereal on this occasion!)

Rockingham is totally different to photograph than i expected. I thought it would be another Silverstone/Donington needing 400mm+ i was pleasantly surprised, its actually quite a close in circuit with some nice pans along the back straight/bank. It also had an excellent spot where you can photograph the same car 3 times in 3 different places on 1 lap! Needs a bit of running, but i could see this being useful for 1st lap pack photos on a raceday.

The field for the BTCC is a bit disapointing this year, Vauxhall, Motorbase and RAC all seem to have decided there was nothing wrong with last years colours, so lets just use them again. They are nearly identical to last years.

I got pretty bored pretty quickly as there were only really 4 major teams testing regually, you can only photograph 1 car so many times! So there was plenty of slow shutter experiments happening (Chris your starting to have a concerning effect on my photography)

Enough of my waffle:

(excuse the watermarks, but people have been trying to use my images without permission, but i will lighten it down for the next batch)

1

2

3

4 My Fav from day.

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Another one for the most photogenic car in the field

Hope you lot like them,

Excuse the poor lighting/exposure, they're not getting printed so i cba to go through them all atm.

Nick

 

[Nik]

Nice pics, looks like a worthwhile trip even though the field for this year is a bit lacking. Chiltons Focus looks fairly smart though.

 

[ukaskew]

Rockingham is totally different to photograph than i expected. I thought it would be another Silverstone/Donington needing 400mm+ i was pleasantly surprised

How did it look for the general public? Always been tempted to visit but it doesn't look like an appealing circuit to photograph at from what I've seen (which isn't much, does anyone ever actually spectate there?!)

(Chris your starting to have a concerning effect on my photography)

I scanned through the pics before I read your opening stuff, and I was thrilled with the shots, superb! Quite rare to see such shots from the press positions, I always wondered how they would look.

If you try it more during the season it would be interesting to see if they give you any financial success. I've noticed a growing trend towards the more artistic type of shot (even in F1, the Beeb in particular love an 'arty' shot these days) and if nothing else, it is certainly going to make your photos stand out.

 

[Paul_G]

Nice shots - especially like the Chilton pan - gives a good impression of speed, especially with the foreground subjects.

 

[dunganick]

From what i saw it looked like a good circuit however for this session they let people into the pits, which looked to be the best place for chicane shots and shots of the 3rd to last corner. But im not sure they would allow access to the pits/paddocks on a race day. Theres a few public shot posts on Talk photography. But most are shot from the pit/paddock area.

One thing i did notice is that there is no wire fence stopping you getting up close to the catch fencing, so you can put your lense hood right up to the fence to cut it out. The catch fences are also closer to the tyre wall than most circuits.

Its a weird circuit, just a jumble of different corners, so im not sure how you would go about accessing certain parts of it. I will certainly be going to the BTCC meeting there.

Nick

 

[MattT]

Crackin pics them, colours really pop too.

^^ What kind of a spec would that lens be btw? Beast.

 

[Jungle_Jim]

how do you go about getting a media pass for circuits, ive always struggled to work it out as most of the press pass applications require you to have had 4 or so pieces of relivent work published yet this can be hard to achieve if you are restricted to public places rather than media areas.

great pics buddy

 

[dunganick]

I have exactly that, i think i had 30-40+ published photos last year, about 5 or 6 of these were from 'the bad side of the fence'.

Its all about getting your foot in the door. Once your there as long as you can keep it up your sorted.

On the otherhand Rockingham were giving them away yesterday, someone i was chatting with got one by using his own website as his accreditation! This is normally not allowed, But fair play to the guy, he was chuffed to be there.

Nick

 

[Jungle_Jim]

how do you go about getting them published mate do you get comissions, put them on stock image sites etc or just are lucky and get people contacting you wanting to use the images

 

[dunganick]

yhpm (burning up my 5 posts a day here lol)

 

[Jungle_Jim]

tried to reply but your inbox is full

 

[Gaz.]

I frigging love those green wheels on the Leon! Great snaps fella.

 

[Alex H]

Cant wait for BTCC to start - they've got extended coverage on TV over last year. Some rounds will have all three BTCC races (and support races in between) broadcast live on ITV4 (and online). Also there'll be 90min highlight shows a few days after each weekend.

 

[dunganick]

Cheers all,

I have never wanted the winter season to go s much, cannot wait for the first BTCC meeting. Just hope a few of the key drivers get drives before then. Matt Jackson, Jason Plato, Tom O. Cole. Jason has been offered a Chev drive, but still has some ties with Seat as i understand, and im not sure they have offered him a paid drive. But he does have some sort of arrangement with Volvo in 2010, so maybe he will just wait?

 

[Day]

apart from Gio and maybe Neal I doubt anyone's getting paid this year!