Pictures from the 2009 FHRA Nitro Nationals

Through the key hole at the FHRA Nitro Nationals

Finland was the first time out of the country with drag racing. Something I was fairly excited about. I was still on a high from the great pictures I got at the Nsra Nostalgia Nationals and really looking forward to a new country, a new track and some new skies.

Alastaro has some interesting aesthetics and for a portion of the day your shooting backlit which is always a extra challenge but gives some great opportunities to have a play.

Before we get down to pictures just a quick word of warning, never ever let your sensor get in to this sort of state its going to give you nightmares, I dont even want to think about what is on it.

Now that that’s over and done with down to business. At the track I know what my “safeties” are and I know that when I’t comes down to finals time that I can shoot in that fashion and get useable shots. But Untill then I love to play.

In drag racing there are only a handful of locations that you can shoot from this means you have to really work what you have to get anything diffrent. For the above its just shot off at 16mm in AV mode with 2 stop’s of EV dialed in. Think it works semi well just wish there was more tyre smoke involved

I was browisng Mark J Rebilas amazing blog when i came across some pics of one of the america top fuel guys going past a crew member, it kinda got me thinking. I knew that Jummy Alund had a thing of trying to run over his crew men took me a while to work out how to shoot it and get it looking good but I think the above works nicely.

Andy Willsheer shoots Kenneth Soderstrom on the launch. Again just trying something a little different think the compositial element of Andy adds depth and some lateral perspective to the frame.

I’ve owned a polarising filter for a while however never really used it much. Was just playing around in the qualifers and really love the effect it gives to blue skies.
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The wall behind the start line was littered with holes, I assume to let the wind pass through with out putting too much stress on the structure. It gave a great framing opportunity for a throughout the key hole style shot.

Just going off on a tangent for a moment a couple of unusual things I spotted while I was over in finland.
Firstly

health and safety? whats that ! Although I’ll give the guy his due’s he is fairly well camouflaged.
And secondly

You cant see it very well but the guy has three cameras mounted onto a old gun stock, not sure what customs would think about trying to bring such a contraption into the country. No idea what he is doing but I think its some form of super slow mo rig as he was using three casio exilim highspeed cameras, would love to see the results of just what he was doing.

Here you can see just how much difference the color of a car can have on the picture Stig (blue car) makes the picture looks very dark and bottom heavy however the white in Andy’s car really breaks the black of the tarmac up and makes the picture look more balanced. Also you cant see it very well but in the pic of Andy that is a full set of lights on the tree hows that for reactions!

Speaking of reactions, I was off loading my pics early monday morning and stumbled across this

Ok so it was more luck that judgement but it still makes for a fairly interesting picture.

The great thing about Finland is that this time of year it doesn’t see any darkness, which firstly is great for topping up your tan and secondly it means that you get about 6 hours of really nice sunset lighting.

The skies in Finland were fairly unimpressive compared to some of the stunning formations we see in the uk, however I did manage to get a couple of nice looking shots

love the way that the front wheel is still not turning in the shot above for me really add’s something to the picture.

For me the best “cloud picture of the weekend has to be this

Its just such a unusual formation and has some real depth going on. hkigyu8crw

Hey guys hope you enjoyed reading that, more to follow shortly dont forget that you can join me on the modernpics facebook page. If you want to look at more really cool pics check out europes best drag racing image library