The Full set of pictures from the 2011 FIA European Finals at Santa Pod can be found here

The 2011 season on the whole both in europe and here in blighty has been dogged by less than idea weather. I got to the track pretty late on friday night and was greated with some pretty awesome sun set light , which I hoped was an omen for what the weekends weather was going to hold.

Unfortuntly by the time Saturday Morning Rolled round we was back to being in thick cloud cover. Cloud cover can cause some real headaches the cars just reflect the white clouds and it all looks very washed out and drab, not cool! However with some photography tricks you can soon use the cloud cover to your advantage and produce something cool. I love the reflections in the side of Roger Johansson’s pro mod 

Thomas Lindstrom is a driver I haven’t seen before but his Mopar Pro Stocker was certainly hard to miss with that awesome paint job.

Its really great seeing some of the young blood come through into drag racing, you have the lindbergs in pro mod , Adam Gleadow  and Joe Bond in NFAA and the finals saw 19 year old Kenni Neergaard jumping in a Top Fuel Dragster for his first competitive weekend. Bellow one of Kenni’s young team Torques a head down between rounds

I always love shooting the awesome Pro Mod of Mats Eriksson, with that wild green paint and awesome burn outs it always produces some great images.

Scandinavian Timo Lehtimaki has spent the last couple years just doing the odd events in and around scandinavia , some pretty knowledgable people we seen around his pits over the course of the weekend and I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of Timo in the coming years.

 Staying with Top Fuel Anita Makela Warms up the Fuel Car in the pits prior to First round of Eliminations.

Multi Championship winning Andy Carter Has stuggled all year and his luck doesn’t improve as Sparks billow out of the clutch as his slows through the shut down area.

Gordon Smith gets a little warm as possibly the worlds smallest funny car fire erupts from the MPM oil funny car

The other MPM Oil Supported car of David Vegter burns out in front of the capacity crowd.

As the sun set on saturday I snapped this frame of Timo Harbermann  sitting in his car, the 2011 season for the Harbermann Family certainly has been as dominating as previous years, and it has really lead to a close season with in the TMD ranks for both A Fuel and Top Methanol Dragsters

Now every one loves a good bit of night racing, who doesn’t but with Drag Racing not having any big money TV backing the lighting on track is some what lacking, AKA its a black hole which when the sun has set competly can make it a bit of a challenge.

Yep its pretty dam dark, must be a interesting feeling flying off into the murky abyss at 300+mph

Chris hartnell push started off down the track to signal the start of Sunday’s activities

Johan Lindberg waits to run 

Smoke Fills the cockpit of Thomas Lindstrom’s pro mod as he backs up from his burn out

The Crew Check under the body of the MPM Oil’s Funny car before its last run of the weekend. I put my camera on the ground and just vaguly pointed it in the right direction for this shot, don’t think it came out too bad at all.

Thats it for this time, make sure to subscribe or “like” us on facebook and be sure to check back soon for the 2011 year in pictures post, I promise it’ll be a good one

]]> http://blog.modernpics.co.uk/2011/10/16/2011-european-finals-santa-pod-raceway/feed/ 0 http://blog.modernpics.co.uk/2011/06/08/santa-pod-drag-racing-pictures/ http://blog.modernpics.co.uk/2011/06/08/santa-pod-drag-racing-pictures/#comments Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:44:16 +0000 dom http://blog.modernpics.co.uk/?p=1134

Last time I got to go drag racing it was easter, the sun was out and it was un seasonally warm, unfortunately the great weather didn’t last by the time we got to the Main event, it was cold baltic, this causes me two problems, one I hate the cold and two over cast skies really aren’t the best when your trying to take punchy images.

The big story out of the weekend was Henri Joosten’s nitrous pro mod fire, a rare accident that completely gutted the car

Unlike america Europe doesn’t have big commercial teams, its nearly all private teams doing it out of their own pocket on a sometimes shoe string budget, its never nice seeing some ones hard work go up in smoke, especially when its to the point that they can’t afford to return, after 27 years  Henri is having to call it a day and is going to be throughly missed in the pits as a great racer and a generally all round nice guy.

One of the plus sides to over cast skies is that if your really lucky you can get some great header flames from the fuel cars, the down side is that because of how flat the top of the body is you get really bad reflections that make the cars look crap so using a CP filter you can cut through the reflections.

The Strong head winds were causing tire smoke to disperse pretty quickly which did give some unique photo opportunities.

Part of my plan for the weekend was to shoot some driver portraits, unfortunately the clouds somewhat scuppered my plans as they cast really strong reflections on the screens, however I did still manage to get what I wanted from the pro stock racers by using a handheld  flash through the front window and shooting through the side window to give a pretty cool look .

Micke Callin holds on as he’s towed down the staging lanes.

Conrad Stanley sits as he has his Hanns device secured by a team member.

Jeff Kline was flown over from america by MPM oil to shoot for them all weekend, a real great guy and a blast to shoot with however it was clear from the outset that the rest of us mear photographers were doomed ! The Man can multi task  (gotta be a first for everything) .

Grabbing a lift with the canon reloaded team to the top end I arrived in time to shoot some parachute shots, because of the strong wind every one was slowing down really quickly which made it incredibly easy to shoot however the wind was also causing parachutes to get very close to the wall, the chutes are pretty easy to spot, its the tiny little drobes that are about 5 ft behind the chutes that can cause carnage .

Avid Grodem gets very close to the centre line, nocking the blocks over with his headers

Four times european top fuel champion Andy Carter coasts to a stop after struggling with a under preforming car all weekend

The Top end can get very boring, especially when they hold the racing to let a demonstration occur, to try and entertain my self while we waited I tried to see how good my reactions were with getting the sky divers to look like they were stood on top of the gantry , don’t think I did too bad!

For the final pro session of the sunday, and what turned out to be the final pro session of the weekend I ended up back on the start line with some great light.

Lex Joon burns out in front of a near capacity crowd at the FIA Main event.

Ex top fuel racer Linda Thun is driving a very vibrant Pro Mod this year.

Unfortunately the rain came down at 9 o’clock on monday and didn’t stop all day , letting Tommy Johnson Jr sail away (I make no excuses for the bad pun) with the points lead after the first round !

It always rolls round way to quickly the beginning of the end is the friday night at the national finals, the last race weekend of the year before every one hides for 6 months till it warms up again. This weekend was a little different from the norm, as I had some readers from Practical Photography magazine come and join me for the day to experience shooting drag racing, an article that should be out shortly ! Having them with me made a intresting and refreshing challenge that made me take stock and think about why I was doing what I was doing and it also gave me a bit of a kick to find something a little different.

Racing this late in the year gives you some great low level light that really hangs a round that you can just have so much fun with!

Unfortuntly Saturday was the only good day and sunday saw rain, lots of it !

This results in racers getting bored and doing odd things while they wait

Here we see super Pro ET driver Pete Walters has modified his golf cart, with wheelie bar and all!

That wraps up drag racing for this year , a very damp end to a great year!

If I could only do one drag race meeting a year then it would have to be the FIA european Finals, the final round of the season its got it all big speeds , big classes and every one going for broke. It promises to give some great racing.

Above John Bradshaw burns out at dusk in his 350z real slow shutter speed about 1/20th and then rear curtain flash to keep some sharpness to the image.

I always try and get to shoot Mark Flavell where I can not only does he put on a huge burn out but also the reflective paint work means you can get a little bit creative.

When you go into Finland you notice that the spectators often bring their sofa or arm chairs with them, its not very often that you see that sort of activity in the uk so when I spotted this I had to grab a quick snap!

They even packed the throw cushions!!!!!

Possibly the worlds easiest photo to take in drag racing is the head on shot as a Top Fuel car launches, dead easy but always looks amazing

Andy Carter Launches off the line at sunset.

Janne Ahonen Launches off the line at sunset, the biggest issue with shooting these is making sure that the force as they go past doesn’t know you over, because you know some one is going to catch is on camera. A bit like this Santa pod fail anyway back on track (pardon the pun)

Ok Ok I know I normaly promise you that I’m only going to bring you cool images and this is nothing special but this one puzzled me for an age, the tonal range is way off can only assume that I have caught the flash off a fellow photographer, which happened to be firing at the same exposure as what I was shooting, what are the chances of that !

A little late but my clouds finally made it to the party, just in time for TMD!

But I didn’t get to enjoy the fluffy clouds for too long before I got dragged away. . . . . . . .

To hang out of a lift some 20ft above the shut down area this was shot on the 16-35,I’m just above turn off one you can just see the gantry in the distance

but with a 1000mm (ish) lens

Pro Classes over there was no point hanging around for the slower classes as the run off is so long they don’t need to pull a chute  so I headed back up to the start just as the sun was starting to drop!

its evenings like this that make me feel like a small child in a candy store

The Problem is its always over far to quick and you end up working in a very very dark hole

which is never fun!

Shortly after that photo was taken I was asked to leave the middle as I’m not good enough to be shooting there, which is news to me, with my knuckles wrapped I scuttled off to somewhere more akin to my skill level and stood with every one else.

And shot that, I know I know rank amateur at best!

That wraps up all the interesting stuff. one round to go before its all over for another year, let me know what you think and don’t forget to subscribe!!

2010 is drawing to a close, snow is settling on the ground, what a better time to take a look back at what 2010 had to offer for european drag racing.26,000 pictures over the season, and I’ve thinned out the junk, got rid for the mundane and left you with the good stuff !

This post is going to be picture heavy, with few words so enjoy, let me know what you think !

Well thats it guys for this time, Don’t forget to come and join me over on facebook, and there will be lots more, soon !

Mopar Nationals is a new one for me however a couple of clients wanted pictures so I shot on over to get it covered, not too sure what to expect with it being nothing more than an american muscle RWYB weekend. Run what you bring (RWYB) can often be difficult for pictures as they rarly have cars with the same explosion and dynamic application of power that you see at race weekend. To compensate for this you have to find other ways to make the point / statement.

The flip side to it being a RWYB is that you can often get better access or get to places that you can’t always so its a case of swings and roundabouts.

Most of the day was this real flat light.

Its a case of finding a balance between a decent exposure and getting enough “punch” into the image to make it stand out .

Here I’ve used a Circ Polariser to cut through the reflections caused by the white clouds to keep the detail in the frame while giving it plenty of punch.

Also unlike a race weekend where most of my clients interest’s lay solely on the track these lifestyle events are more about the entire  weekend and all the activities that go on, because of this its always well worth splitting time between track and pits.

I’m not gunna bore you with the dull stuff cause lets face it, your here to see cool pictures. So with out further a-due onto the cool stuff !

The clouds broke late afternoon and lets behonest it would be rude not to use the late afternoon sun and blue skies to create some cool photo’s

When I saw this Elk roll round into the bleach box the last thing I was expecting was a pro mod stye rolling burn out , I love the way the light just throws texture and depth into the thick white smoke.

Fire force jet car does a couple of demo runs at events like this, as a rule I don’t normally shoot it, however it dawned on me that with this low light and the afterburn flame I could get some real cool photos so I stayed put and let rip, I’m pretty happy with the results !

Cool Don’t you think!

You always know good light is going to come to a end. The sun dropped bellow the bank and the light soon disappeared

That pretty much ended it for me so I jumped in the car and headed back home.

I have a love hate relationship with blogging but were back on speaking terms and I have loads more to keep you guys going over the long and cold winter, so subscribe and check back often!

Before We get started Welcome to the new look blog I hope its easier to get around and find cool stuff with than the old one was. Also the post’s are going to take on a new style. Hopfully a lot less “here is a load of cool shots” and more of a here is a cool shot, here is how I went about the thought process to do it. However for it to work I’m gunna need your feedback on what you wanna know, and any questions feel free to ask.

Anyway down to business!

Clicked off way too many photo’s however I was desperate to try and get something different. That was my own personal battle. The track busy hosting many battles no more so that in Top Fuel which saw Urs Erbacher back from america and on the best form in  years setting a New European Record and taking the event win. What a better way to start his assault on the title than taking the first win in reigning champion Andy Carter’s back garden.

Another very personal battle that was taking place was John Bradshaw‘s bid to get the skyline  under the 7.57 held by Heat treatments in New Zealand and set a new world record,  not contempt with going a thousand or so under  the record hea 7.45 putting it firmly in the hands of the brams racing team.

Anyway enough about battles and lets get down to what were all here for, the pictures !

Friday saw nice skies and thusly prompted a barrage of text’s to my phone asking if I had the clouds on special order, the answer is no I don’t however it would be rude not to use them seeing as they had made a effort to turn up!

I really like shooting some of the slower classes you can really push your self on the shutter speed

Some times you can push it a little too far

No too sure if it works or not, thoughts?

Saturday saw me again with other priorities, the joys of being a freelance photographer, however apparently I didn’t miss much as it rained, the super pro guys (and girls) didn’t like the idea of a swimming pool so set to clearing the pits

Sunday Saw me play around with some different things, not saying these all work. Some do , some just don’t and a few need a little polishing before the angle is nailed. Thoughts and options are welcome, drop me a comment at the bottom

If you haven’t already twigged the above were all taken from spectator points

By the time I got to the top end the sun was setting fast, not intrested in shooting the stock YAWNSVILLE head on parachute shot like every one does I threw the 16mm on (I’m a punk, I know) and tried to work with the low light that was around.

Yet another picture ruined by the copyright but unfortunately some people don’t quite understand that this is my living and feel its ok to steal my pictures, so until they learn it’ll have to stay. Anyway rant over . Love the shot above the way the sun lights up the chute and rim lights the car . So much more interesting than the dull head on shots like

However the good news is the watermark doesn’t block the shot so its not all bad. . . . .

A quick lift thanks to Anita Makela and I was back at the top end, not wanting to produce the same 3/4 shot as the rest of the guys that were on the start line I looked to really push what available light there was. A few quick adjustments and I have some beautiful colours to play with

A Quick tip! When shooting anything its always well worth thinking about recent news items or developments. In america one of the tracks no longer  allows team members in front of the car during burn outs, So I made sure to shoot something local that relates to this news, you never know when it might be needed

Due to the very dull condition header flames were pretty apprent all weekend which was nice as nothing beats a set of  8ft bunny ear’s on a fuel car

I’ve really wanted for a while to get the close up 3/4 behind shot as they launch off the line headder flames cutting across the image into the dead space. Knowing I had everything in the bag by the time the quarters Came round I gave it ago

My picture of the weekend has to be Dan larsen burning out against a setting sun. Which for me just sum’s the event up perfectly

I haven’t been around for an while. I haven’t forgotten or moved onto better things I have just been with out internet and haven’t really been able to update the blog. I’m back online now (thank god how did we ever cope before).  I have a few things to share but a couple of them I’ve gotta wait till publication so keep checking back ( or subscribe on the right) as there will be updates coming!

As we draw ever closer to the end of the year I thought  I best put up what are my best pics of 2009 . 5 countries and 33 days spent next to the race track from the 1,000′s of frames that I took I think these are the best of the bunch.

If you wanna check out the best images from each round here check out the links bellow

Picture post from Springspeed

Picture Post from Main Event

Picture Post from The Summer Nationals

Picture Post from the NSRA Nostalgia Nationals

Picture Post from the FHRA Nitro Nationals

Picture Post from the Open Sports Nationals

Picture Post From the FIA European Finals

Picture post from the NSRA Hot Rod Drags

To finish my favorite images from this year has to be

What will 2010 hold? Who knows, more sun  and fast racing for sure but hopefully some night racing, a trip to america and a couple of other things if everything goes to plan but we’ll have to wait and see.

Twice a year shakespeare country raceway sees a influx of nostalgia hot rod’s and custom cars all eager to play on the shiny quarter-mile blacktop hidden in the Stratford country side.

For me on the other hand its a opportunity to photograph some cool cars that are a little different to the norm you see on the track. Every year I do a calendar made up of some of the best Hot Rodding photography from the last 12 months , I’m very much of the belief that a hot rod should be used and abused and this event gives me the opportunity to grab some great shots of hot rods being well and truly abused.

Friday Night.

Before the racing even started I went to catch up with wild bunch racer and all round nice guy Chris Hartnell.

Lighting wise its dead simple brolly on just infront and about 3ft out of rear tire facing side on to the car. then a second light just in front of the car facing straight back to light up the front of the car. Bounce Cards and the such like where then used to add fill to shadows and the such like to help “sculpt the light”

The Sun was dropping all the time and I was fast running out of light. to round the night off I strapped the camera onto the car and sent Chris on his way

Saturday & Sunday

This weekend was a bit different to a normal one at the track as my main target was to get a nice set of images that I can use in the calendar

First things first its my epic fail for the weekend

Great shot but I just feel that it needed some fill light to make the car pop, but just look at the shape in that smoke, ohh well always next time !
There was some interesting lighting by the end of Saturday giving a great feeling of dusk and adding some great tones to the images.

Sunday I continued to play around looking for the unusual and the intresting

PWRD always do some great paint designs but I really love the way that wendy bakers logo reflects giving the image some extra pop something that really helps when your shooting on the shadow side of the car.

Not much in the way of words but some pretty cool photos !

Wow what a season its been there has been high points and low points but we’ve made it, this is it the finals it all boils down to this. Championships were won and lost on the quarter mile of sticky black tarmac in the quiet little village of Poddington at this years FIA European Finals.

He’s how I went about shooting the weekend
Thursday

Back to back sports man racing, I think in total all classes had 6 rounds of qualifiers. The morning started with a massive big expanse of blue sky and not much more so I slapped on the trusty ND grad and Circular Polarizer and aimed my lens to the sky.

by about 11 oclock some nice fluffy clouds surfaced which added some nice elements to brake up that expanse of sky

After a while the cloud closed in and really flattened the light off totally killing the angle

Quick Lens change later and I was back to shooting tight stocky stuff, something its always well worth having in the archive

Both Shot fairly loose so that they can be cropped to suit the use.

The Sky Was moving pretty quick all day and the sky cleared in time for John Bradshaw to roll round in his stunning 350z.

Wheelies were fairly common all weekend but I was not expecting S/Pro Nick Good to get such air under his front wheels with such a long dragster

Tommi Haapanen had for a while had a desire to drive a Fuel Flopper and for his birthday his wife (and top fuel driver) Anita Mäkelä made it happen with buying him a pass in the Showtime funny car

He made half track before the car made a move for the wall and he shut it off. Tommy then didn’t stop smiling all weekend, some how I think we will be seeing him in his own flopper before too long.
By the end of the day the sun started to drop behind the bank, on my way back to the press office I noticed this scene of John Atkinson launching off the line with his sun Tom watching on nocking the exposure down a stop and a half gave me a great shot.

Friday
More blue skies and a much bigger crowd for the friday.
Wheelies were again the order of the day from the sportsman ranks

Harald Sturhan in his unusual Pro Stock got very out of shape and made a dive for the tree thankfully some quick driving got him back on the straight and narrow.

Working the wall you get fairly accustomed to taking a shower mainly in the form of warm nitro. Not a special shot but this was the first shower of the weekend bit of a heavy soaking as well with two or three cylinders out by the time Dave Wilson got along side me

As the day drew to a close I walked down to the run off area which is a good half a mile plus walk. Bit of a wasted journey as I didn’t get what I wanted but never mind

Saturday
Bigger crowds again and even more blue skies. I settled down to shooting pans with plenty of blue skies

Top Fuel came round and I headed into the center island to have my very core shaken. There is no experience like being stood between two top fuel motors but it is something that every one should experience at least once, it will blow your mind.

As the afternoon progressed the sun dropped again back down behind the bank. Going against all the basic rules of photography Started shooting straight into it with the fuel cars

I continued to break the rules (I’m such a naughty boy!) and as every one made the ritural moving to the other side of the track I stayed on the now “dark side”. Using the 300mm with the Circular Polarizer I cut the reflections out of the windscreen and bonnet and put them back into the dark side of the car.



To end the day I moved round to the light side of the track. The track was now basking in some deep orange light, Warming the white balance up a little to really emphasize it. I rounded off the day with a bit of NFAA action

Bob Glassup has to have one of the prettiest modern altereds on the circuit.

I made my way back into the pits to catch up with my good friends at Motorpsycho who had spent the weekend putting their new altered together, I got their just as they started up the rodeck V8 powered monster, it would be rude not to take some pictures

Sunday

After the amazing weather of the week before Sunday was a let down gray skies pretty much all day.
Big nitro cloud from both cars as they launch off the line

Shortly afterwards that was taken Stig erm well lost a wheel. I completely missed the incident due to being blocked by a inconsiderate photographer, however I did manage to find this video of the freak accident. Video of Stig “Reliant Robin” Neergaard

As the day pressed on I got more and more frustrated with shooting tight and bright head on stock stuff, due to the weather shooting wide was a no go. I then had the idea of shooting head on to keep the image clean but really slowing the shutter down and panning the shot in a semi side on kinda style, didn’t think for a minuet it would work  but i was surprised to see it actually did!




Then the fuel bike final came around and it worked really well

And that pretty much rounds up my weekend and European Season what a year it has been not long left now till may when we get to do it all over again