Photographer?

[inkjunkie]

Photographer.....I always say that I am not one, that I am just a fat guy that likes taking pictures. Both the MX track and Renegade announce me over the PA system as a photographer, which normally makes me cringe a bit.
I shoot RAW, which means I have to edit each individual shot. Often times what the camera captures is either not how I remember it or captures something that just isn't "right". This also gives me the ability to adjust the images to how I want them to look.
Every time I shoot I learn something new, often times what I do learn is that I was doing something wrong. Same can be said for editing. I used to use the basic 4 sliders and call it good. Now, well...I do a lot more tweaking. Not saying that it is the right tweaking but it is tweaking all the same. This was a shot from my last trip to Renegade...

Shooting at a dragstrip is often difficult. Worst time of the day to be shooting is when the sun is overhead...tons of glare off of the chrome etc. Often times as the sun moves, while the glare gets better you end up looking right into the sun. Dig out the filters, play with where I am metering for light etc. Another thing editing does is it give you the ability to do things that are...well..different. This is only me second attempt at this..

For an experienced Photoshop user this is very easy to do. Mask the car and then turn the background b&w. First attempt I forgot about what was behind the rear glass...I left it color.

I have gotten a lot of new friend requests on Facebook. The bulk of them are racers from the MX track and Renegade. One of my new "friends" is a "photographer". He is posting albums with 400 images in them the day after the event..which means he is not shooting RAW nor is he editing....and to be honest it is more then obvious. Colors are very dark & muted. Very poor composition. Lot of images where the camera was only 90% focus. His panning shots...well....suck. Shutter speed is way off. Honestly...his images are a train wreck. Folks are leaving all sorts of "great shots" comments....while I am sitting here laughing.

I now understand why Derek makes sure he thanks me several times a day when I am at Renegade. And why when there is one particular racer at the MX track, whose girl friend is a "photographer"....that he always is praising for her great work...yet when she sees me coming with my cart in tow she disappears. I am beginning to understand it.

He shoots at several tracks on the coast. One of them I am sorta planning on going to soon. I just hope that I can keep my mouth shut.

I am far from a great "photographer". I will never have the skills that Mark J. Rebilas has..but if my images looked like my new "friend" on FB I sure as hell would not be posting them.

 

[Treblig]

Anything that moves would come out blurry if I took the pic and the object of the picture wouldn't be centered either!! How do you get color on the car and black and white in the background??

 

[Unconventional]

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I have gotten a lot of new friend requests on Facebook. The bulk of them are racers from the MX track and Renegade. One of my new "friends" is a "photographer". He is posting albums with 400 images in them the day after the event..which means he is not shooting RAW nor is he editing....and to be honest it is more then obvious. Colors are very dark & muted. Very poor composition. Lot of images where the camera was only 90% focus. His panning shots...well....suck. Shutter speed is way off. Honestly...his images are a train wreck. Folks are leaving all sorts of "great shots" comments....while I am sitting here laughing.

[/QUOTE]

I had a pretty good handle on the old SLR, new digital I'm still on the learning curve

Framing issues at times

 

[MOPARMAGA]

Take credit for your work, you're worth it doug

 

[inkjunkie]

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I have gotten a lot of new friend requests on Facebook. The bulk of them are racers from the MX track and Renegade. One of my new "friends" is a "photographer". He is posting albums with 400 images in them the day after the event..which means he is not shooting RAW nor is he editing....and to be honest it is more then obvious. Colors are very dark & muted. Very poor composition. Lot of images where the camera was only 90% focus. His panning shots...well....suck. Shutter speed is way off. Honestly...his images are a train wreck. Folks are leaving all sorts of "great shots" comments....while I am sitting here laughing.

I had a pretty good handle on the old SLR, new digital I'm still on the learning curve
View attachment 1715760892 View attachment 1715760892 View attachment 1715760893

Framing issues at times [/QUOTE]
Framing issues...for me often times I know I hesitate when stabbing at the shutter....I am working on not doing it but it is a struggle. I have a crap load of images where only a rear bumper is in the picture...and it is blurry. The struggle is real

 

[inkjunkie]

Anything that moves would come out blurry if I took the pic and the object of the picture wouldn't be centered either!! How do you get color on the car and black and white in the background??

In Photoshop. In PS you can add layers. Each layer should be only one adjustment or tweak. That image I masked over the car (sounds simple but for someone with a lot of arthritis and pseudo gout in his hands making the intricate mouse movements is a real pain in the ***). The mask hides what ever is under it. I then added another layer and just made that layer black and white. Turned the original color layer off, turned the masked layer off which showed the color car on the b&w background...or something to that effect. This was my first attempt. Thought I nailed it but....well...if you look over the hood scoop and to the left of the guys helmet you will see the color of the original image. I forgot to mask all of that. That is the part that is a pain in the arse. The perimeter of the car was easy. But going around the rear view mirror, the roll cage etc is a difficult because my hands don't move all that smoothly. You use a brush to do a lot of this stuff...it is hit or miss whether the brushes are going to work, at least in my computer. If you Google Photoshop brush issues you will find a lot of threads on various forums about it.

 

[inkjunkie]

Often times I just put all my gear in the back seat of my truck so I can get going. One time I was importing the images from the track...and had 58 gigs of images....of the lens cap. Everything must have moved around a bit on my trip home and something ended up holding the shutter button down. I now turn the cameras off before putting them in the truck....