Angel

In the spirit of the holiday season, I give you one angel ornament, photographed through the viewfinder of a 74-year-old (more or less) camera. Which is now loaded with film and will, I hope, produce some interesting photos in coming weeks.



All the best, loyal reader (or two) for the holiday season. Merry Christmas if that's your flavour, happy holidays regardless, and all the best for 2012. As usual, my resolutions will be to (a) drink less coffee, and (b) blog more. Which, of course, I promised last year, and pretty much failed to deliver.

The Street in Motion

An impromptu project to capture some of the energy of Toronto's streets, financial districts and commuter hubs. The motion is intentional, as an attempt to reflect the bustle of rush hour in Canada's largest city.

All photographs were shot with a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W130 pocket camera. Most consist of elements from several exposures layered in Photoshop CS4 and processed with a variety of plugins, mainly from Filter Forge's excellent freepacks.

The full set of images is here.







All images copyright © 2011 Richard F. Wintle.

Honda Indy Toronto 2011 Diary - part III

Part I, in which we arrive on Friday and attempt to shoot IndyCars in front of every available sponsor billboard, is here.

Part II, in which Saturday rolls around and I end up covering the NASCAR supporting event as well as lurking around pit lane, is here.

This is Part III - the main event, the IZOD IndyCar series race - and a bunch of other things.


Even during a packed race day schedule, there's inevitably some waiting around.

The day started off as usual in the Media Centre, located upstairs in the Allstream Centre (née "Automotive Building") on the Exhibition Place grounds. The morning update and safety briefing was augmented by some words from the event's chief of security, Charles Burns, a genial gentleman who nevertheless falls squarely in the "do not make this man angry with you" category. Pre-race briefing over, we had our daily pow-wow with team lead John. Race day is what we're here for, and we needed to make sure we had all aspects covered. Two photographers with "race mode" pit lane access, a couple in the grandstands for crowd shots, careful discussion of who would shoot driver introductions, the grand marshal, the anthems, flyby and other pre-race events, and a scattering of the remaining team members at key points around the track. My assignment: turn 1, for the start, and all the re-starts after the inevitable accidents during the race. In 2011, IndyCar introduced "double wide" re-starts instead of single-file, line-astern ones - promising some fireworks as the cars gallop into turn 1 when the green flag flies.

But first - morning practice, and a couple of supporting races. I shot a bit of the Canadian Touring Car Championship from turn 5, and scuttled over to Winner's Circle for the post-race festivities. I see a lot of this series throughout the year, but seldom have the opportunity to shoot the podium.


Always good to get the eventual race winner on-track.


Touring Car class winner Tom Kwok takes a pasting.

Next up was IndyCar practice, an opportunity to shoot some pit lane action, something I've never done. I took advantage of a handy TV camera hole, still empty this early in the day.


Graham Rahal and the Service Central Chip Ganassi Racing team.

Next up was more serious business - Firestone Indy Lights, a fiercely competitive series full of up-and-coming drivers. I spent a good chunk of this race doing other things, but made sure I was at the finish line to practice again for the chequered flag shot. It worked, and I even managed the sprint back to the podium ceremony. That went fine, but the obvious photo-op would be to catch race winner Stefan Wilson with his big brother, IndyCar driver Justin. Did I get the shot? No, I did not.


A happy, but very sweaty, Stefan Wilson. Shortly after this, he came after the photo corps with his champagne bottle.

And now - off to turn 1 for the main event. It turned out to be not a bad vantage point for pre-race fireworks, although the military fly-by was completely obscured by a large tree, which I was more or less directly under.


The starting fireworks - fun, but never spectacular in broad daylight.

And then, after a couple of pace laps - the start!


Lots of cars, and a full grandstand - this is what we're here for.

I waited out most of the race in turn 1, working my way around transiently to a couple of other photo holes towards turn 2. And I have to report that despite half a dozen crashes and re-starts, the drivers behaved themselves beautifully, with not so much as a minor fender-bender. The most excitement was when rookie James Jakes ran a little wide, and passed within touching distance on the wide line around the corner.


He's going slowly, and sensibly keeping out of Danica Patrick's way.

And so it went, until, with 45 minutes or so left, I skedaddled back to the finish line - just in time for a massive crash at, you guessed it, turn 1.

Not to worry though. Joined by my comrade Patrick, I was there for that all-important chequered flag photo - one chance, and one only, to nail the race winner at full speed, on the painted line, hand triumphantly in the air, with the chequers flying from the flag stand and a grandstand of cheering fans behind. At full speed, even a fast burst of continuous shots is going to miss - this is a single photo that needs to be squeezed off at just the perfect time, just as the car flickers into your peripheral vision. And we nailed it. Both of us.


That, my friends, checks all of the boxes.

All that was left was a murderously hot and breathless sprint to Winner's Circle - for the fourth time that weekend - through throngs of fans with the same idea. Into the crush of press, elbows up and peeking through heads, arms and assorted photographic paraphernalia. My photo of race winner Dario Franchitti hopping out of his car wasn't as good as last year's effort, but the podium was well covered since our whole team was there, so it didn't matter much. And by hanging around for a bit, I wound up with a couple of fun shots, including this one of 1-2 team-mates Franchitti and Scott Dixon, clinking champagne bottles after hosing down their crew (and a few innocent bystanders).


Yes, Dario's looking right at me.

And that, as they say, was a wrap. With a day's worth of racing plus a whole lot of fan, vendor area and other "event" photos in the can, it was back to the Media Centre to sift through, pull out the A-list shots to hand in, say some goodbyes, and wearily wend my way home for the last time.

Next year? If I get the call, you'd better believe I'll be there.

(All of Sunday's photos are in this Flickr set.)

Motorsport, Astrophysics and a Nobel Laureate (peripherally)

I'm cheating. This post actually lives over at Occam's Typewriter. So feel free to take a look at it over there, if you like.

Boo!

The 2011 edition of the annual pumpkin photo:



Nikon D5000
AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G
0.8 seconds at f/4.0, ISO 320
metered at +2/3 EV since the D5000 underexposes everything

A slight break in the motorsports action...

...to bring you two new arrivals at Château Ricardipus. Introducing:

Penny:



and Bob:



Both photographs taken using a Nikon D5000 with the AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 lens, at f/2.0 and ISO 1,000 in available light. Penny: 1/80th sec., Bob at 1/40th.

Honda Indy Toronto 2011 Diary - part II

(This may make a little more sense if you read part I first.)


NASCAR Canadian Tire Series podium, late Saturday afternoon.

Saturday
Once again, it was all about crowds, fans interacting with vendors, and generally any photos to tell the story of the event. And I took a lot of those photos, believe me - swinging through the Thunder Alley vendor area, past the team hospitality tents, and generally lurking around in the paddock and pit lane whenever I wasn't doing something else.

But first: some minor clean-up of the "cars in front of sponsor billboards" assignment, since it seems the entire team collectively failed to hand in anything in front of one key sponsor's signage. So - off to turn nine.

On the way, I snagged a through-the-fence shot of popular Canadian driver Alex Tagliani in morning practice, ripping down the back straight (known in civilian times as Lakeshore Boulevard). Here I'm shooting through the brand-new safety fencing - much stronger now, and generating some interesting horizontal stripes. The previous diagonal chain-link was much easier to "disappear".


The Dr. Pepper car would have been better here. Next year, maybe.

Unfortunately, the fence is obscuring the Future Shop logo on the car's sidepod, but what can you do?

Having hit Thunder Alley, still quiet this early in the morning, I took a quick swing through pit lane to grab some driver shots. Here's Graham Rahal, hailing some acquaintances. You can tell it's early - look how empty the grandstands are. Not a bad driver shot, but a total fail as far as capturing the excitement of the event.


He's got perfect teeth.

I also came across Helio Castroneves. This is the last of a series, from bare head through full helmet, as he suits up to go out on track.


Love that yellow/blue/white Penske livery.

And here's last year's winner Will Power. I like how he's staring back across his shoulder down pit lane, looking as though he's greatly concerned about something.


You'd never guess he's actually in line for the porta-potty, would you?

And on the way - finally, a chance for an IndyCar with a crowd in the background. This is a keeper, a nice addition to the "hand-in" shots, banked before race day comes on Sunday. Vitor Meira, racing for A.J. Foyt Enterprises.


That's what we need - car, sponsor signage, crowded grandstand.

And so, to turn nine and the Pizza Pizza billboard, sorely neglected yesterday. I spent the rest of the qualifying session getting shot after dull and boring shot of almost-in-focus cars, until I finally nailed a nice head-on one of Mike Conway. And then, right at the end of the session, what happens? J.R. Hildebrand stalls his car, right in front of the billboard I need! Are you kidding me? Easiest photo in history.


If he looks like he's parked - he is.

I'll admit to shooting some fun stuff along the way, including a nice photo of eventual race winner Dario Franchitti, and one of Justin Wilson laying down some rubber, and playing with slow shutter speeds a bit - good fun for me, but not really useful for the event.


Ryan Hunter-Reay, at 1/25th of a second.

The last race of the day was the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series Streets of Toronto 100. Not at all a priority, but we needed on-track shots of a key sponsor's car (the #84 Schick Hydro Chevy of J.R. Fitzpatrick), and last year's winner, popular Canadian driver Andrew Ranger. I threw in pole-winner Jason Bowles as well for good measure. So, off to the "false grid" where the cars line up before the race.


This is Dexter Stacey, not any of the "key" drivers - but I like the shot.

Next I went trackside, and ultimately to the podium ceremony. On that little jaunt I didn't just nail all three drivers before the race, but each of their cars rolling out, and each on track to boot. And since Ranger won, after tagging him crossing the finish line I high-tailed it to the podium ceremony for good measure, picking up a text message from team leader John asking me if I could get to it. "Already there!" - it felt good to send that reply.


Winner Andrew Ranger with Kim Green of Green/Savoree - one of the big bosses of the weekend.

And that was pretty much a wrap. I collected podium shots of all the NASCAR finishers, although my photos of them spraying champagne weren't good. And the ones of Ranger's car taking the chequered flag, from the grandstand, were useless, but a helpful education for Sunday's IndyCar race. You'll see the finish line photo from the marquee event in the next post.

And so, back to the media centre for the usual hour or two of editing and handing shots in, and off home to bed. Saturday's photos are in this set.

Next: Sunday - Race Day. IndyCars, Canadian Touring Cars, and a bunch of podium ceremonies.

The Part I post, including Thursday and Friday, is here.

Honda Indy Toronto 2011 Diary - part I

Sebastian Saavedra - the most colourful car of the weekend.

I'm a bit late, the race having taken place in mid-July, but here's the beginning of my synopsis of this year's Honda Indy Toronto weekend. You can read about last year's event, if you like, in four, count 'em four, separate posts:

• Pre-Race Events
• Friday - Warming Up
• Saturday - Getting Busier
• Sunday - Race Day!

This year, once again, I was lucky enough to be credentialed by the event (Honda Indy Toronto / Green Savoree), back on a team with seven others (six repeat offenders from last year, and one new recruit). With eight of us instead of twelve, the ship had to run a little bit tighter. Minor modifications to the shot list, more consistent trackside access, and a single team instead of two all contributed to what turned out to be a pretty tight and effective team. I was sporting a Nikon D5000 and a few nifty lenses this time, a big improvement from last year's Sony DSC-R1. And again, the group was great - lots of laughs, hard slogging around the track for three days, good-natured one-upmanship and showing off our shots. And sunscreen. Lots of sunscreen.

Thursday
The week's fun started off with an autograph session with Alex Tagliani at the downtown Toronto Future Shop - an event I sleuthed out online, and got access to by the gambit of simply asking the store manager, who then pitched the request to the chain's PR person, who said "sure - as long as the store manager says it's ok", or words to that effect. Ask, and ye shall... you know.

Tags was a champ, charming fans old and young, and when he heard who I was shooting for, hauled me off to the brand-new Bowers and Wilkins display - his sponsors. This cheesy-grin-product-shot was entirely his idea, proof positive that the man knows the value of keeping his sponsors happy.


Go on, buy a B&W iPod dock, you know you want to.

Friday
First day on-site, and a chance to check out what would be my race-day assignment, the photo holes in turn 1. After some general faffling around trying to discover the access point, I made my way there and explored the scissor lift to raise us above the catch fencing, and a couple of other likely spots through the fence. A chance to practice a bit, and bank a few Ferrari Challenge and IndyCar shots.


One great-looking Ferrari - Ryan Ockey / Ferrari of Ontario


Sebastien Bourdais, from the turn 1 photo hole.

Friday afternoon brought more time for IndyCars in front of sponsor billboards, and a chance to explore the track a bit. Here's my favourite - Marco Andretti, shot using the D5000's kit lens, an 18-55mm zoom, through a friendly corner worker's flagging hole. I reached this area, just inside turn 8, after a protracted hike around the inside of the track from, oh, turn five or thereabouts.


This would have been better in front of the Dr. Pepper billboard.

Of course, the day also required shooting as many fan and crowd photos as possible, since once again the event opened its doors, providing free admission (courtesy of the Honda Dealers of Ontario... go and buy one now!). Catching drivers in the paddock and on their way to and from practice sessions wasn't too hard. Here's Newman Haas Racing's Oriol Servia, grimly taking on the burden of being a professional race car driver.


Yes, it's overexposed. He still looks great.

The day wound up with NASCAR Canadian Tire Series qualifying - not really a priority for shooting, but fun and plenty loud. This time, I stuck myself in the photo hole on the inside of turn 1, picking off the big stock cars as they rumbled around in front of the Princes' Gate.


Dave Connelly, making some noise.

Not a bad day at all. Of course, most of the "shots to hand in" were of fans, crowds, that kind of thing, but in among all that I was pretty confident I'd gotten turn 1 scouted out for Sunday's race.

The next installment will be Saturday... more billboard photos, Helio putting his helmet on, and a whole bunch of NASCAR.

More photos, as usual, are in my Autosport collection, if you want to skip ahead:

• Thursday - Autograph sesson with Alex Tagliani
• Friday
• Saturday
• Sunday

It's almost here...

The 2011 Honda Indy Toronto.



And like last year, I will be there all three days, media credentialed and shooting like mad.

Rainy Days and Mondays...

...get me down, or so the song goes.



These photos, on the other hand, were taken on a Tuesday evening. With only my pocket camera to hand, the trusty Sony DSC-W130 that I picked up out of the rewards catalogue over at another online haunt of mine, miles of not-so-open road between work and home, and a dreary day - well, it seemed a good opportunity to experiment.



I'll figuratively tip my hat to fellow Flickr member Giuseppe Basile, who has taken some very nice shots in this general style. Take a look at this one, as an example.

I actually messed these last two up a bit, intending to focus on the subject while letting the raindrops on the window fall out of focus and provide some kind of nice, shimmery blur. That was the concept, anyway, but I underestimated the W130's ability to focus on things very, very close to it - and got the raindrops sharp instead. Happy accident - I think they ended up looking better this way.



Somedays, I guess, dismal weather is good, and somedays it's helpful to have only the simple gear along. If I'd tried this with my DSLR, I probably would have failed miserably. But that's not always going to be the best solution. With a weekend of car racing coming up, I'll be quite happy to haul the "big" camera along - and have no rain, I hope.

Of Spring, and things.

First American Robin of the year. Shot through window glass.
Nikkor AF-S DX 55-300mm, 1/30th sec., f/5.6, ISO 200

Spring's coming.

Robins, House Finches, Grackles, Red-Winged Blackbirds, Goldfinches - all summer residents, and all appearing in the back yard over the last week or so. Despite a dumping of snow on Thursday, causing Mr. Robin to blow himself up into a ball to stay warm, they're here to stay, warbling from the rooftops and madly scurrying around collecting nesting material.

On the other hand, I was scurrying around myself on Friday, heading to Seneca College to give my more-or-less-annual guest lecture to students in their Bioinformatics Program, an enjoyable chance to catch up with an old friend who runs it, and to test-drive my latest slide deck, which uses rather a lot of photos of zoo animals to make various points. That all seemed to go well, and gave me an opportunity to explore the adjacent York University campus a bit, an interesting conglomeration of coloured concrete, strange angles, and metal details. I particularly liked the huge and ironically impersonal monolith of the Ross Humanities and Social Sciences building, and the crazy internal details of the Joan and Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Art, full of interesting design elements, half-finished sculptures, and enthusiastic arts students.


Ross Building
1/200th sec., f/8, ISO 200

I decided, on this occasion, to take only a single, fixed-focal-length "prime" lens with me, a technique used by many, many photographers over the ages, including the incomparable Henri Cartier-Bresson - no zooms, no wide-angles, no telephotos. In this case, I had just a 35mm lens that on my DSLR gives more-or-less the same "normal" field of view as Bresson's 50mm mounted on his venerable Leica. The idea is to use your feet and hands and eyes to compose the photograph, rather than a zoom ring.


Wall detail, Centre for Fine Art
Indoors - 1/640th sec., f/2.8, ISO 1,000

Having trundled around Keele Campus for a bit, I'm finding myself rather pleased with the little 35. As expected, it's a bit soft at very narrow apertures, likely due both to diffraction inside the lens and also the resulting slower shutter speeds, showing up my less-than-rock-solid hands. Also as expected, when fully wide-open it does suffer a bit from coloured fringing around bright objects. But in its sweet spot, which I don't think I've quite hit in either of the photos above, it's rather nice indeed. There will be more photos coming... once the weather warms up a bit.


The lens in question.
Shot with Nikkor 18-55mm @ 18mm, 1/6th sec., f/3.5, ISO 200.

Weekend Update

Today's news - nothing much, just a template re-design. The blog looks more modern, but still rather "like a Blogger blog".

The background will probably be changed, but it'll do for now. Suggestions welcome. In the meantime, here's a photo of a fish, from a recent trip to the zoo.



Technical details
camera: Nikon D5000
lens: AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G
exposure: 1/80th sec.
aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 1,000

Product Photography (not quite) 101

For the past few days, Chateau Ricardipus, or at least a very small part of it on and around the dining table, has been transformed into an ad hoc photo studio and marketing operation. In her role as co-chair of our school's Parent Council, Mrs. Ricardipus is spearheading a Spell-a-thon and associated prize draw. The dining room has been taken over with Justin Bieber paraphernalia a-plenty, as well as various toys, gift certificates, and whatnot. Perhaps rashly, I volunteered to take photos of the prizes, to be reproduced at small size to go on ballot boxes, and also as 8 x 10-inch promo posters.

Rashly, I say, because I have this much experience at photographing products:

None.


A really terrible previous attempt.

Never mind - fresh from reading Michael Freeman's Top Digital Photography Tips, I transformed the dining room table into a veritable homonculous of a studio setup. Developing through a few iterations, the final version involved a base and backing of white foamcore, a gently bent piece of bog-standard printer paper as a background, a mirror underneath and a couple of cookie boxes to hold the whole thing up. Side lighting came from a couple of Ikea gooseneck lamps, an el cheapo $25 off-camera flash, a desk lamp, some sunlight through a window, and the pop-up flash on my Nikon D5000. Sheets of white tissue paper diffused the sidelighting.

Predictably, the results looked - well, pretty amateur. The mess of colour temperatures from the natural light, the incandescent lamps and two totally different flashes really messed things up, and there were ugly shadows everywhere, although I got some workable results. This photo, of my newest lens, will give you some idea:


Not too bad, but covered in different coloured reflections, and that shadow is U.G.L.Y.

Fortunately, a couple of Flickr contacts had some good suggestions. Charles suggested this video tutorial - which as well as being amusing, made me feel a little better, since one of the two approaches to budget product shooting involved, you guessed it, two Ikea gooseneck lamps(!). Brian, on the other hand, pointed me at this excellent setup he built, out of a cardboard box, and, wait for it, white tissue paper and desk lamps, among other things. Both of these guys take very nice photos - so I felt a little better.

The next day, I found myself with one more prize to photograph - an iPod nano, in devilishly white, shiny, dust-prone and reflective packaging. Taking further hints from the incomparable Ken Rockwell, particularly on using a glass base to make the shadows "fall" out of shot, I quickly whipped up a new setup, which you can see here, bolting my D5000 on to the trusty old Velbon tripod, setting everything up in front of a mirror and using some handy drawers for the Ikea clip lamps.



Ready, set...

"Battery exhausted."

Yes, I knew it had been running down the previous evening, and no, I hadn't stopped to charge it. All that live view on the LCD screen to frame the shot had finished it off. Do I have a spare battery? Heck no. But at this point, I was bound and determined to get the shot - and so whipped out Mrs. Ricardipus's trusty Sony DSC-R1, and in a fit of supreme laziness, hand-held it more or less next to where the D5000 was sitting on the tripod. And took what turned out to be, I think, a rather nice photo, even if its graininess does show up just how badly the Sony does in low light with the sensitivity turned up to even ISO 400.



Of course, by the time I took this shot, let alone edited it, she'd already found a perfectly good promotional photo, made up the poster, and printed it. But darn it, I got the shot, and that's what really counts, isn't it?