Another Glance at Final Bout
I do like drifting. But the real reason I still go to these events has little to do with the cars, or the driving. To Me, camping is the good life. Out under the stars, the sounds of wind, sweeping through the trees, the lack of sirens, which never stop at home in the city. Race tracks aren’t exactly what most people think of when You say camping, but they’re a great alternative to the many popular parks, which are often booked full, or only offer a gravel parking lot full of other people and claim it’s a camp site… Usa International Raceway has, for many years, been My go to camping track. I first pitched a tent here in 2006 and have been happy to do so at least once a year since. It’s not a secluded hike in camp, nor is there a waterfall to soothe the senses. Though it is pretty sweet waking up to wailing engines and screaming tires.
Naturally, I took the time to shoot the stars on both nights this Final Bout weekend. This after all, is what I love to do most… Don’t mind the terrible video quality, tis the way of things when You get free hosting. If You watch it on Vimeo’s site, it will look a little bit better. Just don’t expect it to be great.
I would like to point out how lucky we were, or how lucky this guy was anyways. To survive without a fiery melt down. There was once a Hyundai Genesis that went up in flames and burned til it was no more than a pile of metal at this track. Though it would’ve made great pictures to see this s14 burn, I’m happy it didn’t. Please note, the flamable liquid flowing from behind the door for the gas cap!
Though My goal for the weekend was to capture as much carnage as possible, I didn’t get any. I even missed Tim slamming his car in to the back of Fish. Which looks to have ended the life of Tim’s s13 and delt a fair amount of damage to Fish’s freshly built Boss Datsun Camaro Rocket Mustang Silvia Bunny, or whatever the hell You’d call it. And so, in the absence of destruction of whole cars, here are a few more views of tires being ravaged by horsepower and tarmac. Among other things.
Drift Day Midwest: Version 53
This wasn’t My best outing on the photography end of things. I usually snap 1200, to 1800 pictures at each event. But, this time I only managed 327. Fortunately, the number of decent shots was higher than the usual 15%. Some how nearly half of the pictures I took turned out decent enough to post. Though I still need to take the time to take pictures of people, which is something I rarely ever do… I stayed up all night drinking whiskey and shooting the stars. Finally getting around to pitching My tent at 5am, proceeding to sleep for less than two hours and spending the first chunk of the day quite drunk. I think I did pretty well, all things considered. Better than Maggie anyways! Along with the 140 shots of cars, here are a few views from the night before and a video of the 3 time lapses I shot over the weekend. As usual, Vimeo’s free hosting makes video look like garbage, but Ye get what You pay for I guess. Hit the “HD” button to see it in slightly better, but still quite poor quality. No there isn’t any audio, because it’s 3am and I would rather go to sleep… I will add the handfull of clips I shot riding along with people at a later date. However, as an added bonus, here’s a picture of Pat, looking angry…
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, on with the good stuff.
Evening Sky over the Pig’s Eye
Over the winter, I went on a bit of a sunset time-lapsing spree. I am hoping to continue this trend, but have been kind of lazy about finding nice places to shoot from. The overlook on the north end of Burial Mounds Park, here in Pig’s Eye(the original name of Saint Paul, MN) has been My go to spot thus far. It’s a seriously awesome view of My home town, but I’m left feeling the need to change up the scenery..
Well, here’s another sunset from said location, taken in late March. I was shooting a pretty good sequence, but stopped it at an awkward spot, in order to shoot the second sequence. Which turned out to be pretty magical, less the single frame with an airplane in the foreground. =\ Suppose that’s the price You pay for shooting through the landing path of a small airport. Above, is a layered image. Using StarStax to merge every 25th picture from the second time lapse. Below are the first and last shots from the day. If You hit the “HD” button on the media player and watch it on vimeo’s site, it looks slightly better…
Drift Day Midwest: Version 51
Year twelve of ClubFR’s Drift Day events has begun. I’ve gone to about half of them and always had a good time.. It was great to see so many familiar faces and spend some time talking to friends from far away! DD51 was a bit odd for Me though. I was very lazy for the first half of the day and then managed to snap off almost three thousand pictures in about four hours. It wasn’t the best day photography-wise. I shot a lot with sunglasses, which always makes for bright pictures. My success rate was pretty low too, only 1 in 10 pictures was acceptable. I probably should have done some editing, a few of these got darkened/brightened, but this is pretty much how they were shot.
Below is a pair of short time lapses I shot before the track went hot and during the lunch break. Because I love shooting time lapses… After that, is the 300ish pictures that weren’t too blurry to post. :) May load slowly!
Chasing Waterfalls on the Willow River, Again…
After the failed attempt to shoot hot air balloons on Saturday, we headed 15 minutes north. Neither of the guys I was with had been to the waterfall on the Willow River and since we were already three quarters of the way there, it seemed silly not to go. There was a lot more ice than the last time, but the falls were still flowing steadily. Here is a quick time lapse of it and a few pictures. Such a gorgeous place!
