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Thread: Where The Action Is

  1. #261
    Team Member smittythewelder's Avatar
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    But knowing WHAT to shoot is one of your big advantages, Wayne, and your candid shots of the guys and gals working in the pits or at the scorers' table or just gabbing is something no outsider, no local newspaper photog, is going to think of, however technically skilled he might be. Maybe like some others from out of your area, I never met most of the people in your photos, but I knew OF them, so they seem like something more than just strangers to me. My old BSH buddy Rusty Rae did a similar thing with his images of the Stock guys.

    As to film versus digital, it seems to me that different skills are emphasized. I have a pal who is a professional photographer (used to shoot motorcycle roadracing), and I am in awe of his editing facility with Photoshop (or whatever program), which seems to be an essential with digital. OTOH, I used to go to Seattle Totems ice hockey games fifty years ago and glance over in the outside corner of the rink at Bob Carver with his big Speed Graphic (maybe even without motor-drive), and watch him wait and wait for THE SHOT. Any old Region 10 racer will tell you about Carver's ability to watch a field of boats, judge the likelihood of each for doing something dramatic, and anticipate THE SHOT. I think film particularly put a premium on that skill of anticipation, as well as of framing and composition. For my money, Wayne, you got all of those skills down!!
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  2. #262
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
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    Thanks Smitty, I appreciate your kind words. After Dale submitted a couple of photos by e mail to me explaining what he meant, I have reexamined my original post. You have just hit on what I was trying to figure out how to explain it Smitty.....THE SHOT. There was a famous B&W photographer from France...I think his name (what he went by) was Cartier-Bresson. He was famous for taking the picture at the exact moment before something happened. For instance a well dressed man looking askance at Cartier Bresson the moment before his highly polished shoes stepped into a puddle of mud. Bob Carver was one of the guys I thought about, but didn't mention his name. He was a master like you say Smitty. He had less film to work with for covering a heat than I did. Yet he always captured the moment. His photos are monumental in Unlimited boat racing history, and everything he did was without autofocus or built in light meters. I have some magazines that specialize in his photos.

    What I was thinking about since Dale sent me the email was that the first four guys I mentioned did with film with what I did because they were there before and during my time and did it better than I could. Partly because I was racing and stuck in the pits. I couldn't move around when the sun changed in the afternoon and became very harsh and contrasty. I couldn't get into a boat in a corner, or move to a better spot for photos in a corner. All I had was my motor drive Nikon and a 500mm lens to get what I could from the pits. That's why I did a lot of roaming around the pits before a race with my 24mm and 135mm lenses for the pits shots.

    The digital photographers I mentioned, and I left Jean out, but I think they are so equally dedicated photographers that I think they would have done the same quality work without having the computerized cameras to figure out focus, exposure etc. They know their composition, and since they are dedicated boat racers, I think they have a pretty good idea on when is a good time to snap a photo. They do have the luxury though of spinning through a lot of action and picking out the best. That is a plus. On divisionals or championship race I shot between 300 to 500 frames. On local races it was around 100. I had to develop all that myself and that took time and took it's toll on mistakes. With the digital cameras you don't have to worry about that, so there are possibly many more good images to choose from, but I still say the Cream of the Crop could do it.



  3. #263
    Team Member smittythewelder's Avatar
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    Black and white darkroom work used to be kind of fun. My dad had been a photographer's assistant while in high school in the Thirties, and kept his hand in as an occasional hobbyist, and I sometimes served as his darkroom assistant, mixing the D-76 or Dektol, running the enlarger or print-box, even trying to pull the exposed Plus-X or Royal X Pan (sort of an early Tri-X) out of its cartridge slowly enough not to get that static discharge that could fog the film before you ever got to look at it. Yeah, kind of a treat . . . .

    But developing "300 to 500 shots," Wayne?? Mercy!!!
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  4. #264
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
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    It's not as bad as I guess it sounds the way I put it Smitty. At the Nationals I usually exposed 12 to 18 rolls of black & white film and processed them in a stainless steel tank that I could do 5 at a time. The real problem was that in South Texas the water was too hot to process at the ideal 68 degrees. Our water came out of the tap in the summertime at around 75 degrees. I would chill the developer down to 70, the have the stop bath around 71-72, then the fixer around 73-74, then the clearing agent and rinse at ambient temperature. For those not familiar with film processing, the hotter the developing bath, the faster the image develops. Their is a chart to figure out how long a particular film in a particular developer needs for complete development. The problem with going it too fast can result in overdevelopment as well as uneven development and too much contrast. But if you develop the film at one temperature and then a significant change in temperature for the rest of the process, it can cause the colloid in the film to expand or contract, thus ruining the images. So that was the real problem. And then I printed each roll on a contact sheet which is 8 X 10 photo paper on which the film strips are laid, then tiny photos of the frame size are printed. So when I say 300-500 frames Smitty, I only meant I developed them. I only printed and developed the prints in Dektol or Microdol X that I wanted. That's where digital is really handy. You can shoot a thousand frames and save only the ones you want to keep, and do it before you even leave the race course to come home. You skip the development and just go straight to the computer to do any editing, and that's instantaneous also.

    I liked reading about your darkroom experiences Smitty. I really like doing B&W. Color's too much trouble. ten times more so than B&W. You are right about the static discharge. I used to open a cartridge, then touch a corner of the leader to a metal developing tank to discharge any electrical charge that might be built up before loading the film onto a spool.


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  5. #265
    BoatRacingFacts VIP racingfan1's Avatar
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    I was fortunate to have a science teacher in junior high school that had an interest in photography. He started a photography club in which we had a darkroom and we learned to do our own film development. I learned a lot in his class and that club. He put us in a lot of different situations where you learned to set up your camera to the situation presented. He would have us take a picture and then he would take one with his setting to show us the difference.

    I still have my film camera and have thought about bringing it out just to see how I would do. I guess I could do the same with digital just set it to one shot and see how it goes. I would hate to use film with today's camera technology. The Canon 7d mkii body i have is capable of 11 frames a second , sure could burn through a lot of film that way.
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  6. #266
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Ron Hill Has Always Been "Lucky"

    In 1962, the 91 Freeway bought my parent's home. I had lived there for 18 years. We moved to Garden Grove, June 1962, where I knew no one.

    I soon realized there were more girls in my neighborhood than boys and most of these girls were my age. Bill Boyes used to love coming down to see me.

    One girl I dated and really liked, also dated Steve Martin. At the time, I didn't know who Steve Martin was and nobody else did either. This girl, "LINDA" would tell me I was the second funniest guy she knew, which pissed me off in those days.

    Steve had dog named "**** HEAD" which I thought was a "DUMB NAME".

    Anyway, by summer's end, I knew a ton of people in Garden Grove.

    I enrolled at Orange Coast College and Jimbo moved in with us. The first year was not that fun, as there were many "War Babies" and over crowded classes. Jimbo's mom's restaurant was doing poorly, so he moved home to Needles.

    By mid year, my second year, I realized I could graduate (two year college) but needed some elective credits.

    My friends said, "Take photography, it is a fun class".

    So I signed up for photography. The teacher said, "Are you Russ Thrill's brother?" Then he said, "I mean, Russ Hill's brother?" He said he and Russ had been friends at Long Beach State. This sounded good!

    I checked out a camera. After the first day, I decided to figure out what "Depth Perception was".

    So, I'm walking across campus...and I see this girl that lived on my street that everyone called "The Garden Grove Statue Symbol" because just dating her gave you status. (SHE WAS AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL, TOO, her name was Lynn but she would give Natalie Wood a run for her money.) I had seen here many times when I was driving home but had no reason to talk to her.

    So, now I have a camera. I see her walking along. I go, "Hey listen, I need to take some pictures for 'depth perception'". She says, "Don't you live down the street from me?" I say, "Yes, and I know who you are, you are the Garden Grove 'Statue Symbol'"

    She says, I never heard I was the "Garden Grove Status Symbol". I say, "Well, you are and everyone knows it...."

    So, I take a few pictures and tell he I'll bring them by so she can see them.

    Well, in 1963, having a 8 X 10 of your head is pretty cool. The Status symbols and I date til January 1967.

    So, I go off to college in Arizona, they give me credit for Photography as art for teachers.

    Oh, on the side bar, there were a few other girls that I took pictures of, they all loved the 8 X 10 head shots.

    I fell in love easy and often in those days!
    Last edited by Ron Hill; 06-02-2018 at 07:21 PM.

  7. #267
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
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    I took a semester of photography when I was a junior in high school, then again in college in my last semester I took a photography class again. Both were elective classes as there were no other interesting classes to get the hours I needed. Here is the girl I picked as lead of my depth perception assignment. And you are correct about the 8 X 10 head shots. Here is one of my first true love. This may have been an assignment for head shots. Can't remember.
    Attached Images Attached Images


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  8. #268
    BoatRacingFacts VIP racingfan1's Avatar
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    Is that somebody's box camera laying on the ground in the first picture Wayne?
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  9. #269
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
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    Yes Dale. It belongs to the guy in the middle. To the right of the girl on the end is another one. They were all in my photography class and we were outside shooting an assignment. The first girl also has one, probably on the ground too. These were all the same cameras provided by the class. They were double lens reflex cameras and you look down the top to focus. The top lens is the one you focus through and the film is exposed through the bottom lens. You had to take this into account when taking closeups because what you saw through the lens is about two inches higher than what the actual photo will be. The image is also backwards on the focusing lens and utilized a rangefinder system. That is you see a double image and when you turn the knob to bring the two images together, then the focus is correct. No light meter. That's where you learn to bracket shots to make sure you got an image with the correct density. All Texas colleges and high schools used the same camera. Think it was a Rolliflex and I guess they had the contract.


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  10. #270
    Team Member smittythewelder's Avatar
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    My dad had an old Ikoflex like that; different film format, "two-and-a-quarter-square" rather than 35mm. Shot lots of what ultimately became color slides with it. I felt a little, what, dorky using that camera, and had a little trouble getting the full attention of a subject because you hold the camera at chest-level and look down into a ground glass to focus. Seemed more natural to bring an SLR in front of your face, and the subject knew your were just about to take the shot, and not to blink or rub her nose or whatever.

    "I fell in love easy and often in those days," oh Ron, cracks me up!! But in my case, I might put that as, "The gals sure had me jumping through a lot of hoops in those days!" IF ONLY I could have been one of the cool guys that can make THEM jump through hoops, LOL.

    . . . and did photography for PLAYBOY, oh, man!!!


    Whoa, here's a fresh example of getting THE SHOT:
    http://www.boatracingfacts.com/forum...288#post155288
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