Category: Motorsport

Demolition Derby Tilt Shift Photography

Some Demolition Derby Tilt Shift Photography from the Oakland County Fair this week.  I was at the fair again this year and decided to spend a little more time making photographs at the track, which I have  done some over the years.  I knew I would shoot some panning motion and some stop motion of the cars kicking up dirt during the evening.  Just for fun I brought my LensBaby lens.  It is an inexpensive lens that lets you tilt the plane of focus relative to the sensor plane.  The result is a very shallow depth of field at the plane of focus.  The effect is similar to photographing a miniature set with a close up lens.

The event this night was not really demolition derby, but Off Road Derby as part of The Night of Destruction. Automotive photography is just something fun to do another day at the fair.  I have shot many times at he arena and pits in years past.

MOTOGP Pit photography

A bit of MOTOGP Pit photography.  I was lucky enough again this year to be a pit and paddock marshal for MOTOGP at Circuit of the Americas.  MOTOGP is the Formula1 of motorcycle racing, the fastest, most technologically advanced road bike in the world. When cornering, the motorcycles will lean over up to60 degrees from vertical.  The riders’ knees and elbows easily drag on the track!

These shots are from the Friday pit walk where the organization let workers and special guests walk along the pits after all activity had stopped for the day.

The teams had the most prominent bikes out, Valentino Rossi’s #46 Movistar Yamaha, Dani Pedrosa‘s #26 Repsol Honda and #04 Jorge Lorenzo’s Ducati The shots of the pavement and markings are not from MOTOGP, but left over form Formula1.  The shot of one of the pitman communication stand was funny because on of the monitors was on and the Detroit Tigers were on.

For the race day, I was the row position card holder for row 6.  We had to hold or cards on poles out as the riders approached their location for the start and them have our yellow flag read for the start of the race in case on of the riders in out row could not start or had a problem.  Very exciting, very intense, arguably one of the best places to see a start of a motorcycle race.

 

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Indiana Flat Track

Some shots from last Saturday’s AMA Flat Track event at the Indiana State Fair Grounds in Indianapolis.  This event was held on the same weekend as the MOTOGP race at the Speedway, so it seemed a lot of the press and teams went.  The stands and infield areas were full.  It seems many of the MOTOGP teams are Italian as most of the pro photographers and many in the infield were speaking Italian.  Kenny Roberts did a 4 lap exhibition on a crazy bike.  I even saw Valentino Rossi in the infield.

Cool event, want to go to more

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© MPKphoto 2019

Mark Kelly, Clarkston, MI 48346 | 313.549.7684 | [email protected]