It appears I have become the "official" staff photographer of yet another group, or at least I have been so referred to by the head of the group. The group is a bunch of fellows who enjoy hand-crafting slot car models of 1970s Formula One race cars. They hold several slot car races for their members each year, and once a year they have a special event where they invite several retired Formula One drivers to attend and "drive" one-of-a-kind authentic reproductions of the cars they drove while active.

The head of the group is married to one of the ladies in the dance group I do photos for, and through her recommendation to him I got invited to tag along down to Tokyo for the day and cover the event. There was quite a bit of media there and I got to see first hand that while the working pros tend to have "better" equipment, what I have heard about them not trying as hard for a shot seems to have at least a basis in fact.

The event lasted about 2 1/2 hours, during which I shot 289 photos, 185 of which were worth doing working up for giving the group, and maybe 3 or 4 are actually worth looking at on their own.

All photos were done with the K20D in single frame mode and AF.S, using a Tamron 28-75/2.8 at f8. All were shot with a Pentax AF280T flash in auto mode and ceiling bounced.

The bald-headed gentleman is Yojiro Terada, known in Japan as "Mr. LeMans" for his record 29 appearances in the 24hr race there. At 61, he's still an active driver.

Waiting for the "I hate flash. Flash ruins pictures" crowd to tell me how flash ruined these, by the way.

[maxwell1295]

Well done, Mike. I really like that first shot. As for the flash, I assume it was off-camera or did you bounce it? Either way, there was only one pic where I can tell flash was used (the 5th shot).

I just read your post again and saw that you bounced. Good stuff...

[monochrome]

Great images - projecting feeling, as if I feel what the person is thinking. Especially like #3. Although my brain knows the cars aren't moving My skin feels a bit of impending disaster as they race into a head-on with the man's elbows. Maybe that's because in my youth elbows weren't supposed to be on the track (nothing was supposed to be on the track but cars) and the rules violation jangles some deep memory.

As to flash . . .

Light is Light . . .

(see Rite 1)

[StevenVH]

Hi Mike, good job with the slot car club. I shot a couple of "odd" groups/events during college and found the trick was to produce images that satified the participants as well as to make good photos in general. If you're able to view or show the images out of context and find them "...actually worth looking at on their own." then you've done well. The first shot of the cars works for me, the portrait of "Mr LeMans" with his cell-cam is my fav and with a good caption would be a great human interest type feature shot.
I'm not from the "I hate flash" camp and just picked up an AF280T myself. For me the bounce and swivel feature in general is practically the only way to get acceptable results with on-camera flash.

cheers

[Mike Cash]

The pro who was there with the bestest and the mostest gear (His stuff was on a two-wheel dolly and in another humongous bag) was using a 1D and had a 580 flash mounted, using a belt-mounted power pack for it. I watched in utter disbelief as he did posed head shots from about a foot away, in proper traditional Canon Pro machine-gun mode of course, with his flash pointed straight at the subjects' faces. Nevermind the photographic implications.....how about showing a little consideration and not blinding people?

Other than that guy, there were one or two others there with Canon, two or three with Nikon, and one guy with an Olympus. Some of this group were using pop-up flash.

About halfway through the event I noticed that the Gear King had started to bounce his flash. I like to think he got the idea from the Pentax Amateur.

As I sit here and think about it, other than the posed head shots, I can't recall anyone shooting anything in portrait orientation, and I only recall the Gear King going portrait for the portraits (and hammering their eyeballs with photon torpedoes).

I learned afterwards that a lot of the magazines that came to cover the event didn't send reporters....the editors came and did it themselves. They were fresh young reporters working the racing circuit and these were some of the drivers they covered back then. So when a chance came up to spend a fun afternoon with them, they took the assignment themselves.

A good time was had by all. I don't know if I would have enjoyed it more or less if I were a fan of Formula One and actually knew who these guys were beforehand. I'm sure I did a better job working the event by not knowing. By not being a fan I'm neither excited nor in awe, nor did I feel the urge to be a participant in the event/chatter. All I needed to know was which guys to shoot.

One interesting thing probably unique to this sort of event was that during the course of the race when slot cars would jump out of their slots, the photographers stationed around the track were expected to suspend photographing long enough to place the car back in the proper slot.

[Andres]

Nice shots! I like #2 and 3 and nice story about the Canon guy and his blinding flash!

[Andi Lo]

I really like #1 and #3, for reasons already said above =) Funny story with the Canon guy too

[J.Scott]

Nice shots Mike.
Looks like a lot of serious fun.

(Weird, but the guy in the 5th picture looks a lot like my brother in law. )

[ChipB]

Mike, very nice portrature work - I really like the 3rd one - he's really focused on getting the shot!! But, the photo of the young lady really interests me - what the heck does she have on her fingernails??

[Mike Cash]

Mike, very nice portrature work - I really like the 3rd one - he's really focused on getting the shot!!

I thought it was interesting that a guy who is a very famous (at least in Japan) race car driver was so absorbed in admiring the cars and intent on getting a good shot of the model of his own car from 30 years ago with his cell phone. I thought it was a nice "human" touch perfect for a candid shot and shows that we grown-up men are all just overgrown boys when you get right down to it.

But, the photo of the young lady really interests me - what the heck does she have on her fingernails??

A better question would be "What does she NOT have on her fingernails?". She had all sorts of glitz, glitter, and beads on them. She works as a nail artist. Her father is the head of the group, so I made sure to get a couple of shots of her for her dear old Papa. I wouldn't have gotten in to the event without them, even had I known about it and wanted to shoot it. It was strictly a closed-to-the-public affair. Outside of the invited magazine folks, I was the only person invited there for the purpose of photographing the event.

I had an e-mail this evening regarding the seven sample shots I put up on Flickr for them to see, and the head of the group was very pleased with them. He's asked if I wouldn't like to try my hand at slot car racing myself and has offered to hand-build a car for me. I think I may take him up on it. It's really quite an offer when you consider all the work that goes into making one. They don't start with bodies from a model company and just paint them; they even do the casting themselves. Naturally, I'm going to ask to have a car done up with Pentax logos.