Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Notes on the Virginia Gold Cup

Photographing this years Virginia Gold Cup was challenging. I spent a lot of time trying to pull interesting pictures out from all of the visual clutter of the day. The photograph above is one of my favorite images form this shoot. It reminds me of a classic painting.

For this picture, I waited with my camera pointed in one direction for people to gather for the start of a race. I was hoping that I could fill my frame with people walk in various directions. I was trying to make a different kind of overall crowd picture.

Most of the fan reaction shots happen right as the horses cross the finish line. Many people gather on the hill near the grandstand to get a glimpse of the winning horse crossing the finish line.

Photographing color is the best thing about shooting the tailgaters at the Virginia Gold Cup.

I had a hard time working with my wide angles lens during the Virginia Gold Cup. People wanted to pose for me when they say my camera pointed in their direction. I often had to take the posed shot wait a few seconds for them to relax and quickly make a better picture.

It was hard to get a frame of this guy were he was not directly posing for me. I had to wait until a friend walk by to make a decent frame. I took his picture because of his cool hat.

Sometimes, I have no clue why I stop to take a picture. There was something about how the woman in the center was standing that attracted me to this moment.

This is the tenth group portrait that I was stop by people in the crowd to take. These pictures usually never make if out of my edit. I use to dislike making these images for people. I have found that is an easy way to break the ice and possibly get access to some more interesting moments.

This girl had an awesome hat. I tried to wait for a moment to photograph her when she was focus on something else. It never happen. Instead she watched me watching her.

In this picture, I was again trying to make an interesting image were each individuals body language was a little different.

1 comment:

drew said...

uh, you owned this gold cup...also, congrats on graduation!!!