Winchester Speedway Sprint Car Races

Uh Ohhhh, Wreck time, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

Sunday, I checked out the Sprint Car Races in Winchester, IN with Terry Watson, Bob Coyle and Terry Cavanaugh.

It's the first time I've tried to shoot auto racing and I worked on my panning technique at slower shutter speeds. It's a little tough to get a sharp photo of the cars at a slow shutter speed to show active motion by blurring the background and showing tire rotation.

In this photo, these 2 cars were racing hard for the lead. I think 17 bumped the rear tire of 67, causing it to skid and resulted in 17 crashing into the side. This was on the exit to turn 4. #17's right front wheel was damaged but 67 was able to continue and won the race.

These guys were flying around this 1/2 mile track in 14 sec. and I was shooting at 1/320 sec in shutter priority mode.

Rolex Cross Country Event 4/26/2008

Tipperary Liadhnan, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

This past Saturday, I took the family down to the Kentucky Horse Park and watched a little of the Cross Country Jumping event. I only got to see 4 horses before they paused the event because of an accident.

During the day, there were 2 accidents that resulted in the euthanization of the horses. One accident was pretty severe as the rider had the horse going too fast and it's front legs hit the jump, causing it to flip over and land on it's back, fracturing it's skull and causing damage to a lung. The rider was air lifted out but was in stable condition. She had severe rib injuries and punctured both lungs. It is very sad as the horse was Frodo Baggins and starred in The Lord of the Rings before his jumping career. He and his rider were on the short list for the Olympics.

Goal!

_D3H6400, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

Saturday, my wife and I went to see the Dayton Bombers play for the first time. They were playing the Elmira Jackels. They lost 7-3 but it was a fun game and gave me a chance to practice some Hockey photography. I thought the front row would be good seats except for the glare of the glass. We went to sit with a few friends in the third period and got a slightly different angle.

I would say that the best spot is mid-court above the glass.

Lunar Eclipse

_DSC3730, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

I had a little fun last night and took some shots of the lunar eclipse. This photo kind of stood out to me. I discovered that if I shot too long, the movement of the moon would cause elongation of the moon.

This shot is interesting in that I had stars and a green lens flare going through the moon that reminds me of the Death Star when it blew up.

North American International Auto Show

200801naias2-402, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

On Sunday and Monday, 1/20-1/21, I went up to Detroit with some friends and hit the Auto Show. This was the first year without Porsche since I started going 7 or 8 years ago.

As usual, I really enjoyed the various concept cars. My favorites were the Mazda racer and the Audio R8. I really liked the Mini Cooper area and the new Clubman is pretty nice. I would love to get a Mini Cooper S Convertible or even a little Clubman. I miss my old Mazda Miata and the Mini Cooper S is the closest thing that can seat 3 to fit in the family.

If you're heading to the show, check out the DUB cars. They certainly have some interesting customs.

Overall, I was a bit disappointed with the Ford display this year. The Mustang Mirrors look extremely cheap and there was a bit of a cheap feel to them. on the opposite, the Mazda display was pretty cool with 2 very interesting concept cars. I think Lexus, Acura and Ferrari had the best looking Product Specialists!

Also, I entered some pictures in the annual NAIAS Photo Competition. If you want to check them out, here are the links:
View Photo 'Bio Ferrari'>>
View Photo 'DUB Transformer'>>
View Photo 'Cart Racer'>>
View Photo 'Maybach Luxury'>>
View Photo 'Mazda Racer'>>
View Photo 'The Eye'>>

US Air Force Museum

200801wpafm-hdr-240-hdr-Edit, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

Today, a bunch of us went over to Wright-Patt Air Force Base and visited the museum. This was our second trip there and we spent the day shooting HDR photos.

Here is one showing a WWI Tri-Plane attacking an allied blimp.

Punk Rocker

Punk Rocker, originally uploaded by BillyCrafton.

Welcome to my blog! This is my first post to and I thought I would talk about my last photo shoot on Sunday.

Zack and his brother, Justin, came over to Terry William's studio and I got to grab a few shots of their great mohawks!

We had two areas setup for the shoot, a High Key area with a white backdrop and Alien Bee lights, and a Low Key setup with a black background and lights.

As we were shooting, we pulled in the Drywall Platform that was in the entry room for some work in the lobby.

This was one of my favorite shots of Zack. He was wearing a Ramones shirt and Terry had his son bring over a Bass guitar. We put his jacket on the platform and started shooting away. I asked him to give me a good snarl aka Sid Vicious and got this great moody shot!