Indy 500

One of my all-time favorite racing drivers, Jean Alesi, is a "rookie" at this year's Indy 500.

I certainly did not intend to let the blog go for two months without updating, but that is what happened. It wasn't for lack of projects to talk about either. There have been several interesting ones. Time just kind of slipped away from me I suppose.

I'm back now though, but only for a quick update on my most recent project - shooting at the Indy 500 practice and qualifying days for the American Dairy Association of Indiana and BPS Marketing. My task was the same as last year - still photography to be used during the Fastest Rookie Award Luncheon in a few different ways. My photography was used on three posters - a commemorative framed Fastest Rookie poster that is given to the driver and two 4' x 8' posters. There is also a slideshow that is played as guests arrive and during the lunch. This year I had the added responsibility of putting that together.

The luncheon is a great event, with lots of people involved behind the scenes to make it go off without a hitch. That was made much more difficult this year by the controversy around who was actually the fastest rookie. Newcomer Josef Newgarden made the top nine shootout for pole position with a speed of 224.677 mph. Long-time Formula One driver Rubens Barrichello was next with a 224.264 mph, placing him at tenth position, just outside of the group that ran again to try and win the pole position. In the Pole Shootout, Newgarden posted a 224.037 mph average over the 4 laps. This is what is used as his official posted qualifying speed. This also happens to be slower than Barrichello's posted speed. So who's the Fastest Rookie?

2012 Indy 500 Fastest Rookie Josef Newgarden & almost fastest rookie Rubens Barrichello

We went by the letter of the law and said it was Rubens. We had the posters done, animations (with the posted speeds) done, trophy engraving was done, press releases were sent. Then some conversation started happening. After several high level talks with executives at the Indy 500, it was decided that Newgarden should be the fastest rookie. This went down Monday afternoon. The luncheon took place Tuesday. Needless to say, things were a bit tense Monday afternoon, but the team at BPS handled it great and we had things switched over to Josef Newgarden in record time.

The lunch went off fairly smoothly and we had lots of compliments on another great show this year. Next week I'll already be looking forward to it again next year! In the meantime I hope to get some sleep!

I'll be posting some of my pictures before too long, just as soon as I get a chance to go through them again with the luxury of time to look at them closely.

From The Roof

As a follow-up to my Day with the Mayor, last week I was invited back to shoot for a couple hours on the roof of the Government building in downtown Indianapolis. My main task was to shoot some time-lapse footage of the city to be possibly used in the documentary.

Here is a single frame from the main time-lapse setup I shot.

Alan Berry, the man behind the creation of the documentary, asked me about possibly doing a tilt-shift miniaturization type shot. Unfortunately I don't have a tilt-shift lens and there was no budget to rent one for this, so I decided to try out CrumplePop's ShrinkRay X plugin for Final Cut Pro X. Below is a before & after video of the filter and it's effect on two of the other setups I shot.

I'd love to hear what you think of the look with and without the plugin. Have a strong preference of one over the other? Let me know by leaving a comment either here on the blog or on my Vimeo page.

I could have easily spent a lot more time up there. We were there during the middle of the day so the light wasn't the prettiest, but we got lucky with the weather as it was an absolutely gorgeous day. We also had limited time, but I made the most of what we had. Hopefully I can get back up there some day or night.

It's been awhile since I've created any desktop/wallpaper images, so I decided to make a 2560 x 1600 image available free to download to use as a desktop image. And a first for me, I also created a version specifically for the new iPad with Retina display, although it will work just fine on older iPads. You can get those over on my Downloads page. Just look for the Downtown Indy file (they're in alphabetical order).

More photos coming soon!

You Never Know

I'd love to shoot more professional sports, but one of the fun things about shooting amatuer sports is you never know how big they may become in the future. Case in point.... on May 15, 2008 I travelled with my daughter's third grade class to an Indianapolis Indians minor league baseball game. I was just beginning to develop a passion for photography so I made sure I had my camera in hopes of capturing some decent shots. It was a tight game that day, but the Indians pulled out a victory on a base hit in the bottom of the ninth inning by a young outfielder named Andrew McCutchen.

Fast forward to today, and I see on ESPN's website that McCutchen, who was an all-star last season, has agreed on a new contract that will pay him over $50 million for the next six years and keep him out of free agency and arbitration. Major league baseball star in the making from the sounds of it.

You never know who you're going to shoot at games like these, so it's always a good idea to get a program and enter in the metadata for the players when you get home. Aperture (and Lightroom) have made this much easier to do and search for that key player/subject in the future. BONUS - Minor league sports allow great access and views, which are the hardest things to get at a professional sporting event.