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Something in the Air



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Radical driver Robbie Kerr preserves tyre life during the 2013 Cholmondeley Pageant of Power, a marvellous sprint event within the grounds of Cholmondeley Castl...
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Radical driver Robbie Kerr preserves tyre life during the 2013 Cholmondeley Pageant of Power, a marvellous sprint event within the grounds of Cholmondeley Castle (located near Bunbury, Cheshire, UK). Can't recall which lens was used - probably Sigma 100-300mm f4, but it might have been a 150-500. Cholmondeley, incidentally, is pronounced "Chumley". No, I'm not sure why either...
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2 Comments | Report
NatureLoverJJWal
 
NatureLoverJJWal July 22, 2017
Congratulations on your award!
Mikhailan
 
Mikhailan March 07, 2018
Flight phase!
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Behind The Lens

Location

In the grounds of Cholmondeley Castle near Bunbury, Cheshire, England. It is not a traditional motorsport venue, but in 2008 a group of local enthusiasts created a new event – the Cholmondeley Pageant of Power, a timed sprint on a course laid out within the castle grounds. It was similar in spirit to Goodwood’s famous Festival of Speed, but not as commercial, much less crowded and 235 miles farther north. It featured cars and bikes running against the clock, air displays and even powerboat racing on an adjacent lake. For a while it was one of my favourite events, but it lost impetus along the way and some of the more interesting machinery vanished. I still attended every year (this shot was taken in 2013), but the 2016 event felt so flat on the Friday that I didn’t return the following morning and headed instead to photograph some motorcycle racing at nearby Oulton Park. Early in 2017, it was announced that the sprint (rebranded last year as Cholmondeley Power and Speed) would be taking a break prior to a planned return in 2018, but I have a feeling that’s unlikely. And just in case you wondered, Cholmondeley is correctly pronounced ‘Chumley’. Obvious, really. Only in Britain…

Time

Mid-morning, Saturday – the second of the event’s three days.

Lighting

It’s a UK motorsport event, so it could have been sunny, wet, bright, dark, glorious, miserable or possibly even snowing (unlikely in June, but you never know). On this occasion things were just grey and overcast, but the light was tolerable.

Equipment

Pentax K-5 IIs with Sigma 100-300mm f4, hand-held. I was shooting aperture priority – f4.5 gave adequate depth of field to keep the key elements sharp while also blurring the background enough to help the car stand out. I know the wheels are frozen, which I hate when they are more visible, but it doesn’t bother me in a shot such as this when one’s eye is (hopefully) drawn elsewhere.

Inspiration

I always tried to find fresh angles when I visited Cholmondeley, but this is/was the event’s signature shot – cars accelerating from a tight left-hander and then heading flat-out over a hump-backed bridge just before the finishing line. It was a shot that all accredited photographers took and became something of a cliché, but I still felt drawn to stand there for part of the weekend. If nothing else, it was spectacular and fun to watch.

Editing

A slight crop and a quick auto-correct in whichever version of PS Elements I had at the time. Full stop.

In my camera bag

I switched from Pentax to Nikon late in 2015, though I have kept the K-5 IIs and a couple of lenses for posterity. At present I have two Nikon bodies - D800 and D700 - plus Nikkor 300mm f4, Sigma 70-200 f2.8 and Sigma 24-105 f4. That apart, I have a few spare batteries and cards and two Storm Jacket rain covers, which are absolutely brilliant.

Feedback

Observation, observation, observation. Whenever I go to a new venue for the first time, I try to walk the course if possible to assess backgrounds and then quite often watch for a while from various vantage points without taking any shots – just to get a feel for the body language of the competing cars and/or bikes. With a location like this, however, it took about five seconds to appreciate its potential for spectacle…

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