2009 WERA Cycle Jam at Road Atlanta
My hope is that I challenge myself. Last weekend I went up to shoot the WERA Cycle Jam at Road Atlanta. I had never shot a Moto before and have limited experience shooting cycles at all. To top it off, it was scheduled to be the hottest weekend of the year so far. Fun!
I arrived before the start of the first heat and checked in to pick up my credentials. After a brief rundown of the rules with race control I set off to the pits to head for turn one. WERA is a sportsman series so there are people of varying skills and cycles on the track at the same time. At first I was having trouble with my timing (that and salt in my eyes), but once the riders with similar lines and pace grouped up, I was able to concentrate on framing and composition rather than tracking. Each heat was short, only 6 laps, but the PA guy was great about letting everyone know about what set was next and how soon it would be happening. This made it easier to go around the track from place to place.
I spent most of the time on Saturday looking for new places from which to shoot and new angles on known areas. I had never tried shooting from the very top of the wall next to the bridge after turn 10. It was a great vantage point and I plan to revisit it during Petit Le Mans.
The Cycle Jam is a two day event, so I left around 4pm to head home. I was cooked and in great need of a beer.
Sunday turned out to be a bit cooler, but only by a couple of degrees. There were huge puff clouds in the sky which was great for cooling moments, but hell on exposure and color balance. The second day of the jam seemed to involve more expert riders and several of the heats had quite a few cycles in them. I decided to concentrate more on tighter shots today. Cycles move through the frame much differently than autos. Not sure why, probably because they brake so quickly and change their axis so radically. At any rate, shooting tight, in focus shots while leaving some room for them to ride into was a challenge. When I first looked at my shots from Sunday I was a little bummed that I missed a few that I tried really hard to capture. In reality, I had many more keepers on Sunday versus Saturday, so I am happy that I had skill retention. I probably just made that up.
I plan to go back to the WERA Grand National Finals in October. I assume it will be cooler and I will have a better idea of how I want to work the bikes. I also plan to spend a bit more time in the pits watching the riders work on their bikes in between heats. I missed that due to the heat and my moto learning curve. There are two image galleries for The Cycle Jam: WERA Cycle Jam Saturday and WERA Cycle Jam Sunday Thanks for reading!
