Motorsports in Black and White lV

When it comes to a black and white motorsports image, this is as close to perfect as you can get. What little background distraction there is has been blurred out by the slow shatter speed panning.

Overview

In this fourth installment of our series on motorsports in black and white, we will focus more on tools and techniques. While some photographers may not know, many of us can look at an image and know how, and what tools were used to process the image. From the person who just clicks the convert to black and white button, to those who put some serious work into adjusting contrast, highlights and shadows, and a few extra touches in an effort to make the image something special. When I use to pour over racings mags in my youth, there was one constant. The best photos were in color on the covers, or the in the center. All others were in black and white. This was mainly due to the cost of publishing in color. Color film has been readily available to consumers since the early 30s, but of course the cost was higher than black and white. So you would have to have a reason to justify the cost. Today there is only a small niche market of photographers who shoot primarily in black and white, weather it be film or digital. For me and the subjects I shoot it constitutes more of an art form. In the world of motorsports photography, many, or should I say most shots do not lend themselves well to good black and white images.

Most distractions in this image have been pushed far into the background by selective use of contrast adjustments

Subject

Choosing the right subject for black and white processing is the first critical step. My first criteria is a background that is as distraction free as possible. Fences, grandstands, people, and large groups of cars should be avoided. The vehicles color is also an important element. Some colors are harder to work with in black and white. I’m not saying it can’t be done, it is just more work. If you can also avoid images with large areas of shadow such as front air intakes, or rear diffusers. These areas can be corrected, but again you will have to do more work.

Trees are one of the appealing background elements that lends it self well to black and white

Tools

Even the most bare bones image editor can create black and white conversions. Some of the more common ways offered are a convert to black and white button, which will essentially remove all color from your image. Other ways of accomplishing the task are desaturation, or a channel mixer tool with sliders to remove colors. The channel mixer when used properly can produce satisfactory results when combined with some of the other tools built into most editors. Another option is to purchase a third party package with more advanced and sophisticated conversion tools. I have used a few of these, and have found in my opinion DX O’s Silver Effects to be superior to anything else I have uses. It is just one module in the NIK filters bundle. I use about half of the nodules in this package on a regular basis, but if Silver Effects were the only one I used, I would still buy the package just for it alone. The key to any conversion software whether basic or advanced is to take the time to learn how to use them effectively.

There is something special about catching a vintage race car just right for black and white. It looks natural.

Theory

The most important part of understanding black and white photography, is understanding the single basic element of photography itself. Light and Shadow. For all the talk of film vs digital, 6 vs 60 megapixels, and DSLR vs Mirrorless, it comes down to one simple inescapable factor, all cameras do the same thing. Capture light. How it does it, in what way shape or form is just a matter of the choice of the photographer. However understanding the relationship between light and shadow is what will make the biggest impact on your photography. The camera is just a tool.

Joel

Indy 8 Hour 2023

Doing last minute travel prep, and thinking ahead to this weekend. FANATEC GT World Challenge and International GT Challenge, team up once again at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Indy 8 Hour. I was looking through the entry list, and see that last year’s winner the Craft Bamboo team are back to defend their victory. Looking at the drivers of this Mercedes AMG, it’s not at all surprising that they are a favorite. There is Maximilian Götz, Jules Gounon, and Raffaele Marciello, who has to be one of the top 3 GT drivers in the world. As always in an 8 hour race, anything can happen. However barring any unforeseen circumstances, they are the ones to watch.

joel

Motorsports in Black and White lll

While not the ultimate, I consider this image a good subject for black and white because it has only one distracting element in the background.

Once again we revisit one of my favorite subjects, Motorsports in black and white. His time we will look at subject matter. Which of the photos you have taken will look compelling in black and white. When you look at black and white photos of the past, shot by some of the greatest photographers such as Ansel Adams, Gordon Parks, and Walker Evans, you can’t help but think that the subject matter seems to have been made for the medium in which it was shot. After all color film had been around for some time, and these photographers could well have afforded to use it if they were so inclined.

Landscape, portrait, and street photography are some mediums that benefit most from black and white. Motorsports is quite a different matter. Just any old shot shot from anywhere trackside will not translate well into black and white.

As much as I like this image, the fence in the background is just a bit too much for my taste.

When I go through shots from an event, I look for certain criteria to determine if I can produce a compelling black and white image with it. The first, and most important is how many, or few distracting elements are in the foreground, but mostly in the background. Second, is it a dynamic shot that will draw peoples attention. Or will it just look like a car on a track. Third is the color, and livery on the car or bike. Wild multicolor liveries will just turn into a mess leaving the viewers eye wandering looking for a focal point which they will likely not find. So I tend to avoid these. Every so often I will look at a shot on the the cameras screen and know right away that I will convert it to black and white.

Here we have an image that I would never consider for black and white because there is just too much going on both on the track and in the background.

As with most things about photography, it’s all up to the eye, and taste of the person who presses the shutter. I can only offer my own personal views and options.

Joel

Motorsports in Black and White ll

Black and White motorsports photography while once the norm is now a speciality form of photography. Many try it, few do it well. In this day and age fo high megapixel color photography, black and white gets relegated to a seldom used, or just lost art form.

When considering wether too process a photo for black and white, the first thing you have to understand is that not every shot will look good in this medium. Shots with busy and distracting backgrounds will not work. Next you have to consider the subject matter. Dark blue, green, and black cars or bikes are likely to lose a lot of detail in conversion, and just look like a badly underexposed image. Packs of multiple vehicles close together will leave the viewers eye wandering trying to find the main subject of the shot.

When going through your work, look for shots with one or two subjects isolated on a relatively clear background. This will take the viewers eye directly to the main subject. From there they can explore the rest of the image. If the background is slightly blurred, that makes it even better. Overcast and rainy days also lend themselves well to black and white. All in all you should choose your subject matter carefully.

As for tools, any image editor will give you good results as long as you take the time to learn what you can do with the tools at hand. Spend some time experimenting with sliders and filters to squeeze the most you can out of your software. Just selecting convert to black and white from a preset menu will give you mediocre results at best. I’m partial to NIK Filters Silver Effects for black and white conversion. There are several other stand alone, or plug in programs out there, but this is my personal favorite. So all that is left to do is jump into the deep end, and see what you can create.

Article inspired by Kurt Roussell @ Fast Car Photos.

Joel

My Choice, GT

It’s the kind of subject that can spark endless arguments and debates, but I just have to get it out there. For me the only type of racing I can see myself never getting tired of is GT racing.

In my youth the first kind of racing I ever paid any real attention to was Formula 1 and IndyCar. Not from being able to attend any races, It was from reading about these series. I read anything I could get my hands on about racing in general. There was a newsstand in front of the “L” station near my house, and the guy who ran it knew I was interested in auto racing, and would get magazines from his distributor and hold them until I came by. It was in reading the varied magazines I bought from him that I discovered sports car racing such as, Can-AM, and Trans-AM racing.

Before this it was IndyCar, NASCAR, and Drag Racing. Being from the inner city midwest, that was pretty much all we heard about. Upon reading about the different road racing series I began to lose interest in IndyCar, and later NASCAR. However these were still the only televised series, so I continued to follow them for the most part. On the rare occasion they would show sports car racing on TV, it would be edited to fit within a 60 to 90 minute time slot with commercials. Lots of commercials.

My interest in IndyCar faded after some time, but returned when they began to run majority road courses. The cars and level of competition has improved immensely in the past decade also. As for NASCAR, my interest level dropped significantly when they decided the words “Stock Car” in their name was no longer relevant. Then there is also the matter of 40 plus car fields (at least 10-15 of whom should not be out there) riding around in a circle waiting for someone to cause several of them to crash into one another.

So with all that said just what brought on this whole line of thought? Watching the TOTAL 24 hours of Spa, and one of the most exciting endings I have seen in some time. Seeing Dries Vanthoor’s Team WRT make the perfect call to switch to rain tires just before a downpour to get the race lead from Ferrari. Then watching Alessandro Pier Guidi recover from a huge deficit to catch, then pass Vanthoor on the outside in the rain and drive the Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 to victory. It started me to thinking just how many times I have seen close, exciting racing like this in GT racing. Then there are the intangibles for the fans that go along with this type of racing.

For all the technological brilliance that goes into Formula 1 and Prototype race cars, they are never something you can (or will) ever see yourself owning or driving. While cars in GTE, GTLM, GT3, and especially GT4 are you cars you can aspire to someday owning. You see many of these same cars on the streets of your town, you know the names, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Corvette, Aston Martin. All the way down to the GT4 ranks where you see Mustang, Camaro, Elantra, and Supra. Picturing yourself behind the wheel of any of these cars is not hard given the right circumstances.

 

So the rest of you enjoy your Formula 1, NASCAR or any other racing you are into. I have nothing against any other form of racing, and I shoot many of them, but if I were forced to choose just one, it goes without saying that it would be GT racing.

Joel

MotorSports in Black and White

Black and white photography in motor sports seems to have always been a matter of necessity more than choice. At the origins of auto racing it was pretty much all there was. Photography and racing are two technologies that grew up side by side. In later years as color film became more prevalent, and less expensive, it was only natural that many photographers would take advantage of it. But in being able to present it to the public at large there was yet another more important hurdle to overcome, printing.

To bring the news and action of racing to the interested masses required the ability to write the story as well as publish photos from the events. At the time auto racing began, it had not been that long since the ability to print photos in magazines and newspapers had been invented. Half toning, a process of using dots of ink of varying size and intensity to form a picture, had only been developed in the 1890s. This allowed publications to use actual photos instead of illustrations to present the news. When it came to sports, and auto racing in particular, the only other limiting factor of the day was the camera equipment available at the time.

Large box shaped cameras of the earliest days required a tripod, and a very brave soul willing to stand mere inches from speeding cars to capture the action. What we are able to do today (and from farther away) with our digital cameras, and 500mm lenses would probably seem like alchemy to someone from the 30s wielding a Graflex Speed Graphic with a fixed focal length lens.

In today’s world, black and white photography in motorsports is a very much overlooked tool of the trade. When you look at old racing publications of the 50s through the mid 80s you will notice that only the cover, and a few center pages are in color. This was mainly due to the printing cost as well keeping the publication’s need to keep the magazine at a reasonable price. So most of the ordinary shots were relegated to the black and white pages. Those thought to be the best were given the color pages.

Today we have the luxury of choosing the shots that are best suited to black and white. We have the ability to make exposure and lighting adjustments to enhance the image and mood we are trying to convey. What we can do in a few hours of post production on a computer, would have taken days with chemicals in a darkroom. Thus we get to use it more as an art form. While this was the intent of all photography at one point, the demands of the commercial world soon beat that out of us. While black and white in motor sports is largely overlooked, when it is used, it is often done with mediocre to abysmal results. Mostly because the photographer doesn’t take time to learn the tools they have at hand, and many don’t take time to determine whether the shot is well suited to to the medium. When done correctly, the results can be quite stunning. Tools such as levels, curves, dodging and burning can go a long way toward adding contrast, and breathing life into what may otherwise be a flat image.

Landscape and portrait photographers were among the first to fully understand the power of black and white photography. Color film became available in 1904, yet many chose to stay with black and white. Looking at the work of Ansel Adams, Walker Evans and Gordon Parks and trying to imagine them in color yields disappointing results. I’m sure they understood that the very essence of photography was the difference between light and shadow, and color could not adequately portray this.

So what’s a photographer to do? My solution is to make a cup of coffee, find a comfortable place to sit, and re-read one of my books on the basics of photography. Not digital, or film, just photographic technique. This normally resets my brain, and makes me think a bit more before I shoot.

Joel

Vintage Beauties

Shooting vintage racing has provided me with something that no other form of racing that I shoot has. That is the ability to go back to my youth. But even more than that, it gives me the ability see up close the race cars I could only dream about back then. Being a model car builder, I built all of my favorites in pains taking detail. Now being able to see the real thing driving at speed as they did back then gives me a feeling I just can’t properly put into words. So long live these vintage beauties, and may they continue to race long into the future

Joel

Vintage Can-AM

Can-AM produced so many iconic cars there is not space to include them all. These are just a few of my favorites.

McLaren M6a
UOP Shadow DN4
McLaren M8f

Vintage Trans-AM

I was truly in love with Trans-AM. If I were older, and had money, I would definitely bought a 70 Mustang.

1972 AMC Javelin
1970 Ford Mustang Boss 302

Vintage Formula 1

We will end with a few vintage Formula 1 screamers. If you have ever heard these V10 and V12 monsters, you will know what I mean by screamers.

1997 Jordan 197
Williams FW19
Benneton 197

2015 Chicago Auto Show Notes

With the 2016 Chicago Auto show less than a month away, I thought I would take a look back at some of the more interesting items from last years show.

Star of the show:
Most people myself included thought the reintroduction of the Acura NSX would be the highlight of the show. Then along came Ford with the stunning Ford GT. The new design techniques, and technologies incorporated into this amazing car are mind boggling. When I asked representatives about future racing plans, I was told there were no plans to race the car. Nobody believed them. Mid year Ford revealed (what had to be the worst kept secret in automotive history) that the new Ford GT would compete in the IMSA Weather Tech series, and the 24 hours of Le Mans. Who would have thunk it.

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Stolen Thunder:
Yes, the Acura NSX. Despite being seriously overshadowed by Fords announcement, the NSX is quite an attractive and capable car. Having a GT3 spec version in time for the show would have lessened the blow, but not by very much.

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Surprise and strangeness:
I saw no mention that it would be there, so imagine my surprise when I turned a corner and came face to face with Nissan’s GT-R LM NISMO LM P1 car. While I personally find it to be quite unattractive (actually butt ugly) as prototype cars go, I am a big fan of innovation. This car was the definition of innovation. It’s hybrid power was nothing new as Porsche and Audi are already using these. What made it radically different was it’s front engine, front wheel design. This combination had never been used in prototype racing.

Unfortunately it was a major failure with poor performances in all of it’s outings. They were unable to get the hybrid system to work properly, and other handling and reliability issues forced Nissan to withdraw the car part way through the World Endurance Championship season. The program was officially cancelled in December.

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Really?:
Until this year BMW had only ever made one (that’s “1”) car that I truly liked, the “M1”. The i8 made it two. Besides being the most attractive car to come out of Bavaria in some time, this thing is loaded with neat features. I’m guessing it has a 400+ page owners manual.

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Flying Lizard Motorsports

Flying Lizards-01

It seems that with every passing week we receive more sad and disappointing news from the TUDOR United Sports Car Challenge.

For ten years from 2004 to 2014 Flying Lizard Motorsports has been a constant presence in IMSA GT racing. First with Porsche and now Audi, the red and silver colors have provided many exciting moments for both the team and race fans through the years. Off the top of my head I can recall one epic battle between Flying Lizard and Team Corvette at Mid Ohio.

Flying Lizard-03

It now seems to see the Lizard colors in the future you will have to attend Pirelli World Challenge events.

Flying Lizard-02

Not having access to the inner workings of TUSC, I would think all this recent activity would have alarm bells ringing. Teams have always come and gone, mostly due to financial reasons. I am not sure if this is the case in more than a couple of instances this year. As of now no team has come out and admitted their reason for moving has anything to do with how the series is run, but that’s just common sense. No reason to burn bridges, things may turn around and make it worth returning to the series.

However it does signal that are more serious underlying issues involved, issues that may have made some just as soon not be there until they are resolved. We can only hope this tide does not continue.

Flying Lizard-04

joel

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