A rider entering the start/finish straight shortly before midnight during the Le Mans 24 hour motorcycle endurance race.
One thing about having no internet connection at home, I’m sitting at the computer editing some of the thousands of slides I copied last winter. This photo dates back to April 1982 when I was obviously experimenting with motion blur.
My contribution to the One Word Sunday prompt Bright.
This is my contribution to Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Bikes, Trikes or Motorcycles prompt.
I decided to go with one photo of each.
A bike on High Street, Southampton, Ontario, Canada.
A trike on Berford Street, Wiarton, Ontario, Canada.
Motorcycles on a campsite at the Le Mans race circuit in France after the 24 hour motorcycle endurance race.
This is my contribution to the Friendly Friday Challenge: Nostalgia.
I’m going to take a sideways look at this challenge with a post partly about nostalgia and partly about camera equipment.
It’s now 40 years since I left art school after studying photography. In those 40 years there has been huge advances in equipment and techniques.
Sometimes I will look back at shots in my film archives and consider how much easier some of the shots would be to get today. Or I will be aware of how much better the quality of the images would be compared to the film stocks available when the shots were taken.
So this post is about looking back at some favourite photos and considering how some of my photos could be improved with modern equipment or techniques.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s I was photographing a variety of motorsports. In those days 200 ISO was the highest colour film speed a lot of editors would accept. One of my current mirrorless cameras has a base of 200 ISO. Also, lenses are faster with better anti-reflection coatings.
Nowadays I would build a LED panel into the top of the nestbox for more even, diffused light.
Nowadays there are techniques for dealing with high contrast lighting like this. I can take multiple exposures and combine them to keep detail in the highlights and open up the shadows.
This is my contribution to the Friendly Friday Photo Challenge: In Transit.
Once again I am playing fast and loose with the prompt with photos before or after some form of travel.
No longer in transit. There was no warning signs saying that the road was impassable. Photographed near Raymore, Saskatchewan, Canada.
About to be in transit. One of the campsites at the Le Mans race circuit in France after the end of a 24 hour motorcycle endurance race.
In transit to Flowerpot Island off the tip of the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, Canada. Taking a glass bottomed boat tour to view some of the underwater wrecks before visiting Flowerpot Island.
This is my contribution to the A Photo a Week Challenge: Light and Dark.
The prompt got me thinking about some of the nighttime photos from my film archives that I started digitising last winter.
Team Bike entering the start/finish straight at night during the Le Mans 24 hour motorcycle race in France.
Canada Day fireworks on Monument Hill, Punnichy, Saskatchewan in 1999.
The Wybunbury, Cheshire churchyard at night. Taken in the late 1970s for an art school project although I have long forgotten what the brief was.
And Flair.
This is my contribution to the One Word Sunday challenge Flare or Flair.
Having shot a few photos of sun shining through trees with deliberate flare on some of my recent walks around the neighborhood I then decided to go in a completely different direction. So here’s a visit to the Le Mans race circuit in France for the 24 hour motorcycle endurance race in the spring of 1982.
The flare in this photo is created by the lights illuminating the pit lane entrance and the start/finish straight at the race circuit. The photo was taken with the silvernose OM Zuiko 50mm that I got with my Olympus OM1 in 1976. Those lenses were single coated rather than multi coated which probably explains the flare.
The flair in this photo is the motorcycle and rider. Built on a shoestring budget in a garage in London this is the bikes first race. It looks like a standard Honda CB900 rather than a purpose built endurance racer. Despite all that the team was up to 8th in the race at one point, ahead of some of the big budget professional teams.
Monochrome Monday travels back to the Le Mans race circuit in France in the early 1980s as I continue the exploration of my black and white negative files.
This is Team Bike leaving the pits after a nighttime pit stop. Photographed from across the track I like the way the rider departing the pits and most of the pit crew are silhouetted with light on just one of the pit crew and the rider who just finished their stint.
