| The principal of the School sets the standard
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| Ahh, the principal demonstrates
a fine understanding of the mechanics of panning with a moving subject
and throws in a bonus of compositional brilliance as well. Imagine
the skill required to take the picture at the precise moment the
gantry is obscuring the bike. Point of interest is that this shot
was taken on a digital camera, proving that the principal of the
School can take stunning pictures even when using the latest technology. |
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| Here the principal displays
a full understanding of the intricacies of a modern slr camera as
he forgets to take his finger off the motor drive button as he finishes
panning with the subject matter. |
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| Here Sharkman displays
his full grasp of startline photography using fill in flash to compensate
for the fading light. The only problem is for fill in flash to work
you have to make sure that the batteries in the flash gun are charged
up and you can't just carry on shooting oblivious to the fact that
your flashgun batteries have long since passed on. Not that the
principal of the school would do such a thing, oh no, he took this
shot to illustrate what would happen if your batteries went flat.
Of course he did. You do believe me don't you??? |
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And the first honours graduate of 2000 is MARK
FAWCUS of Fawcus.net
Drag Racing |
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| Mark was guesting as a
photographer for his brothers website when he captured this classic
at Shakey County of the debut of the Firestorm Jet Car. Mark has
done very well here as firstly he has used a lens that is in capable
of getting close to his subject matter and despite having a wdier
angle has still managed to get a firetruck to obscure nost of the
afterburner flame. He has also managed to delay taking the picture
just long enough for the burner smoke to nicely fog out the whole
shot. A fine effort indeed. |
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And the first international honours graduate
of 2000 is Tommy Nilsson of Eurodrag.com
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| Tommy, who runs the hugely
informative Eurodrag website which is used by both Sharkman and
Eurodragster as a source of reference when we are doing race reports
and need to know records / personal bests, sent in the above pivture
with the following note : Urs Erbacher is too fast for me - I
gotta work on my reaction time. When I saw this picture, my first
thought was "Oh, there´s a picture for Sharkman..." And of course
he's dead right, that picture is a worthy addition to the school
of excellence, a beautifully composed burnout shot and although
Tommy is to modest to mention it, he gets bonus points for the camera
shake / lack of focus thats crept in there as well. |
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Our first race team to Graduate in 2000 is Grebbestad
Racing |
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| Kjell Lindqvist from
Grebbestad racing sent in this awesome effort by his brother. Theres
nothing like a good wheelstand, apart from getting it on film (check
out the left hand side of this pic). Kjell takes up the story:
At the last round of our short season we were going for our
first eight second pass. But instead we hurt the engine, so we
were parked for the weekend. So nothing else to do but to grab
a sixpack and a camera to make the best of the weekend. At one
point I was standing in the lineup area and I saw my brother right
next to the starting line clicking away with his digital Olympus.
All of a sudden a Camaro made a wheelie that went to the skies,
the thing was pointing straight up and the driver kept his foot
on the gas. Then it made a left turn before it came down pointing
at the railguard, still with the driver keeping it at full throttle.
Somehow the driver managed to drive the thing with a skid, an
inch from the railguard a long way up the track before he could
make a right turn into a normal position on the track. I was pleased,
of course that the driver saved his car, but mostly because I
saw my brother with his camera up before his face. He probably
now had some great pics that we could sell to the swedish dragracing
online reporter.
So when he came back I tore the camera out of his hands and began
to browse the LCD screen to find some action packed wheelie photos.
-Where are the wheelie pics? I asked,
-What wheelie?
-Didn´t you see the black Camaro standing on its rear bumper right
next to you?
-No, I was busy photografing.
My brohter will never have a career as a pressphotografer.
Everybody at the track stopped what they were doing, including
the speakers, waiting for the car to come down on its wheels or
its roof. But not my brother, he was to busy playing a sportsphotografer.
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And our next graduate, from the next generation
of Drag fans is Richard, from Top
Banana Online |
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| Richard
has submitted these two fine efforts both from Super Series 4,
2000. On the left we have a picture of Andy Carters Top fuel rail,
the only problem being that Andy was in the far lane and has been
totally obscured by Barry Sheavills (in the near lane) lighting
up the tires big time and hiding Andy in a smoke screen. On the
right we have a more traditional School of Excellence image, the
good old fashioned "something in the way" shot. This is a particularly
fine example though as the only obstruction for 50 yards in either
direction has managed to almost totally obscure the subject matter.
Good effort Richard. |
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