It was a GREAT weekend at Laguna Seca for the US Red Bull Grand Prix this year... and it wasn't even 114deg! I finally had credentials for this race, which made things MUCH more fun. Enjoy the photos:
Awesome. Particularly the corkscrew shot (looks almost fisheye! great stuff) and the last Hayden and the Spies shots. More than up to your usual high standards Todd... very nice series.
XFBO wrote:
Just out of curiosity, how many shots do you come home with each day on a GP weekend? Keepers?
Personally, the number of 'keepers' is really arbitrary and depends on the photographer's standards. I tag photos that I want to work with further, but often do not tag shots that would be 'keepers' if I was shooting a track day or something of that nature. When I get multiple shots of a rider (for example a 2-shot burst in a corner) I will only tag the better of the two photos.
I'd say on average I shoot about 2000 shots per day... I tag the ones that I find acceptable... which tends to be around 10% (200 per day). Over a course of a weekend I get 15 gallery images and maybe one portfolio shot.
Honestly, If I'm shooting at a 'keeper' rate of over 10% I am either 1) Not pushing myself photographically speaking, or 2) Not being picky enough with my selection process. If I wanted every shot to be sharp I could blast away at high shutter speeds and using looser compositions... but that's not my goal. Once I get a few safety shots of each rider I'm all about getting a bit more extreme with the compositions and shutter speeds.
For example... the lead shot of Rossi is one of maybe 5 that turned out from maybe 200 shots. IMO, it's not about how many shots it takes to get what you want... rather getting the shot you want. If you all could see the crap that comes out of my camera in a normal weekend... but that's another thing about being a good photographer... proper image selection.
As others have already noted, that's a great shot of the corkscrew Todd! It really shows that stomach churning drop. The other pics are all, of course, excellent.
Also thanks for the words of wisdom about keepers, etc. I am constantly working on becoming more aggressive in throwing out shots, but then I decide I'm being overly-critical and swing back the other way - etc, etc, etc.
sidewa388 wrote:
I saw you running around out there but didnt want to bother you while you were working
Next time feel free to say Hi. It's not a bother (unless I'm like trying to shoot the start or checker-flag)... in which case I'll just ignore you
Option1 wrote:
Thanks for the words of wisdom about keepers, etc. I am constantly working on becoming more aggressive in throwing out shots, but then I decide I'm being overly-critical and swing back the other way - etc, etc, etc.
I NEVER delete a photo... I just don't process them all. There are many times when I find that the 'non-keeper' photos are wanted by clients.
tcorzett wrote:
Next time feel free to say Hi. It's not a bother (unless I'm like trying to shoot the start or checker-flag)... in which case I'll just ignore you
I NEVER delete a photo... I just don't process them all. There are many times when I find that the 'non-keeper' photos are wanted by clients.
-Todd...
Really? You keep a couple of thousand pix per shoot day on a hard drive somewhere? Wow. Do you shoot raw or jpg.
Rags Hef wrote:
Really? You keep a couple of thousand pix per shoot day on a hard drive somewhere? Wow. Do you shoot raw or jpg.
Yes, I keep EVERY photo that I take... currently there are 296,282 photos filling 1.12TB of space. I shoot mostly JPG, but will shoot RAW+JPG when it's a benifit. For deadline work it's just too time consuming to process RAW files and I have a fairly good grasp on exposures for what I'm shooting.
388 wrote: