Galloping Green

Sunday the 6th September arrived and it was finally JapFest day at Mondello.   The invitees of the photo-walker group had been discussing this event for weeks before on Twitter. The tweets firing off about motor racing photography, motion blurring and panning techniques were plentiful, culminating in a general exchange of ‘photo project’ ideas just days and hours before the main event. The excitement was palpable, even though it was online!

Will it be cars, will it be people, objects or environmental portraiture? Damn, what’s my angle? How will my stuff stand out? Shit, I’ve never done anything like this before!   Oh god, I’m gonna be crap!  The pressure was mounting and I know, speaking for myself, that I was pretty nervous – I just wanted to make good on the invite that I’d been gifted by offering up just one decent shot as a thank you.  As it turned out,  there was nothing to worry about, we were in good hands with the Mondello team, and hanging out with a great group of photography heads who were, at one level or another, feeling pretty much the same way as me!

John Fair, Corporate Sales & Marketing Manager for Mondello, who organised the event with the able minded assistance from our homegrown social media mavens,  John Williams and Ryan Whally, exploited the coolest of the modern social media platforms, Twitter, to get the word out about Japfest.  They really pulled off a coup in organising what turned out to be an incredible day for those of us lucky enough to be involved, and the #japfest tag got its fair share of the twitter traffic for a spell.

From the moment we arrived, we were well looked after indeed.  Welcomed with freshly brewed coffee and biscuits; a warm introduction indeed given the inclement weather (okay, it was horizontal rain), the stage was set for a great day.  With some time to say hello to new friends and old, some of whom I’d previously only ever met online, we were given our safety briefing where we were told that if we ignored any minor detail that we would be in fact end up as road kill – lovely!  Needless to say, nobody was talking and everyone was listening intently after that particular soundbite – wonder if that’d work with my kids?  Anway…

Then, like orderly dwarves heading into the mines for gold, we left our VIP suite with our gear in hand, our chests puffed showing our “access-all-areas high-visibility vests”, and the creative juices coursing through our veins….Let the games begin.

When you get trackside at Mondello, your senses are immediately assaulted on numerous fronts, often simultaneously. Ears rattled as engines revved-up and accelerated wildly compounded by tyres screeching around corners like a party of banshees on a wild night out. This is followed by the visual delight of distant smoke rising into the air and the question “Was it a crash?” being muttered expectantly.  Shortly after, the olfactory senses are assuaged by the wonderful smell of burning rubber and then, in instant, these lunatic drift racers come hurtling into view at speeds that would make a grown man cry – folks, this is no ordinary city photowalk experience!

The weather didn’t dampen spirits and, in fact, stirred the creative juices to the point of verbal expletives, “I’ll get a shot if it feicin’ kills me”, with an overwhelming desire to pull one magic shot out of the hat; any detail however insignificant!  Everything suddenly became a target and I guess that this became the real challenge.  How can you shoot in such adverse conditions and come away with something, anything, that captures the passion, intensity, humour and life in places and events like this?

So I hope as you look through the numerous shots on Pix.ie that the gang produced, that you get a sense of the creativity, zaniness and sheer fun we had on the day.  Who knows, maybe some of the shots you see will incent you to take your own camera out to events just like this and capture something a little unique for yourself. I can guarantee you this, you’ll enjoy the challenge and experience immensely! What a rush!

Thanks Mondello!!!