Great capture Paul!
I didn't/don't follow drag racing that closely so I was somewhat surprised
to see its sort of a Mustang - I thought it would be a Chrysler variant.
Kenneth Waller
http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/kennethwaller
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Stenquist" <[email protected]>
Subject: The way-back machine: 25 years ago
Twenty-five years ago, I had an idea. I had been shooting cars for Super
Stock Magazine for a year or two. The Chi-Town Hustler crew had just built
a new funny car, and I was going to shoot it for the mag. While I would
shoot plenty of pics in a safe and nicely lit parking lot, I wanted to try
to get one pic with the Chicago skyline in the background. And I wanted
the engine running and flames coming out of the editors. Well, I talked
the guys into dragging the car down to the peninsula on which the Chicago
Planetarium is built, and unloaded it on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, I
had forgotten about the streetlights, and had no idea what color temp they
were. (Turns out they were close to fluorescent green, only greener.) I
brought my two strobes and plenty of wiring. I had a fairly powerful
Honeywell potato masher, and I set that up to light the side of the car. I
used a small Rollei flash and mounted it closer to illuminate the front of
the car. I shot Ektachrome 120 in a Mamiyaflex C2, and bracketed from f11
at 1/30th, all the way to f4 at 1/15th. (Didn't own a flash meter at the
time.) Well, I pretty much overestimated the power of those flashes
outside at night, and the only good exposures were at f4. But the green
cast from the street lights was awful at the longer exposures, and shorter
exposures were underexposed. So my best shots were almost decent exposures
but lacking DOF and way too green. In those days, they couldn't be fixed.
This morning I had a go at fixing one of them in PhotoShop. Unfortunately,
my scanner sucks (a flatbed Epson 3200), so the shot that was probably
soft to begin with is softer yet. But I did fix the color and exposure.
It's now almost what I had in mind a quarter century ago. The Chi-Town
guys will get a kick out of it.
BTW, Pat Minick, who is sitting in the car in the pic, offered to shoot
out the street lights with his sidearm that night. I declined, figuring I
needed the light, even if it was green.
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=12827153&size=lg
Paul
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