Doesn’t take a lot of convincing to get me to drive up to New Caney’s Speedsportz Racing Park. It’s a great track that looks like so much fun to drive. Though I’m trying to get my car to a point where it can actually pass the KnuckleUp approval gauntlet, I’ve had a blast attending as media this year because as it turns out, Speedsportz is also pretty fun to take pictures at.
(Warning, boring blog post that’s mostly about camera stuff incoming).
Ironically for me, your car doesn’t need to be on the vetted KnuckleUp list to drive during the new Lights series, so I missed a driving opportunity during the weekend, but it’s whatever, my wallet wasn’t prepped to drive this month anyway (this is cope).
So for my third time here as media this year, I decided to try and mix things up a bit. This included shooting from new places on the property and sometimes it worked out to some new perspectives, especially when paired with KnuckleUp driving the (new to me) back section of the course. Shooting from the kart building’s veranda that overlooked that stretch of the track kind of reminded me of the view I got shooting from the grandstands at Texas World Speedway (RIP).
If you’ve peaked at the gallery below, you’ll notice its a smidge smaller than usual as a result of all the playing around I did. Got into a game of chicken with my 85L by trying to find my limit on how slow I could drag shutter at that focal length with a non stabilized prime, and I ended up with a bunch of shots with astigmatism simulation. The ones that came out sharp look less dramatic than I expected and more so like I faked it by running a photoshop blur filter on them.
Speaking of the 85L, I also couldn’t resist the urge to shoot it wide open (as is the case everytime I use it). It’s soft as baby cheeks, so that’s usually turns out poorly, but man was the chromatic aberration in full form today. It’s a lens I use sparingly, but I feel it and I get a little more closely acquainted everytime I take it out and use it for the wrong kind of subject.
Anyway, enough alienating the audience, everybody had outlandish amounts of fun as is par for the course of a KnuckleUp weekend. Check out the gallery for photos from Saturday and drop me a line on instagram if you’d like a highres copy of something.
