When I was young, I used to sit and watched the motorsports race in the television with my uncles. I have always wondered what it was like to watch it directly from my naked eyes and just last week on Sunday, 6th of October – I took the opportunity to be at Knockhill Racing Circuit.

Let me tell you, I could not believe I was at a racing circuit, it took me a moment to process. I had to allow my eyes and feet to wonder around for me to realise it was real. What an amazing experience it was! Not only for being at the circuit, but to also being able to do a photoshoot in a hellish weather as the rain was absolutely torrential. Everybody who was there thankfully had big jackets on, heated ones would have been better!

Some of the race’s audience captured.

To tackle this photoshoot, my class mates and I stood at the side where the circuit track bends. It was the best place to shoot the race cars at as it was where they slowed down to go around the bend. I experimented with ‘panning’ (a camera technique in which a slow shutter speed is combined with a camera motion) and I had mostly set my camera on shutter priority mode between 1/80 sec – 1/100 sec, aperture f/9 followed by ISO-400.

The cloudy, misty and slippery environment the racers has to race in.
The first bend we found.
A much better bend we found on the other side of the circuit.

I pointed out my camera to find the composition whilst we waited for the cars to pass by. A minute has gone by… two minutes has passed by… three minutes later and the rustling noise was unreal, it was POWERFUL.

After warming up from several rounds and getting some images in the bag, there were some cars that went off the track – which was expected but it was just like what I saw in the television! Only this time, it was right in front of me. Thankfully nobody was injured.

Before we even arrived at Knockhill, I thought to myself “How will this be possible to shoot in the pouring rain with a wild gust of winds?”. But, the results was good. There was good reflections on the track, the torrential rain gave the track’s surface a nice gloss and my camera did not get water damaged – my lunch’s plastic bag saved the day!

One of my best photograph from the day.
Notice there’s a little piggy at the back? Isn’t that brilliant?!

To find out more about Knockhill Racing Circuit, click here

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Published by adelqotrunada