CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

The final day of activity at an FIA World Endurance Championship race weekend includes all of the cars taking part in the event undergoing the mandatory technical checks to make sure they are in compliance with the regulations for the championship. The pitlane in Shanghai was a flurry of activity as the teams prepared their cars ahead of the 6 Hours of Shanghai on Sunday.  The teams took it in turns to push their cars to the scrutineering bay and this shot was taken of the Porsche GT Team pushing the no91 Porsche 911 RSR down to the technical area. The image was taken on the Fujifilm X-T2 and XF50-140mm f2.8 lens.  The camera was set on the floor as the car was pushed towards me and I used the articlated screen to make sure the framing was correct.  The camera was set to AF-C to allow the camera's autofocus to track the car as it was push down the pitlane. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...

Anyone who has traveled to China and tried to access their normal social media feeds will know it can be a nightmare.  I've been in Shanghai for the past six days working on the latest round of the FIA World Endurance Championship and I have had to put updating this blog because of the internet issues faced behind the Great Firewall of China. I am now back in Europe and I have taken the opportunity to update the blog with some of the black and white images I took during the event.  There will be more features coming in the next few days before I head to Bahrain for the season finale next week. Images were shot on the Fujifilm X-T2 or X100T and then converted to black and white using NIK Silver EFEX Pro2.   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping ...

Yesterday was sunny at the Shanghai International Circuit and I took the opportunity to go out to inspect the photo areas around the track and take a few images along the way. Using the X-T1 and the XF16-55mm f2.8 I used the panoramic function on the camera to capture some wide, sweeping images of the track.

I am currently in Shanghai for the next round of the FIA World Endurance Championship on Sunday 1 November.  This morning I woke up in my hotel room and on opening the curtains I was immediately hit by diffused sunlight through the polluted atmosphere that seems to permanently shroud China's largest city.   This is the fourth year I have stayed at the Crowne Plaza hotel located a few miles from the Shanghai International Circuit and every year I take pictures out of the window to show how things change very quickly in this part of the world.  Last year there was bare ground now, 12 months later, it is a massive construction site with four cranes and hundreds of workers. I took some shots on the X-T1 and XF50-140mm f2.8 to document the changes.  At least the light was quite special even if the subject matter was not.  Probably have a massive tower block in front of the windows next year. ----------------------------------------------...

The traffic in Shanghai is very busy and very dangerous.  The drivers here just seem to do what they like and our bus driver even took us down the wrong side of a dual carriageway into oncoming traffic when the road we needed to use was blocked by an accident involving two lorries.  The majority of the local population here seem to use motorbikes or scooters, which have dedicated lanes next to the main highway, which seem to be safer, but I do use the term 'safer' in the loosest of terms. Sitting next to the window on the bus I was able to observe this flow of humanity each morning during the 30-minute journey from the hotel to the Shanghai International Circuit.   The first morning I sat with the Fujifilm X-T1 and 56mm f1.2 on a wide aperture to get around the dirt on the window taking images of the ebb and flow of the traffic.  While most of the images were put straight in the bin, I did manage to get a few that worked. One of the oth...

The preparations for the 6 Hours of Shanghai continue and yesterday afternoon the competitors in the LMGTE Pro and LMGTE Am classes underwent technical scrutineering.   This is where all of the cars are checked for weight and measurements to be sure that the cars comply with the regulations before they go out on track in the first Free Practice session of the weekend today. The first team to present their cars for the technical checks after lunch were the four cars from Aston Martin Racing, with the nr97 Vantage V8 of Stefan Mucke and Darren Turner, the partnership that has won the 6 Hours of Shanghai in 2012 and 2013, first on the scales. 500 individual images were shot to produce the video, with the Fujifilm X-T1 set to JPEG Fine and 16:9 format in the shoot menu. The lens used was the XF10-24mm f4R OIS wide angle zoom.  Aston Martin Racing Going Through Technical... by fiawec More information and live timing of the track sessions can be found on the ...

The final corner leading onto the start finish straight at the SIC The Shanghai International Circuit (SIC), which was opened in 2004, is a striking example of architectural sports venue design.   The massive main pitlane grandstand. which incorporates the two overhanging 'teardrops', is one of the most impressive sports stadiums in the world and, situated on the top floor over the top of the track, includes the best view from a media centre I have ever seen.   The 'lily pad' grandstand, as seen from the service road The other impressive architectural feature of the SIC is the 'lily pad' tops to the grandstands that lines the hairpin corner on the back straight. During my second day in Shanghai I went for a walk down to the hairpin to get some shots of the banners and also take the opportunity to grab some shots of the track while it was quiet.  Also with the forecast for rain later in the week it was also a good opportunity to take some sunny...

Yesterday I arrived in China for the next round of the FIA World Endurance Championship at the impressive Shanghai International Circuit.  This will be my fourth visit to China for a racing event and the fifth race I have run the FIA Media Office.  The first was in 2011 when we raced at Ordos in Inner Mongolia and then in Beijing with the FIA GT1 World Championship and then for the past three years we have visited Shanghai with the FIA WEC. On arrival in Shanghai yesterday morning, after a long 11 hour flight from Paris, I grabbed a quick shower and changed into my WEC uniform at the hotel before heading to the track.    Monday is the day the teams unload the containers of all their equipment they will need this weekend.  This is a big job as hundreds of tonnes of equipment are unloaded and unpacked.  I wanted to get a sense of this frantic activity in the paddock and so I set up the X-T1 to record a short timelapse video of the unloading proc...

Normally for the start of an FIA World Endurance Championship race I am on the grid taking care of the media access and taking a few images for the official website and social media feeds. At the 6 Hours of Shanghai on Saturday I decided on a different plan and went up into the grandstand to take images of the large Chinese crowd as they enjoyed the building up to the race.  Over 28,000 people, including many families, came to watch the penultimate round of the World Endurance Championship and here are some of the images I took using the Fujifilm X-Pro1 and Fujinon 60mm f2.4 lens. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE GOOGLE ADVERTS It doesn't cost you anything to click on an advert but we get a small fee for every click thru from Google and this helps support this blog - thank you for helping --------------------...