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A little info about the photographers
August 21, 2005
Steve and I (Brian) are very enthused about this new adventure. We have entered into this realm of race car photography through a set of circumstances that neither of us really planned. But as certain events unfolded the beginning of the 2006 race season, we decided to go with the flow and see how things would develop.
We are covering two tracks that are geographically near us, Merced Speedway in Merced, California and Kings Speedway in Hanford, California. We both live within minutes of the Merced Speedway, and Hanford is about a two-hour drive south of us. Many years ago Steve and I partnered with several different drivers of the 70’s era building cars locally and even took turns driving a car we built ourselves for one season at the Merced Speedway.
Although Steve and I both won a number of main events our first season driving, we both tend to gravitate towards the technical side of the sport. Driving is fun, but our satisfaction came from building and setting up the cars we were involved with. Maybe some day we will both find time to share pictures and some stories about our racing from that period.
Both of us have found a way through photography to connect in a personal way with racing once again. Fielding a car ourselves is more of a commitment financially and time wise than both of us choose to do at this time. Photography has given us the satisfaction of capturing moments in time that otherwise would be lost forever. Having been deeply involved with racing ourselves, we feel we are in a position to know what you the driver, crew member, family and friend want as a photographic record of your participation.
We both feel we are on a steep learning curve with all this, although it’s certainly fun and interesting. Steve is very good with computers and I have experience with photography. We try to combine these strengths and shore up our individual weak areas. Although I must say, Steve is adapting to this style of photography much better than my ability to learn Photo Shop.
Steve and I, along with most others doing this type of photography have chosen to go the digital route. Upper end digital cameras offer equivalent picture quality to film. Plus, they allow us to shoot more frames throughout an event. We typically take from 400-700 shots each per event. We edit these down to about 50 pictures per track each week that we post. These are normally our favorites. We keep on file many more that we simply don’t have room to post on our web site.
When a picture is in the digital format, it can be edited relatively easy on our PC’s. We can also get creative with different aspects of customizing a photo if called for. Shooting film adds too much unwanted and unnecessary effort to this process. Feeling free to shoot digitally frees a photographer to take chances that may offer a nice image without worrying about processing costs and final editing as with conventional film.
Thanks to those of you who have bought our product. We also hope we have provided an entertaining review to those of you who simply wish to view our weekly efforts on our web site. Keep the hammer down and the mud flying…………….
Brian Ratzlaff, Steve Ogden
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