faces appear in the crowd. There’s a sea of human
interaction and little moments to be captured. My
background is wildlife photography and a big part
of that discipline is to blend in and get on with your
work without disturbing the ebb and flow of the
environment you’re in. Shooting in the paddock
or pit is much the same, most of the time you just
want to be ignored and to be able to shoot almost
without being noticed. And I have to say, the teams
and riders were very tolerant about letting me
and the other photographers invade their space.
ACCESS (ALMOST) ALL AREAS
Whilst the access we’re granted is pretty extensive,
it’s not unlimited. When we’re out shooting action
on the track, we have to stay behind the point of
safe protection (whether it’s a tyre wall, an earth
berm or just a line painted on the ground) and
we have to follow race control and the marshals’
directions to the letter. No arguments, they own
the track, we’re just there on their terms. Once in a
while there can be a difference of opinions about
where we’re allowed access to, but there’s no point
getting bent out of shape. A quick discussion with
the marshals will often resolve it in our favour and
if they stick to their position and won’t let us go
where we think we should be allowed to go, we
have accept it and work with what we’ve got.
The relationship between the media
photographers and track officials is really good and
we often chat about what’s going on and have a
laugh about the world, but know to leave each other
alone to do our very different jobs when the track is
live. One of the bonuses about having infield access is
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