This past Saturday, was the second drift day of the “season” and it was leaps and bounds more awesome than the first. More cars, spectators, faster course and perfect weather made for a better day and event.

With the newly added spectators, the starting point had to be moved to keep the high-speed turns as far away from them as possible. I think most of everyone liked this new setup. I say most because it was definitely tougher for the lesser-powered cars to make it from clipping point to clipping point.

The event is definitely growing and I hope that by the last one the numbers of drivers will be at maximum capacity. That said, the next event is scheduled and pre-registration is up and ready. It’s gonna be in the middle of July so it’ll probably hot as hell. Regardless, I can’t wait!!!

To see all of the shots I got from the event, visit my flickr page.

We spent this weekend at a cabin in Big South Fork. Can you think of a better way to spend Easter weekend than way out in the middle of nowhere? Me either.

I took some long exposure shots Friday night when we got there, but with a full moon it was tough to get what I was looking for. I was able to take a 10-minute exposure that showed some really nice star trails. The only problem was with nothing as a point of reference, except for the tops of a few trees, I wasn’t very happy.

We woke up early Saturday morning to take the dogs outside, and I saw the fog rolling off the water of the pond behind the cabin. I went back in to grab my camera and tripod and got to work. The sun was a little higher (and rising quickly) than I had wanted, but what can you do? The shots came out nice and I am really pleased with them.

Later in the day, we made the drive over the Twin Arches trailhead. This was a relatively easy hike, but we had read it was extremely light. I don’t know where we read that, but take it from me; the trail is nice and groomed, but has some gnarly stairs (see the last picture above). I had every bit of my gear with me, including my tripod. I was planning to get lots of shots, at different exposures, to do some HDRs. This was not my best decision to date, but I was trooper and pulled through. Ha.

After navigating the intense stairs, and failing to get pictures of said stairs, we found our way to the arches. These were so much larger than I was expecting! The trail we took leads you to the bottom of the arches and eventually you wind up on the top. This was really cool. Everything about that area is so beautiful. So natural. So untamed. It was incredible.

We headed back early Sunday so I didn’t take any pictures. After this weekend, I see some hiking in my future. I’ve never really photographed nature and would love to add some to my portfolio. Plus, is it possible to have too much of this?

Somehow I forgot to post this here.

On March 17, I was lucky enough to “volunteer” my time for east10drift during their inaugural drift day. I took a boat load of photos (which you can see in my previous post) and took this timelapse.

I set up one of the GoPro cameras on a pole as high as I could get it. I set it to take a photo every two seconds and just let it run all day. With the extra battery pack attached, it managed to last about 6 hours and took almost 13,000 pictures! Holy shit, that’s a lot. I combined all the photos using Quicktime 7 and then trimmed it down and added music in iMovie (hey, it does what I need).

I had hoped that the cars drifting would be more visible, but I’m not disappointed. This was my first time using the GoPro to make a timelapse and it came out ok. If I decide to do this for the next event in May, I’m going to start it when the action starts and have it take one photo every second. This will, hopefully, capture the motion of the faster moving cars and be a little smoother. Trial and error FTW!

Also, I refreshed the layout of the site. I’m trying to make it more browser friendly. That said, if you notice anything that looks “off” please let me know in the comments or via email.