Shooting Wide Open

Shooting Through The Wire

2008-06-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since my last post, but I finally have something to say that seems worth the effort. I just got back from the UK. I spent four days at Donington Park shooting the MotoGP event without a photo credential and had to deal with the fact that this track is not particularly friendly to the amateur photographer.

I had been prepared by several friends from Flickr, such as RESmith1000 and DodgyEmpire, that Donington Park allowed only a few spots where one could over the fence. And with a crowd as big as that expected on a MotoGP weekend, there would be a lot of competition for those spots.

Thursday was spent shooting in the paddock and infield during the Day of Champions, but on the way to the car at the end of the day, my friend Mark and I scouted locations a bit. We found a spot that allowed a clear view of the Fogerty Esses, where a small rise on the terrain allowed us to see over the fence. The perspective was far from ideal as it was looking down at the track and the riders would only be looking right at the camera for a moment. As they got closer, the would turn away from the camera and also move into an area blocked by the fence. But for a non-credentialed opportunity it seemed pretty good.

We decided we would arrive at the track early the next day in case this was a popular spot to shot from. Sure enough, the next morning at 8 we found the top of the rise already populated by many cameras and their owners, as well as spectator who just liked not having to look through the fence to see the bikes. But we got a decent spot and waited for the first warm-up session.

I was lucky to have my old stand-by, the Canon 100-400mm zoom with me. When we started shooting, it became clear that even with 400mm we were too far away to meet one of my most important rules for track photography, that being to fill the frame of my Canon 30D with my subject. The bikes as they entered the first turn were just too far away to get enough detail for anything other than web resolution. By the time the bikes were close enough to almost fill the image, the riders were leaned into the second turn and away from the camera. We shot there for a while, but since photos of the riders are generally more interesting than photos of the bikes, even with a leg hanging over, I knew I was not getting shots I would really be happy with.

I noticed a guy with my same lens standing right by the fence and shooting through it. He was much closer to the track, close enough hat I figured he might be able to fill the frame with the bikes before they turned away, so I decided to see if he was onto something. I had tried shooting through a fence at the last USGP at Laguna Seca, with my friend Jules. I hadn’t gotten good results, however, and had since concentrated on finding opportunities to avoid fences altogether.

I was familiar with the principle of shooting through a fence, though—keep the aperture as open as you can to reduce the depth of field, and focus as far beyond the fence itself as you can. These two elements reduce the visibility of the fence in your image. I don’t think it ever goes away completely unless you happen to take a shot directly through a gap in the fence and happen to be zoomed in far enough that the lens’ field of view is narrow enough to eliminate the fence wire. Some of the shots I took at Donington might have been the happy result of this very situation.

Even on my small screen on the 30D, I could tell that some of the images might just be useable. It appeared that the fence was either noticeable only as a vague shadow overlaid on the image, or else not very noticeable at all. Occasionally the fence wire would interfere with focusing, and the camera would get confused about what I was trying to shoot. Sometimes things worked out badly and the fence was very visible, rendering the image useless.

We moved counter-clockwise around the track, looking for spots that allowed us to get close enough to work. I decided to try panning through the fence, thinking that this might further reduce the visibility of the fence in the image. Since the sensor would be moving during exposure, at least some light that would be blocked by the fence in a still shot would be able to reach the sensor. This turned out to work pretty well much of the time.

We shot the braking area into Coppice, which turned out to be a very good combination of the three elements. The main fence at Donington is fairly high but composed of wire that’s arranged with fairly large gaps in it. American ‘cyclone’ wire fences are the same design, but the wires are wrapped tighter together, making smaller gaps. The Donington fences stop about a foot from the ground, and have a second, low wire fence to keep spectators back from the main fence. The gap between the low fence and the main fence varies around the track, and at Coppice it seemed ideal, relative to the distance from the main fence to the track itself. I got a lot of shots there where you can’t tell I was shooting through a fence at all. The problem was that when braking a rider’s position is upright and a bit boring unless his rear wheel is lifting. Coppice isn’t a slow enough turn that the riders are really hard on the brakes, so we didn’t see any rear wheels coming up, and the photos there are a bit dull.

We moved down to the exit of McLeans, which was better because the riders are under hard acceleration here as they race up to Coppice. Not only is their body position more interesting, being tucked down against the bike, but sometimes they allow small front wheel lift, which looks great. For a panning shot of the side of the bike and rider, this is about as good as it gets.

Unfortunately, we were a bit farther away from the main fence because there is a bigger gap between it and the low fence, and the distance between the main fence and the track is a bit closer. So I got more shots with noticeable fence shadow in them here. Even though the good shots are better because of the rider position, I got fewer useable shots at this location.

By now I was figuring out the three elements that allow successful through-the-fence shots. The problem is that you can’t control any of them, except possibly your distance from the fence if you need to move away from it. If something is keeping you from getting closer to the fence, there’s nothing you can do, and you can’t change the distance between the fence and the track. Neither can you change these elements to align for you at the part of the track where you want to shoot. You just have to do the best you can at each location.

On Sunday I found what I thought would be a good spot at the approach to the Melbounre hairpin. I expect hard braking and some rear wheel lift, but was actually a bit too close to the turn entrance to be lined up for it. I was also interested byt eh fact that at this spot the low fence had been trampled and I could get right up to the main fence. The previous days’ experience suggested that this would be an improvement, but in fact I found that being too close to the fence hurt me: I got way more shots with visible fence in the from this location than anywhere else. I have no idea why, but this refined my approach for next time.

I think what you want is to find just the right distance from the fence, which may change relative to the fence-track distance. I just don’t know. The main revelation, however, was that you can get good shots through a fence if you get lucky with the three-element combo. All of the shots in this post were taken through fences.

Photo Chat on MotoGPod

2008-05-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

This is a short post for fans of MotoGPod who heard my talk with Jules Cisek on show 125.

Below are links to my past posts on motorsports photography, which contain many of the tips I talked to Jules about.

I Want a Golden Ticket

A Post for my Shutterbug Friends

Another Post for my Shutterbug Friends

More on Motorsports Photography

Here are some links to the best sports pros I’ve run across. Please use the comment box to let me know who else is doing great work, or to add your own tips on getting better pictures at the track.

Andrew Wheeler

John Thawley

Darren Heath

Wes Duenkel

Weddings...

2008-03-11T18:55:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday I got to take photos at a mutual friend’s wedding. I have taken photos at a wedding before, trying merely to add a few causal shots to compliment the efforts of a pro and his two assistants. I got a couple of nice pics of the kids, and a shot of my father-in-law that’s one of the best pictures I’ve ever taken, but watching the pros work from the relatively new perspective of someone who had recently gone to an event (okay, it was at a race track, not a church) and tried to take as good a collection of photos as possible, I decided that this type of photography was not for me.

It’s one thing to miss a shot when you’re trying to earn your living, as I would like very much to be able to do at the track some day. But it is something else to blow a shot of “you may kiss the bride.” If you miss that, it’s gone forever, and you might find yourself with an uncomfortable appreciation of the term, “Bridezilla.” Talk about pressure to get it right. Add to that pressure the often very challenging conditions: a ceremony inside a dark church, very little natural light to work with and requiring the use of a bright flash, which adds a distracting element to a very important event, and the necessity of moving intrusively around the participants, obstructing the views of the audience, and so on. Sometimes I think a wedding should be photographed like a football game; from the sidelines with a long, fast lens.

But what are you going to do when a friend calls to say a last minute change from ‘casual get together’ has turned into something that requires a dedicated cameraman? If the alternative is to have the soon-to-be-happy couple rely on the point-and-shoot snapshots of their guests, then you might have to nut it up and do your best.

I first wanted to make sure that my ‘clients’ had some idea of what they were going to get if I agreed. I gave them passwords to a few of the galleries on my web site so they could have a look at my work. But I don’t think they had a chance to look at my photos, because right after I emailed the link, the engaged couple experienced their first bank robbery.

I’m not kidding. They needed to do some bank stuff right away and the closest branch was in Oakland. As they waited their turn in line, a bank robber entered with a gun. Oh, and did I mention the bride is nine months pregnant? So I have no idea if they ever got around to looking at my website; knowing someone with a nice camera was available was likely all they needed to know at that point.

The mutual friend who had called me on the couple’s behalf, though, said they wanted me to do my thing. I got a few details and learned that the event would take place in the back yard of a home in the Napa Valley. So the weather in March would probably be good, and I wouldn’t need a flash for a dark church’s interior. (I’m all about natural light photography, which is another way of saying I completely suck with a flash. I’m glad I rented one before I blew $500 on something that makes my pictures look worse instead of better.)

Given that I am not a wedding photographer, though, I couldn’t in good faith charge them what a pro would charge. I shopped around a little bit and was amazed to find pro fees starting around $2,000 and zooming quickly to $4,500 and higher for a single day’s shoot and the accompanying image editing. Whoa. Suddenly I could see why some photographers accept the risks! Some of the prices I found didn’t include the costs of prints, either.

No big paycheck for me, though. I told our mutual friend I would take pictures of the guests and do my best with the ceremony, but that I was not the man to take on the posed formal shots some people like at weddings. I was assured that they just wanted casual photos of the guests, and I felt I could do that. It would be a learning experience and a favor to a friend in need, with a few bucks for expenses and some self-respect.

My first expense was supposed to be the rental of the wedding photographer’s not-so-secret weapon, a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. But my usual rental places had no available copies for that day, and this isn’t a piece of equipment you just cruise down to the camera shop and pick up unless you’re going to cruise there in your Lamborghini. So I compromised on the 135mm f/2L, a great lens that is faster, but that lacks the flexibility of the zoom. I still have my good friend Derek’s 70-200 F/4L, so between that, my 24-70 f/2.8L and the 135, I figured I’d be in good shape.

Though not in a dark church, the conditions were still quite challenging. Most of the people spent most of the time in direct sunlight, wearing sunglasses or squinting a lot. Though the backyard was picturesque, there was very little shade for the guests. And since it’s the eyes that make a portrait interesting, sunglasses and squinting are not good. Neither are harsh shadows, which nearly every face there wore most of the time. There was a short ceremony, and at that point I was living the life I so wish to avoid, moving in people’s way, trying to get close for good shots without being a huge nuisance. Since in life I usually try to attract as little attention as possible, I was not in my element. The bride had dark shadows on her face and the groom squinted into the sun. But I did the best I could given the situation and got a few keepers.

The best thing was that everyone at the event was very nice; it was truly a charming group of people. That didn’t mean they all wanted to have their photo taken, though. When you go to a wedding, I think you have to accept the likelihood of being in at least a few photographs, but that doesn’t mean you have to like it. And while some people are photogenic and even seem to come to life when looking into a camera, others freeze, cramp up, try for a smile but produce a scowl, or just look severely uncomfortable. These unfortunates almost always (I say this based on my vast experience of taking portraits ;-) ) look better when they don’t know they’re being photographed. Hence the power of the 70-200mm lens. The 135 is a fine portrait lens (and in my opinion a great alternative to the legendary 85mm f/1.2L, which costs twice as much at $1,800!), but being a fixed focal length, it requires some fast footwork if one wants to avoid a lot of cropping back on the computer. Some of the best photos I got were with this lens, but many of those required a good portion of the image to be cropped out because of where I happened to be standing when the photo op presented itself. If I’d been able to zoom in, well, it would’ve been nice.

The most enjoyable part for me was having so many great-looking kids to photograph, especially in a situation where I didn’t have to worry about parents wondering why a stranger was taking pictures of their children. (When I’m at the park with my daughter, I have to be very careful about photographing kids whose guardians I haven’t at least spoken to a bit. I have gotten a few suspicious looks, I’m sorry to say.) And the folks at this wedding have some great-looking kids.

Kids are funny about having their pictures taken. Some like it from the moment the camera appears, while others get scared away by the big lens (or the creepy guy holding it). Others find it a game. There was one girl there, nine or ten years old, I’d guess, who was one of these. We played photo-hide-and-seek several times as she tried to pop out and disappear faster than I could get the shot. She really helped me by enjoying her little game so much. Other kids came up from time to time to play the same game, and a child who is having fun gives the best faces to the camera. The best shots of the day were of the kids for whom playing this game with me was a fun thing to do.

Photographing kids is incredibly enjoyable if you have kids like that. It’s as challenging as shooting racing, but much more rewarding. A car or a motorcycle is merely that, at the end of the day. But a photograph of a pure emotion on a child’s face is really something.

So for my shutterbug friends who read this blog, here are a few tips I can offer based on the experience:

If you have to shoot a bride and groom, or some other important person, move your subject to good light at least once during the event. I regret not asking the bride and groom to move into the shade for a few minutes so I could get sweet light on them. I’m sure they would’ve done so, and appreciated the results had I had the courage to ask. This is my biggest regret of the day. I got some good photos of them, but I should have contrived the best light possible for at least a few minutes. I think it was a few unlucky responses I got earlier in the day that made me drop the ball on this one. I decided that they would definitely want photos of certain people, but the first few times I asked for a quick pose, some of these individuals were unfortunately of the group that simply don’t like their photos taken. I could see I was making them uncomfortable, so I pretty much stopped asking for photos unless directed to do so by the bride. I went back to hanging out by the best light and shooting whoever walked into it, rather like a hunter in a blind. Cowardly, I know!

To do an event like a wedding right, you could really use a second camera body. Just like at the track, a second body would’ve been a godsend. I was switching lenses frequently, and kept wishing I’d charged enough to pay for the rental of a second body. With the 24-70 on one and the 70-200 on the other, I’d have been quickly ready for just about any shot. I could have swapped the 135 for the 70-200 now and then and still had really good coverage. Until they make a tack-sharp 24-200 f/2.8, two bodies will be a huge benefit.

Be bold, or at least, don’t be shy. I now have a theory that the best wedding photographers don’t care if people like them or not. I’ve seen wedding shooters right up there on the altar as if they’re part of the family, pounding away with the flash, thinking that I could never do that. I could’ve gotten better shots of the ceremony had I not cared so much about being as unobtrusive as possible, though. I guess one needs to find a balance, but I probably should’ve been bolder for the sake of a good photo’s longevity. Being a pro instead of a mutual friend probably makes this easier, too. And if you’re charging $5,000, the bride and groom may want to see you doing whatever it takes to get great shots.

Keep your lens hood on, even if the light doesn’t demand it. One of the girls who was enjoying our try-to-take-my-picture game got a bit carried away and as I was photographing someone else, ran up and smacked my 24-70. It was a playful thing, but it knocked the hood off the end of the lens. Hoods don’t just prevent lens flare, they protect the glass, too!

If I had been charging the big dollar, I’d have tried to scout out the venue before hand. Had I then seen how harsh the light was going to be, I’d have brought my own umbrellas! For $5,000, I could make that happen. Bringing my own shade for people to bask in would’ve made a big difference. Or perhaps an assistant with a white golf umbrella would’ve been better. Those shy folks might have liked to have a few shots if it meant a break from the sun. Come to think of it, an assistant would’ve been brilliant.

Anyway, I don’t know if the newlyweds will like their photos or not. I really hope they do, because they’re very nice people who, in spite of the stress of the day, could not have been more courteous or friendlier to me and their guests. And I hope they like portraits of their friends’ kids, because they got a lot of those (including a couple of real beauties, if I say so myself). But in spite of the amazing fees some wedding photographers charge, I’m not going to follow that career path. Although, come to think of it, I learned so much on Saturday, I might be able to make it work for $5,000 plus $45 per 8 x 10 print …

Loyal To A Fault

2008-03-05T07:55:00.000-08:00

Recently I was looking at some photographs I took during the month or so I spent in Madrid, thinking about the Spanish people I met and things I observed about the country during my time there. Being a MotoGP fan, I also thought about Repsol, HRC, Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden.

Nicky Hayden is hard not to like. In spite of his seeming inability to overcome the burden of his Kentucky roots (having spent several years abroad, can you learn even a few words of a foreign language, Nicky, please?), he embodies some of the best qualities I’ve ever observed in a top-level athlete, and as a fellow American I find a lot to respect about how he conducts himself. Immensely talented as a motorcycle racer, he has shown a remarkable discipline as a racer in a difficult situation since Dani Pedrosa joined him at HRC. Given the undesirable situation of a Spanish rider joining him on a team with a Spanish oil company as its main sponsor, Hayden has resolutely presented the face of a company man who thinks of his team before himself. Given the egos usually involved with athletes at this level of competition, Hayden’s dedication to HRC and its efforts is truly remarkable. In spite of HRC’s obvious prejudice in favor of Pedrosa and the Spaniard’s questionable judgment and commitment, Hayden has remained loyal to a fault.

Pedrosa, on the other hand, is quite difficult to like if you wake up in the morning and find you aren’t Spanish. Even if you are, you had to be at least a bit embarrassed by Pedrosa’s idiocy at Estoril in 2007. You must wince slightly when Pedrosa falls and cavalierly makes his way to safety without the slightest intention of picking up his bike and trying to continue on as so many others do. Even if you are Spanish, you must, on occasion, wonder if Pedrosa is the rider to support, or if Jorge Lorenzo isn’t a better choice. You might wish that Sete Gibernau had achieved what his talent promised was possible, or that Carlos Checa had had a few more things go his way over the years. You might even wonder if you should, given the current choices, abandon a nationalistic stance and support some other pilota who rides his ass off regardless of the conditions, who is determined to do his best with whatever cards he is dealt.

Personally I’m more in support of class than I am of Americans for America’s sake. Every rider in the premiere class deserves respect for his talent—you simply don’t make it to the show without being freakishly able to ride a motorcycle. Even those at the back of the grid have more talent for riding in their little toes than most of us have in our entire beings. All of us put together, probably.

But what makes us care about one rider more than another? Some fans find their interests in sport are purely selfish, that is, they support a winner for winning’s sake because they feel gratified for having chosen a winner. For true fans, however, it’s character. It’s not just talent or success, it’s dedication, courage, flair, and most importantly, something we call heart.

And for character, Hayden is hard to beat. He won a world championship for HRC and Respol only to watch his team focus their development on Pedrosa. He remained a company man, focusing his public comments on his work ethic of not giving up and bringing his best to every race in spite of the (piece of junk) bike he was given to ride. He watched Michelin, his tire supplier, get utterly owned by Bridgestone, and never complained in public. He watched the once mighty HRC be humiliated by a tiny Italian factory and went about his business, doing the best he could every time he got on an inferior machine that had been designed for his teammate, who was not reigning world champion.

If you’re HRC, who could possibly be better? Colin Edwards might be a rival, in terms of accepting a supporting role with outstanding modesty. But as far as the whole package goes, Hayden is the man to have for a second string rider because you can treat him like a dog and he’ll be professional all the way. If he wins in spite of your lack of full support, great. That means you win, too, and more to the point it means he isn’t winning for one of your competitors. The Godfather advised keeping your friends close, and your enemies closer. Hayden is certainly someone you don’t want riding for the competition.

There used to be the perception that to be on a Honda was to be in a position to win. HRC certainly felt that was true and it was that arrogance that cost them the services of Valentino Rossi. But HRC is no longer the dominant technical force it was when Hayden was a youngster dreaming of riding in the premier class. Consider that Ducati’s 1098 in World Superbike is handicapped with a 6 kilogram penalty. Though this may very well change to 9 kilos, at the beginning of the SBK season a lousy 6 kilos was considered a proper weight disadvantage. In 2007, HRC got its ass kicked with a rider the size of a twelve-year-old girl and one of the biggest budgets in MotoGP.

2008 may show that Michelin has snapped out of its coma and that HRC can make a pneumatic-valved engine, but even if both things happen, the package will be custom-made for Pedrosa, not Hayden. Hayden has a dirt-track background; Pedrosa came up in the European system of 125s and 250s on tarmac. One bike is never going to suit both of these very different riders. And since Rossi left HRC, the former powerhouse has won only one MotoGP title. With Nicky Hayden.

It is past time for Hayden to abandon his dedication to HRC’s epic past and find a team that will treat him as his qualities merit. He should be at Ducati. In my opinion, he should have been at Ducati last season in place of Stoner. Ducati wanted Hayden, and Stoner has proven that a dirt-tracker can ride the GP7/GP8 just as Capirossi and Melandri have/are proving that a 125cc/250cc tarmac rider can’t. I think that if Hayden had Melandri’s seat this year, we’d see a MotoGP version of Spies and Mladin on AMA Suzukis. This would not be a good thing for MotoGP, but it would be better for Nicky Hayden that staying at HRC.

Ultimately Hayden’s situation isn’t entirely Repsol’s fault, but the oil company certainly shares a large part of the blame. Getting back to my cultural observations during my time in Spain, I am strongly of the opinion that HRC’s abandonment of Nicky Hayden in his World Champion year is due to the Spanish sponsor’s financial pressure to create a Spanish world champion.

Before I continue, let me say that my wife and I loved Spain. The people were, as a group, wonderful: warm, friendly, and generous. But underneath those qualities, there lurked something of the pain of history. The same thing was much more noticeable in Portugal, where a country that once ruled the sea, and thus the world, is now haunted by monuments to its former glory and power as it struggles to matter in the present. Spain is not quite like that, but there is some similarity. And while a series of 250cc world champions has been welcomed, a premiere class world champion is what Spain truly desires.

Look at Fernando Alonso in Formula One. He became a god in Spain relatively overnight after taking the world championship at Renault, and I think it was the national pressure to remain world champion that caused his appalling meltdown at McLaren. It’s easy to be classy when you’re winning. It’s when you’re not that being a class act is difficult. And Nicky Hayden is always a class act as a racer.

It is cruelly unfair that he must defer to Pedrosa’s needs. Pedrosa certainly has the talent to be world champion, as he proved by dominating the 250cc class. But does he have the heart to win if things don’t go his way? Could he have bounced back from his own idiot teammate crashing into him in the season’s penultimate race? All MotoGP evidence so far says probably not. Maybe his reluctance to pick up his bike after a crash is due to his wanting to avoid the embarrassment of being so small he can’t move such a relatively large object once it’s on its side. But I think it’s more due to a much smaller heart than other riders possess. And if it’s one thing Hayden has in spades, it’s heart.

Pre-season testing has been promising for Hayden, at least compared to his 2007 package. But if 2008 turns out to be more of the same lack of support from HRC, Hayden must move to a team that will treat him right. As Kropotkin points out on his season preview, Hayden needs a successful season with the latest influx of young riders, and his results in 2008 will have a dramatic effect on his future in MotoGP.

Rossi served HRC a nice big junk burger, and I, for one, would LOVE to see Hayden do the same.

SCHMAP!

2008-02-04T09:59:00.000-08:00

Ever heard of Schmap? Me either, until an editor contacted me via Flickr saying that one of my Rome photos had been short-listed for inclusion in this online map of the world. A week or two later I got an email saying that I’d made the guide, but when I went looked at the listing for Via dei Pettinari, the little pointer thingy was on a different street a block away. Oh well. The response to my correction email was appreciative, and we’ll see if Schmap sorts this out.

The above photo was taken by the Golden Gate Bridge. There are WWII gun placements/bunkers on each side of the entrance to the bay. This one is on the Marin Headlands side. Someone very fond of the word ‘ribety’ has put a variety of tags up there, and this metal ring got in the way.

Lunch With The Falcon

2007-12-20T20:56:00.000-08:00

For some reason I had it in my head that Tadich Grill was the famous place Sam Spade eats in The Maltese Falcon, but in fact it’s John’s Grill on Ellis St. Established in 1906, John’s Grill has the feel of Old San Francisco in the modern day. Since I know everything, I know exactly what people visiting San Francisco think of as Old San Francisco, and John’s Grill is it. Though the table was a bit cramped, the food and service were very good. I recommend it if you find yourself in the City.

I found myself there this afternoon after a strange and fortuitous coincidence determined a connection with a former head of the homicide detail in the SFPD--just what this writer needed! A two and a half hour talk provided one of the most interesting discussions in recent memory and reminded me of just how little the public knows about what really goes on inside organizations that affect us as profoundly as the police. Lieutenant X answered many of the questions I had for him that related to my story, as well as volunteering some fascinating tales of his experiences during a long career inside the department.

The political situation as it changed over the decades was interesting, but not as much, to me at least, as the little details about the job that could be provided only by someone who has experienced that life. As any random flipping past TV channels or movie guides will make plain, people love stories about the police. But this afternoon’s interview made plain that in fiction we rarely, if ever, hear the real deal.

What we usually get are contrived situations set in a world that only those on the inside really know. The demands of storytelling say that only details germane to the story itself be included. Even if Lt. X were to write a crime novel, his editor would likely require that he take out most of the great details he provided included if they didn’t further the story. A non-fiction book by such a person would be fascinating, if the author were prepared to move to Tibet or somewhere equally remote upon publication.

So I’m left tonight with way more information than I can possible make work in a novel that isn’t a police procedural. But I’m much more confident that I can make the scenes that involve the police and their work sound more authentic.

A larger problem, however, is how much I should rework my novel to fit facts and how many ‘errors’ to leave in to further the story. This is an issue with setting a novel in a real city. People who know how things work there (such as how a suspect injured before being taken into custody is processed after his wounds are treated, for example) will find mistakes that grate on their nerves, even if the story benefits from those un-factual elements. So for each detail I now know to be wrong, I must decide if correcting it is better for the story than leaving a known mistake in place.

Or course, I could just change the setting of the story to a fictional city. That would solve A LOT of problems. But Hammett didn’t do that, and decades later people go to eat where the Maltese Falcon resides. Hmmm.

Surprise!

2007-12-18T11:19:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you just don't know what you're looking at.

A friend is in Paris for the month and graciously offered to let a struggling writer use her house as an escape from all things familial. Wow, what a difference it's making for my productivity. I've been spending the evenings there, hunkered over my laptop, warmed by my space heater, flipping through pages full of red ink and bad writing, trying to make some sense of the monster.

I've been moving along at such a cracking pace, in fact, that I'm rewriting the final showdown tonight. I hope to do it in one evening, leaving me the difficult wrap up to execute before I print the monster and go through the entire process again. Woo-hoo!!

But I was thinking of the above picture the other day when I was cruising along from one scene to the next and my main character completely surprised me. It turns out that at one point in his career on the SFPD, he fully intended to murder someone. This is my hero, remember. Yes, it was a very bad man for whom he lay in wait, ready to violate most of his high principles. But until I got to that scene, I had no idea it was this experience that has made him who he is in the rest of the story and explained why he has made certain choices. Several times in the writing classes and seminars I've attended I'v heard some very successful writer say the same thing happened to them, but this is the first time I have been so surprised by one of my own characters. You go along, thinking you're in control (sort of) and that you're making things happen according to your well-laid plans of plotting and character. Suddenly, wham! What you thought was clear is suddenly not, or vice versa.

One of, if not the theme of this novel, is the question of what decent people are supposed to do about evil. At what point does someone accept personal responsibility to deal with wrong doing if no one else is, or if that someone is the only one who can deal with it? Now I know why my character feels as he does about this question. And soon (I hope), so will you, lucky readers!

The photo is of my dog, Charlie, sticking his head out the truck window, btw.

Red and Green Lights Don’t Always Mean Merry Christmas

2007-12-09T18:23:00.000-08:00

I’m trying to think of just one of my Xbox Live friends who hasn’t had at least one 360 succumb to the Red Ring of Death. Each name I think of had at least one console die, another had FIVE RRoD replacements, another SIX! As in, your first console goes RRoD, so you contact Microsoft, who sends you a coffin, into which you place your deceased console to return to them, at which point you wait for anywhere from a couple of weeks, to several weeks, to way too many weeks, until a replacement arrives. You use that for a short time and it goes RRoD, so you contact Microsoft, who sends you a coffin… TIMES SIX.

My original 360 console finally gave up the ghost after two years of being a survivor, and in my closest circle of just over 20 XBL friends, mine was the last man standing. Everyone else has already sent at least one console back. Did I mention the guy on his sixth? I did? Okay.

Microsoft won’t say what exactly causes the RRoD, though in the media this situation is generally believed to be related to a flawed design of the heat dispersion for the machine’s CPU. That Microsoft acknowledged a problem and extended its warranty coverage to three years is a good thing. The time it takes to complete the repair, and the number of times some customers have to go through the same failure-related process is bad, almost as bad as that fact that the console has such a flaw in it to begin with. MS is currently offering as compensation for down time caused by the RRoD defect one month of Live, a $4 value! But this is really just a reimbursement for the month of XBL you lose when your console is away, rather than a ‘we’re sorry’ gesture.

Of course they aren’t saying how many people have had their 360s go RRoD, but based on our group’s experience, it is a lot. I’m amazed that no one has filed a class action suit after two years of this. MS has clearly released a flawed product in their race to beat Sony’s PS3 to market and gain market share. The strategy seems to have worked, although it’s a bit hard to say if it isn’t the PS3’s higher price and relatively weak game selection that is helping Microsoft against Sony. (The Nintendo Wii, of course, is crushing everyone.)

It’s Xbox 360 customers who are paying the price for beating Sony to market. But Microsoft is in an unusual position that might protect them from a class action suit. When my 360 died the other day, I wondered if I should do anything beyond beginning the repair process that so many of my friends have endured. Would I even join a class action suit against Microsoft if one were announced?

I’m not sure I would, because like many of my friends, I suspect, I wouldn’t see that in my best interest. Sure, I might get a small check, my tiny piece of a settlement. But would I be better off in the long run if Microsoft took the hit of such a suit? I doubt it.

The reason is simple. My 360 is much more than a video game console. It’s a way I keep in touch and interact with some people who have become very close friends. They live around the world, and getting together to play video games is the main way I interact with them. I know their names, I know phone numbers and addresses and names of family members, I’ve met some face to face and some have even come to stay at my house. Just a moment ago I noticed that a friend in England was online, which meant that he’d just returned from a long trip. I logged into Live and invited him to chat, then talked to him for twenty minutes. Sure, I could’ve called him on the phone, for .xx cents per minute, if I’d known he was awake at 1:30 in the morning and I didn’t mind waking his wife and kids up. But seeing him on Live made it easy and cheap to catch up.

Xbox Live was what brought us all together in the first place, and I don’t want to lose that connection. I want Live to flourish, and I want my frickin’ 360 to work so that I can continue to meet up with my XBL friends for Friday night fun or talk to someone across the globe when I see him online. To me, the games are fun, but the social element of my XBL experience goes way beyond that. I think many others are in the same situation, which is why it hurts so much when we see those red lights.

Now I’m just hoping the repair will be quick and permanent. I don’t want to be writing about my second, third fourth, five, sixth, or dare I say it, seventh RRoD repair.

Strappy Torture

2007-12-04T10:53:00.000-08:00

I have an attitude toward exercise that I suspect is common among many former athletes. Bike racing was so hard that having endured it for several years, some part of my brain still thinks I’m 20 years old and as tough as nails. To me, working out properly involves free weights in the winter and five hours a day on the bike the rest of the year. Hills, intervals, sprints: pain, pain and more pain.

Back then I made up for my lack of brains with fitness and muscle, instead of fat, as I do today. But I still look at exercise gimmicks with great skepticism. No device is ever going to make working out easy, because it’s the pain that gives the benefit. An effective work out device just makes the pain arrive faster, not help you avoid it altogether.

So when my wife informed me that she’d purchased a training device from her personal trainer, I rolled my eyes in spite of how much benefit she’s been getting from her lunchtime exercise. The lack of brains was kicking in again.

She told me about the device she calls Strappy Torture and I listened remotely in that state of mind I instinctively slip into whenever anyone starts talking about exercise equipment, thinking that the latest Thigh Master has arrived on the scene and that we now owned one. But something she said snapped me out of that mood. I could’ve sworn I’d heard the words “Navy SEAL.”

Like most guys I would buy just about anything a Navy SEAL wanted to sell me, especially if it related directly to being a SEAL and having that degree of toughness and competence. But even if a SEAL had a recipe for peanut butter cookies, I’d assume that was probably the best peanut butter cookie in the world, just because a SEAL was promoting it. Anyone who survives BUDS is a contender for toughest human ever, as far as I’m concerned. Even at the peak of my mental and physical toughness, I never would’ve made it through BUDS.

And sure enough, the TRX Trainer was invented by a Navy SEAL, is used by the teams to stay fit when deployed, and due more to the inventiveness of the exercises created to be done with it than with the device itself, the TRX is aptly called Strappy Torture. It brings the pain right away! This is not a Suzanne Sommers special.

It’s a simple device, amazingly overpriced for the materials and manufacturing involved, but not for the benefit it delivers. We used to say that bike racing was harder than running because a runner who wants to will eventually get tired enough that he just falls over. But on a bike, when you get to that point of collapse, you can coast for a bit to recover, and then go a little more. When you’re doing pull ups, you reach a point where you can’t do another and have to stop because you can’t suddenly weigh 50% less and then get the remaining use out of your muscles. But with the TRX, changes to resistance are easily changed just by adjusting the angle of movement. So you can torture every last ounce of strength out of yourself. It’s great!

After making plain that I no longer resemble the fit 20-year old mentioned above (which took about 30 seconds with Strappy Torture), I left the device hanging from the guest room door. When my 3-year old daughter got home from pre-school, she saw the TRX and was very curious to check it out. She hung from the handles for a moment, twisted around, having a ball, until she slipped on the rug and smacked her head against the door frame. Strappy Torture shows no mercy, even to toddlers!

But this morning while getting ready for school, she said, “Daddy, can I do Strappy Torture?” That’s my girl. A bump on the head only leaves her wanting more. She may be a bike racer yet.

Or a Navy SEAL.

Been Busy!

2007-10-25T22:09:00.000-07:00

Nice of someone to open a place called Jones on Scott Street, huh?

Just a short post to say hi to those who've been giving me grief about abandoning my blog. Honestly, I don't know how stay-home parents do anything other than manage kid issues. A 3-year-old is a bottomless pit of need, it often seems, even when four mornings a week are spent at pre-school. Between paying bills, mowing lawns, chasing down the stray rat assaulting our castle, washing dogs, changing car and truck oil, etc. etc. etc., when does a guy find time to write? Beats me.

And when an entire weekend is spent on a favorite indulgence like photographing racing, forget about it. I was at Laguna Seca for the American Le Mans Series, where I took a personal record of 6,600+ photos. I handed out quite a few business cards for my new website, and have been sorting and prepping photos for racing teams to look at all week until the wee hours of the morning. I'm having some help with that from a local youngster and should finish this weekend, so next week will be back to work on the last great Scott Jones crime novel (barring some publishing miracle). Once that's done, there's no looking back!

More on motorsports photography

2007-09-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

I attended the AMA Superbike Championship weekend at Laguna Seca to see Ben Spies edge out Mat Mladin for his second title in a row. Great racing, and great fun taking pictures!

The first thing that went my way this weekend was the parking situation, which I mention because it had a big affect on my photography. I approached Laguna Seca from the east this time, having driven down 101 instead of Highway 1. I entered at the main gate, which for the MotoGP event was reserved for special parking access. The AMA event was even lower attendance that the recent Historic Races, based on the number of cars parking on the interior of the track at least, which means the track felt like a ghost town compared to MotoGP weekend. I was directed to the lakebed parking area, or so I thought. I kept getting pointed closer and closer to the vendor area for some reason, and when I’d driven almost to the south end of the bridge between Turn 3 and Turn 4, I was told to park right there! It was fantastic having my truck so close. It was very convenient to be able to get to my laptop, snacks, etc without having to hike up to the Purple parking area at the top of the west hill area.

One of my previous tips to myself was to bring my laptop, and this turned out to be a great benefit, especially since my truck was so close and parked right by some marshals, so I didn’t worry much about someone breaking into the truck. Not only was it very helpful to be able to look at photos on a screen larger than the one on the back of my camera, but I was able to transfer pictures from memory cards to free up more space. This more or less removed any concern about running out of memory card space on track. When you’re shooting in burst mode, those cards fill up quickly.

Out on the track, I found again that upping my shutter speed when trying to get sharp shots of fast bikes makes a huge difference. I try to stay at least 1/1000 of a sec, even if I have to boost ISO, and the percentage of truly clear shots I’m getting has risen dramatically. I shot most of the on track shots with my friend Derek’s 100-400mm lens, and the more I use it the more I love it. I’m getting much better results with this lens than I did with the monster, but to be fair, I should really rent the 300mm f/2.8 again and try it for comparison, as my skills and experience have come a long way since July.

The main thing, at least when shooting at 8.1 megapixels, is still to fill the frame with the subject so that you needn’t crop too much. This makes getting the image much harder, though, when shooting a fast object like a racing motorcycle. But as further proof that video gaming helps in life, I had a breakthrough this weekend, especially with my panning shots. At some point while standing on the hill inside Turn 6, trying to track the bikes at a fast turn, I noticed that looking through the viewfinder, trying to keep the center focus point on the back of the passing rider, I was doing something quite similar to aiming in shooting games on Xbox Live. Suddenly I had quite a bit of experience in that frame of mind, and could really concentrate on that. This allowed me to zoom in a bit tighter and fill the frame even more with the bike. I still missed a lot, just as I do in video games, but I was hitting my target much more often, and when I got it right, the photos look much better than anything I’ve done yet.

That’s all for today, but before I go, I'd like to thank my wife and daughter for letting me go to the track again, to my dad and his girlfriend for letting me stay at their place Saturday night, and to Derek for the continued use of his fantastic Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L lens!

Caveat Emptor Ebay

2007-09-04T09:28:00.000-07:00

In the market for a second battery for my Canon 30D, I happened across an article in the September 2007 Popular Photography about counterfeit camera items. According to the article, not only are most of the batteries, memory cards, and ink cartridges sold on ebay are counterfeit, but some sources of these fake items represent “a significant tributary of funding for terrorism.” Huh? Now Al Qaeda is buying weapons with money we send them in exchange for fake camera batteries?

Yes indeed, according to the Department of Homeland Security and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center via Pop Photo.

That tastes a bit salty to me, but there are certainly other, more verifiable reasons to make sure you’re buying genuine equipment for your cameras and printers. Imagine that your new ebay bargain battery works fine until you smell smoke coming from your camera and find it’s a molten write off? Or your new 4-gig compact flash card for some reason only holds 2 gigs of data? Or worse, the new card stops working just as you take the shot that will finally get you on the cover of National Geographic?

Canon buys samples of their own goods on ebay to test for authenticity and found that: “Sixteen of the 29 batteries [Canon] bought in the first six months were fakes.” Ebay’s own resources section has tips on how to spot fake items, from small differences in the molding to the more obvious lack of a serial number printed on the item. Of course, by the time you have the item to inspect for fakery, the scammer has your money.

Apparently the Midnight Run is largely to thank for this overabundance of fake stuff we want. Imagine that you operate a production line somewhere in Asia making memory cards. One day a week your supervisor goes home a bit earlier than usual, so you have your friend meet you at the back of the plant with his van at midnight, by which time you’ve rushed through several cases of 1 gig cards sporting 2 gig labels, and you haven’t been as conscientious as you are when your product will have to go through the company’s quality control. You’re working for speed and quick profit on the gray market. Your goods are ‘genuine’ in that they come from the real factory. But they aren’t the real deal. Not that the cousin who’s going to unload them on ebay for a great price and huge profit for you is going to care. And not that the sucker who thinks he got a great deal on ebay is going to come looking for you.

There are opportunities to get deal and save money, but I’m not going to shop for my new battery on ebay.

Another post for my shutterbug friends

2007-08-22T08:47:00.000-07:00

So what did I learn at the Monterey Historic races? Mainly I was able to confirm several theories I’d developed at the USGP. Going through the on track photos I took, I can say I believe the following at this point:

1. Being close makes a BIG difference. I can take terrible pictures from trackside, of course, but when I get one right it looks much sharper than the best I can do from far away. I suppose this sounds like common sense, but my point is that a long lens only gets you so far toward a nice, sharp image. I posited last time that a long lens is no substitute for being close to the action to begin with, and I think this is true now more than ever. The sharpest pictures I got were ones I took when I was right by the track. How I got there is another story. ;)

2. A fast shutter speed for fast objects is a must, even if you have to boost ISO in broad daylight. Even at 1/500 I got noticeable blur of spinning tires but much better sharpness of the cars. It was a very bright day, and to get to 1/500 at F/13 I had to go to ISO 400, but on the 30D the noise is not bad. (At ISO 800, I start seeing some noise even without zooming in at all. It’s not bad, but it’s there.) It’s certainly visible if you zoom in to 100%, but if you get close enough to fill the screen with the car, you don’t need to zoom in that much for the final image, do you? For the first time since getting the 30D, I started using Shutter Priority to experiment with various speeds and the results have suggested guidelines like this:

If the car is moving fast and you want a clear shot without panning, go at least 1/500 and up to 1/1000, though unless the car is really hauling as you approach 1/1000 you’ll nearly stop tire/wheel blur, too.
Judging the right aperture for desired DOF takes experience or a DOF calculator. Trying to get the whole car in focus, I played around a lot with smaller apertures and often got the car in focus but also too much DOF. How about this for a gadget: a laser distance to subject finder that you point at the car, which then gives you a read out of DOF for a given aperture and focal length combo? I’d buy one after Saturday’s experience!
If you are panning and want a lot of background blur, slow the shutter way down and take A LOT of shots, hoping to get some right. I found that 1/120 was a bit too slow for the amount of background blur I wanted as the cars moved from Turn 6 toward the corkscrew. 1/80 was good but very hard to get the driver sharp as I panned.

3. If you’re able, have two cameras with different lenses. A crash happened right in front of me when I happened to have the 24-70 mounted. The shots I got of the crash and the aftermath would be better if I had had a second body with the 100-400 ready to go. I felt that if I’d changed lenses at the moment, I’d have missed something, but looking at the photos, I should’ve done so anyway. The shots of Mr. Rutherford helping Mr. Elford out of his wrecked car are too far away.

Using different settings on my camera this time gave me a lot more clear shots than I got at the USGP and put my mind to rest about my camera body. I had been wondering, since I see so few pros using the 1D series rather than the 30D, if this camera is capable of taking good sports shots and now I know that it is if I do everything right.

But shooting things as fast as racing cars and bikes at speed is very challenging for the amateur. I hope I’ll be able to refine my technique further in September at the AMA event at Laguna Seca! Now, should I rent Big Bertha again…?

34th Rolex Monterey Historic Races

2007-08-21T09:43:00.000-07:00

Some of my photos from the Historic Races at Laguna Seca are up on Flickr. This was a fantastic event for fans of American motor racing, with cars from many, many eras on display in the paddock and in action on the track.

One of the highlights for me was seeing cars from the legendary Can-Am series, which I had seen in person as a child at Sears Point. These 800-bhp monsters have a very distinctive style of bodywork from manufactures such as McLaren, Lola and Porsche. Unfortunately I was not able to attend on Sunday, when the Can-Am cars were on the track, but I did see some amazing older cars being driven by some very brave men and women!

In addition to seeing these old cars, I was able to indulge my interest in older, black and white photos of historic racing scenes. I love older photos of famous cars from past eras of motor racing, and with so many vintage cars on display, I got a few pics that I quite like.

I also spent several hours refining my on-track photography skills. I'll try to find time to write up some of what I learned.

My pics on motoGPmatters.com!

2007-08-13T23:52:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling a bit like Nicky Hayden.^^^

After exchanging a few emails with the author of the excellent MotoGP blog, motogpmatters, aka Kropotkin Thinks, I'm pleased to say that some of my USGP pics were featured on Tuesday's post. This was something of a follow up to the previous selection of photos by my friend, Jules Cisek, which whom I spent that Friday shooting the second MotoGP practice. Jules has some great photos up on his gallery.

If you're a MotoGP fan, check out Kropotkin Thinks--there's almost always something interesting to read there. Or to see! ;)

Death to the darlings!

2007-08-07T10:51:00.000-07:00

Hemmingway said you have to kill your darlings, and it’s pretty morbid around here lately. I’m on page 110 and the red ink is flowing as I mercilessly delete my most clever sections; for some reason, those seem to have the least to do with the story.

I’m also deleting a lot of non-darling crapola. I’m amazed at writers who can put something that resembles the final version down early in the process. I’ve been writing this book on and off (mostly off) for years and it has changed directions on me more times than I can count. Characters appear briefly, only to be abandoned. The story keeps trying to expand as I try to contain it.

Managing the story is the hardest part for me. I’ve never had trouble sitting down and making a lot of sentences, but telling the story in a direct and efficient way is really a challenge. I’ve been reading Thomas Harris’s Silence of the Lambs and am awestruck by how efficient and disciplined his storytelling is. There doesn’t seem to be a single extraneous word in that book, and that’s what I’m striving for.

I’m trying to fit this editing in as I can: while my daughter is eating her breakfast I sit beside her scratching out paragraphs and adding notes, as I eat my breakfast after taking her to school. Home repair and photography have ground to a halt, and my posts here have been few, as well.

As I’ve mentioned to some of you in person, this is it. Once this book is off to New York, that’s all he wrote. Unless…

A post for my shutterbug friends

2007-07-29T19:33:00.000-07:00

As I’ve said before, I learn a lot each time I go somewhere and shoot pictures for an extended period, and last weekend’s MotoGP event was no different. I’m still going through the thousands of photos I took over the three days and so far have pruned the selection down to about 800 images in Lightroom.

I thought I would share what I learned this time in case it helps any of you. Some pertains specifically to shooting racing, but I think the most important bits apply to the general situation of going someplace to shoot all day.

Here is what I’ll try to do next time:

Think more carefully about composition. I took lots of pictures where, even when I got a sharp focus, the composition was boring or there was nothing I could do with cropping to make in interesting photo out of the original. Either there was a distracting background, or the riders were doing nothing interesting at that moment, or the colors of the bike and rider bled into the background colors, etc etc. Getting the picture in focus is the technical part—getting that done in a situation where the camera is looking at an interesting angle with a suitable background is something else.

Think more carefully about light. I remember reading that Ansel Adams put enormous effort into being at a certain spot on a certain time of a certain day so that the position of the sun would put shadows right where he wanted them for an exposure. I did the opposite at Laguna Seca. I was so preoccupied with finding a clear shot of the track that when I discovered a section of fence I could see over I shot there regardless of what the light was like. So I have loads of nice clear shots of bikes in darkness because the sun was behind them. I hope the process of deleting hundreds of dark pictures that might otherwise have been keepers will help me remember this in the future. And I don’t mean simply to make sure the light isn’t behind my subject, because a few of those shots look kinda cool—I just mean to make sure I’m seeing what I’m after before I spend 45 minutes in a given spot. The reason I was able to get a good view was likely because the better photographers were somewhere else where the light was better!

Constantly reconsider my settings to make sure they fit the situation. For example, I tend to open the aperture way too much and leave it like that. I’m so fond of pictures with blurred backgrounds that makes the subjects pop out of the image that I tend to open the lens up all the way or nearly so. This makes getting the entire bike in focus very difficult sometimes. Even when I’m pre-focusing on a part of the track and waiting for the bike to ride into that zone before taking five or six quick exposures, I often make the area of focus so shallow that I miss the shot. Then I leave the lens set like that when I move to a new location and am trying for a different type of picture. I just deleted a lot of pictures where I wanted a much deeper area in focus, but I shot them all at f/5.6 so I didn’t get one with the look I wanted.

Remember that a long lens is not truly a substitute for track access. Even with the 300m f/2.8 with a 2x converter, it was getting my camera close to the subject that made a difference. The long lens helped and was better than not having it, but getting the camera close is better than trying to compensate with focal length. Does this mean I’ll try to sneak inside the fence more? Maybe. But I’ll try to keep in mind that comparing my pictures to those of a pro with complete track access isn’t exactly fair.

Bring a laptop!I learn more reviewing my photos than I do while shooting them because it is impossible to judge accurately if a photo is focused properly or not on the 2.5 inch screen my camera has. To improve more quickly, I need to bring a laptop with me and at the very least review the day’s pics each night, so that the next day I can go back with whatever I learned from that review.

A laptop would also solve a problem I barely escaped from this time. On the Italian trip, I didn’t fill up my 12 gigs of memory cards in ten days. But at the track, I can fill them all up ini a single day because I’m shooting so many 5 or 6 shot sequences as the bikes pass. If my friend Dave hadn’t brought his Archos portable DVR with him and let me dump my pics each night to that 80 gig hdd, I would’ve been in bad shape. So in the future I will try harder to bring a laptop for proofing and clearing memory cards each night.

The next scheduled photo day at the races in August 18, at the Historics at Laguna Seca. I guess I need to get my laptop’s hdd fixed!

Big Guns

2007-07-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

A friend asked about the equipment we brought to Laguna Seca. Thanks to my good friend Derek, we had plenty of glass!

I rented the 300mm F/2.8L again, but this time added a 2x converter, making the lens a 600mm f/5.6 equivalent. Derek and I each brought a 24-70mm f/2.8L. The other three white lenses are, left to right, his new 70-200mm f/2.8L IS (which ROCKS!), his older 70-200mm f/4L, his 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L (which also ROCKS!), and his new 1.4x converter. That’s his 20D on the left and my 30D on the right. We took the photo with Mark’s new Rebel XTI, known abroad as the 400D, I think. Derek was amazingly generous about letting us use his fantastic equipment over the weekend. Thanks again, D!

ROSSI'S EATING!!!!

2007-07-27T14:22:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we were wandering in the paddock before the main event and noticed a crowd standing around in a rather unlikely place. I decided to stop and see what was up. Someone whispered, “Rossi’s inside that tent, eating!”

WOW!

I had yet to get a good photo of him, so I decided to stay. As the word spread, the crowd grew larger and larger. I had gotten what I’d hoped was a good spot for a photo if he came out on our side of the food tent. We watched Yamaha personnel come and go with plates of food, both AMA team members as well as mechanics, technicians, and so on from the MotoGP team. VIPs were occasionally hustled in to see Rossi chew. The crowd grew nervous. What if Rossi ducked out the other side? What if it was all a hoax?

As time passed, the other photographers in the crowd grew antsy, bringing up their lenses each time they sensed movement at the tent door, only to relax when someone other than The Doctor appeared.

A woman pushed her way to the front, pen and hat in hand, and asked the man guarding the barrier to let her in to get Rossi’s autograph. “They’d hang me alive if I let you in there,” he said in his southern drawl. She kept her stolen place at the front however, as a nervous Italian beside her fiddled with his Sharpie and general admission ticket, excited and terrified to be so close to Vale.

At last Rossi emerged, looking shy but full. He signed just about everything that was pressed toward him before leaving for the safety of the motor home behind the large green fence. But even after he’d reached the inside that area a crowd gathered for a glimpse either through a gap in the fence or over it.

After reading his autobiography, I didn’t know what to expect from Rossi in person. In the world of MotoGP he’s at the peak of adulation. No one has nearly as many fans at the race, and I suspect it is even worse in Europe and simply crazy in Italy. The only rider in the Laguna Seca paddock who received near as much attention was Nicky Hayden, but the Rossi fans outnumbered the Kentucky Kid’s by a huge factor, judging from the yellow shirts, hats, backpacks, etc etc.

Rossi was pleasantly congenial and generous to his many fans. I saw him several times and unless it was right before he was going to ride, he was approachable and even, as I mentioned, shy. He’s taller than most of the riders, who are decidedly short, and he’s slender and gangly when on two feet. He doesn’t look strong enough to wrangle a MotoGP bike around, but then again Dani Pedrosa weighs about 65 pounds.

I guess Rossi’s popularity with fans is due not only to his supreme skill and amazing success, but also to how, unlike the rarely smiling and usually aloof Pedrosa, Rossi seems to appreciate those who appreciate him. I admit I like him more and more as I learn more about him.

I don’t have a Rossi shirt yet, though. :P

Red Bull US MotoGP at Laguna Seca

2007-07-24T18:42:00.001-07:00

Just a quick post for the mo' to say we're back from the MotoGP event at Laguna Seca. I have thousands of photos to sort through before posting the best on Flickr and will tell a few tales of the weekend here as I can find time to do so. Stay tuned!

Peter Moore leaving a leaky ship?

2007-07-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

I was surprised to hear that Peter Moore had resigned as senior VP of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business until I started thinking about some issues with the 360 that have been bothering me lately.

For years I have been a devoted supporter of the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, Microsoft’s online gaming service, on the Xbox forums and to people who, on learning I’m a gamer, ask me about the platform and my experience with it. Xbox Live literally changed my life—not in a religious way, but in a very practical one. Through it I met new friends, some of whom I’ve gotten to know well away from gaming. Three of them are visiting this week to attend the MotoGP race at Laguna Seca, and if not for Xbox Live I’d never have met them.

Microsoft won’t say how many 360s have been sold, but a market research company called NPD keeps track, somehow, and releases sales numbers for consoles and games on a regular basis. So current estimates seem to be around 11 million Xbox 360s sold so far. MS just announced six million Xbox Live members a few months ago, but MS considers those who have the free Silver accounts to be members, even though these accounts don’t allow online multiplayer. Within the community it is well known that many people have multiple accounts, either Silver or Gold—I had two gold accounts last year and used both until my gaming time dropped to the point that I don’t get that much use out of a single account anymore.

The point is that it’s hard to say how many individuals are on Xbox Live using the online multiplayer features, (which is where the 360 experience is truly different from those of Sony and Nintendo, and which is what draws people like me to gaming) but the percentage is lower than MS would like. In spite of the Playstation 3’s high price and flubbed launch (only Sony sees it as other than a disaster, surprise, surprise), the Playstation brand still dominates gaming. The PS2 has sold well over a million consoles and continues to outsell all three ‘Next-Gen’ consoles due to its low price and huge library of games. Video games are for the most part still the domain of the guy who prefers solitary activity to social ones, in spite of MS’s huge efforts to make online gaming the way to go.

Xbox Live is growing all the time, which is good for MS and the 360 because it is Live that differentiates the brand from what Nintendo and Sony currently offer. There are millions and millions of Playstation fans who have yet to switch to the 360, and MS is trying hard to lure them over by securing key games like Grand Theft Auto IV and producing 360 exclusives like Gears of War and the Halo franchise. But it’s really Xbox Live that makes the 360 a different animal in gaming.

One of the key elements to Live’s success is that it lures new customers into the word of video games. I’m not alone among my group of gaming friends when I say that it is Live that makes me a gamer, not the games themselves. Sure, the games need to be appealing, but it is the social aspect of gaming that has kept me at it for the past several years. I don’t sit in a dark room for hours playing by myself as so many gamers do. For me gaming is way to enjoy spending time with friends I’ve made over Xbox Live. If Live were discontinued tomorrow, I would cease being a gamer right then and there.

And finally we get to the leaks in the ship that is Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business and the reasons why I suspect Peter Moore is getting out. All is not well in the land of Xbox.

The first and biggest problem is the appalling failure rate of the 360 console. I am part of a relatively small group of gaming friends, about 20 of us try to play together every Friday night as our schedules and time zones allow and meet daily or nearly so on an online forum to enjoy each other’s company while at work or otherwise away from gaming. Of this small number of 360 owners, we have had an astounding rate of 360 failures. I just did a quick survey and found that among our small group, we have had failed 360s go back to MS for repair or replacement at least twenty-seven times . This counts the poor soul who is currently on his SIXTH 360, having sent units into MS five times for repair or replacement, and another who is on his fifth. Several are on their third or fourth “repaired” or replaced 360s, and the majority have had only one exchange. Others not counted in the twenty-seven are currently nursing their 360s along with the ‘towel-trick,’ a method of wrapping the failing 360 in a towel and turning it on to bake for several hours. In spite of the possible fire hazard, some prefer to risk this because it seems to add some life to the console and it allows one to avoid, at least for the time being, the pathetic turnaround time for 360 repairs. Our current poster boy for MS abuse waited two weeks for MS to ship him the box needed to return his console for repair, and has been without a working 360 since mid-June. This is what I’m hearing from other friends outside our core group about their experiences with MS repairs—2-3 weeks to receive the shipping container, and another 2-3 weeks for the repair itself. And calling MS support to inquire about your 360’s status? Get ready to explore new levels of frustration and suffering.

Two weeks ago Peter Moore talked briefly to Major Nelson about how MS is ‘doing right by its customers’ and extending the 360’s warranty period for the second time in response to all the console problems. This is certainly the right thing to do, but the overall situation still really sucks. It’s too late to have a design that doesn’t fail, but at least we should be able to get them repairs in a timely manner.

I am one of the few people in my circle of friends who has his original 360 console. I have see red ‘trouble’ lights twice in the past, but so far have not had to send my 360 back to MS. I feel VERY lucky that my 360 hasn’t failed, but I’m also angry that so many of my friends’ machines have failed and thus prevented us from enjoying our Friday night game together. It has been ages since everyone had a working 360—almost two years, I guess. There was a short time, right after launch, when they all worked. But ever since the failures started, those of us who make the most of Live’s online multiplayer features have suffered the loss of not being able to play with our friends because of broken 360s. Our Friday night game, which used to be so popular you had to wait to get into a match if you were late, is a shadow of its former self as some of us do other things because we don’t have a working console and those of us who do sit in half empty rooms wishing our missing friends were there.

Another disappointment lately has been a general disillusionment with the responsiveness of the Live team. The xbox.com forums are full of haters and complainers who gripe about this or that without acknowledging how good the service is. Aside from the hardware issues, Xbox Live is fantastic. Overall it is reliable and offers wonderful features for getting together with friends and making new ones online. If it weren’t so compelling, we wouldn’t be quite so angry about the hardware situation.

In the past I have been a constant supporter of Live and the people who make it happen, individuals who work hard and to my perception go largely underappreciated. It is mainly Major Nelson’s podcast interviews with the Live team members that reveal how hard these people work.

Live is not yet perfect, of course. We still can’t invite a friend from the message screen, for example, and every time a friend messages me asking if there’s room in our game and I have to stop playing to cancel his message, go to the Friends List, scroll down to his name, then invite him instead of being able to do that directly from his original message, it rankles as I’ve asked for this exact feature for the past two system updates. The Live team said for the last update that they want to make it as easy as possible to get together with friends, yet they left this feature out again.

In fact the Live team says some other things that sound good but don’t necessarily happen as advertised. MS boasts a strict code of conduct for the forums and use of its Live service. When choosing a gamertag or motto, for example, lots of naughty words are disabled, and rightly so. Even adults who choose not to turn on the parental controls to insulate kids from racy and offensive content appreciate not having to see some idiot’s latest leet spelling of genital parts in his gamertag. There is a robust system of reporting new offenses which are supposed to be addressed in a timely fashion by the Live cops.

Sure, some are going to slip through the cracks from time to time, but how long should it take when a clear offense is reported multiple times?

Example: a few months ago I got a blind friend request from a guy I’d never met. When you achieve any sort of notoriety on a Live scoreboard you start getting these, as well as hate messages and insults, compliments and kudos. I checked the guy’s profile to see what I could learn about him before I accepted the friend request, which I usually do if I have room on my friends list. Most of the people on Live are nice enough, after all.

This individual had listed in his profile motto a URL, which I naively entered in a browser to see why he’d put it there and if it would give some clue about whether I should accept the friend request or not.

The URL was easily one of the most offensive I’ve ever seen, featuring links to porn sites around a main photo of a naked woman, up ended in a bath tub, defecating into the air. Ha ha. I declined the friend request.

I then reported what I considered inappropriate content to MS. No reply, nothing happened. A few weeks later I sent a message one of the team’s more visible members, Trixie360. It took almost two weeks, but the guy heard about it because he replaced the URL with “Code of Conduct” to mock the rules. A few days later he changed it back to the original URL, and I reported it again to Trixie, but it has remained unchanged since June 2.

So anyone who is unlucky enough to get a friend request from this guy, or who happens to see his name on a leader board and check his profile, might innocently see this appalling content, brought to us via Xbox Live. Either it’s more offensive to me than it is to Trixie, or she’s too busy to do anything about it. Either way it’s a big problem that this URL remains part of someone’s public motto.

And sadly it’s not the first time I’ve had a problem with responsiveness from the Live team. I know they work very hard and can’t get to every complaint the same day. I know they can’t add every Live feature people request. But when it comes to making the Live experience a safe one, they need to do better. Another neighbor, this one 12 years old, just got a 360 Elite for his birthday, and sadly I recommending to his parents that they not grant his desire for a Live account. The depravity of the evil Live members still trumps Microsoft’s efforts to make Xbox Live a safe place.

With the above comments in mind, you can see why I’m unhappy with how Live is treating me and my friends. As much as I like the service and appreciate the efforts of those who make it happen, there is just so much going wrong these days that it’s very depressing. It seems to me only a matter of time before a class action suit is filed on behalf of those who have lost weeks of gaming due to multiple console returns. And how long before someone sues Microsoft for failing to enforce its own code of conduct?

Perhaps Peter Moore knows something we don’t, and is heading to EA before the poop really hits the fan.

A Scab's Greeting

2007-07-16T17:44:00.001-07:00

Here in the Bay Area, the Teamsters Local 70 workers have been locked out by Waste Management. A couple of articles can be found here and here if you're interested in the details. I was passing by the entrance to the dump today and paused for a while to observe the scene. At the Waste Management entrance, two guards were videotaping each truck that came or went as it passed the groups of locked out workers on either side of the road. The biggest group was holding up LOCKED OUT signs to the trucks and cars coming to the facility to dump trash, but on the other side of the road the man pictured above and an associate were shouting at the replacement drivers of the garbage trucks as they left the facility. The f-bomb was flying, as were several uncomplimentary modifiers of 'scab.'

It was pretty tense, let me tell you. I think those video cameras were a very shrewd move to avoid possible violence.

Another good lesson...

2007-07-13T15:23:00.000-07:00

When I decided to go to Sears Point for the AMA races in May, one of the first things I did was look on Andrew Wheeler's website, AutoMotoPhoto, to see if his schedule showed him attending that event. I really enjoy Mr. Wheeler's photographs and when shooting cars or motorcycles I try to emulate his work as best as my level of experience allows.

Turns out he was there, though I didn't know it at the time and didn't recognize him on the Saturday I attended. I've been looking through his pictures from that event and boy, it's pretty humbling to see what a pro came up with looking at the same subjects I had before me. True, he almost certainly had the orange ribbon that I wanted so badly and thus was able to get much closer to the track, but it's really his photos in the paddock and pit lane that I like the most. You can see them here. Enjoy!

While watching the latest F1 race on TV recently, I was noticing how pro photographers on the pre-race starting grid are not shy at all about taking pictures of people. They just get right in the drivers’ faces and click away. When I was at Sears Point in May, I had good access to the paddock and saw many of the riders. I got a few good ones of Ben Spies on his near sprint to the pit lane. Matt Mladin stood around talking to people for half an hour, though, and was an easy target for photographers with more guts than I. Even though I’d rented the big lens that day, in my heart I was just an amateur and a poser and was too shy about getting close for the pictures I wanted.

I suppose that photography, like driving in Sicily, is a situation where fortune favors the bold. I hope I can do better at Laguna Seca!