Electcoms Tour of Malaysia

Not wanting to pay for the expensive parking in front of the Central Market, I opted for the shadier location behind the courthouse. Being free of charge made this a simple choice. Except my plans for a quick exit from downtown KL following the Tamron Workshop - more of that in my upcoming post - was derailed by the Electcoms Tour of Malaysia happening in the same area. That meant road closures for the duration of the 14-lap (I think) race. By the time I got to my car, it was 3:45pm and the rain put paid to the smooth running of the biking event. The already uneven tiled streets surrounding the courthouse were waterlogged and not quite safe. The conditions already claimed a few casualties. With 11 more laps to go, I perhaps selfishly prayed that the rains continued so that the race was abandoned or for the sun to quickly reappear from behind the clouds so that the event can get going. Well, the sun prevailed, which in hindsight allowed me to shoot some biking action. So for the price of a downtown drive, I’d attended a photography workshop and a chance to shoot some serious action. Not bad!

Prior to this, I’d no experience with capturing the biking action, so I had no expectations with regards to the results I was going to get. Even so I had some opinions of action shots:
1) The action must not be completely frozen – there must be movement, and impression of furious action
2) It’s OK to saturate the shots – in-camera or PP – to bring the subject out
3) Bold and dramatic is good
4) Gritty is acceptable if only to get the lowdown of the action.
5) 200mm is barely adequate, but my 200mm wasn’t the shortest one out there yesterday.

Some of the shots I reeled in surprised even myself. The “warp speed” effect was achieved by shooting bursts while pulling the zoom in or out. PP were on the saturation, a bit of the curves and in some shots I cropped to cut out the distractions. I’d wanted to avoid manipulating the curves but I had some trouble with the sun on one side and the ominous dark clouds on the other, which messed up the exposure a little. On some shots, I purposely slowed the shutter down to 1/40 to push the blur up to the point of movement of colours yet retain a semblance of form. Many of the ones uploaded look similar. That's because I want to refer to the very subtle differences in each frame. More for self reference than anything. I agree, however, that for portfolio building, one should just display the best few.

I regret not having more chance to catch the BMX stunt riders on the field due to the threat of rain – that would’ve made some pretty dramatic shots. Head on to my online gallery to take a look.