Photographing a LOT of Clients at Once

I had a recent job photographing the students at the most recent BMW Car Club of Ottawa Advanced Driving School at Calabogie Motorsport Park: 181 students, instructors and racers.

So how do you handle 181 clients who’ve got their own completely full schedule? Pre-visualized shots: for each student at the school, I had decided that I wanted three types of shots: a ‘portrait’; a static shot on the track; and a panning shot while at speed. The next step is to pick the location(s) to shoot from. The final piece of the puzzle is the school schedule telling you where and when each driver will be.

Taking the photos in 34 degree heat (43 c relative and 50 c with reflected heat from the pavement), is the fun part. The real slog takes place in the evenings and after the shoot. Over the three days, between the 4 of us, we’d shot well over 9000 images. But wait, you might be thinking how on earth did they shoot 9000 images; there’s just no way unless they were blasting off hoping to get something. Nothing is farther from the truth: each car is on the track 12 times over a weekend. Each of these sessions is 25 minutes long. In that 25 minutes, each of the cars will have gone past you at least 5 times. If you are panning, you’ll shoot 6 frames for each 1-2 keepers (I’m at about 60% keepers when panning). Multiply that by 181 students and four photographers, and it adds up quick. My final published tally is 1851 images, providing an average of just over 10 images per car/driver.

If you want to try the challenge, there is a driving related event every day at CMP. On most days, anyone is more than welcome to watch from the public viewing areas.