[Leica] A Weekend at the Races

[John Gong <jgong@cisco.com>]

Hi All,

I just came back from a weekend at the Monterey Historic Automobile Races in
beautiful Monterey, California.  For those of you unfamiliar with this
event, it's an annual weekend of nostalgic memories punctuated with the
perfume of burning clutches and brakes while being serendaded by the
cacophony of open exhaust systems and screeching tires.  The participants
are owners of retired race cars, whose vintage ranges from the early 1920's
to the early 80's.  If you ever followed auto racing through those years,
this event will bring tears of joy to your eyes as you see representatives
of bygone days whizzing by you at maximum velocity.

And yes, this posting is Leica related.  As my wife said to me, "what a
great weekend for you - two indulgences - cars and cameras!"  Two of my
"three C's"  (The third is computers).

Anyway, I silently ran through for weeks as to what my photo equipment list
would consist of for the weekend.  With a balance of several R bodies and a
CL to choose from, it became more of a problem to have a choice.  I decided
that less was best, and packed an R8 with an 80-200 Elmar, 28-70, 2x
extender, and a 16 fisheye.  I wanted to bring the CL with a 35 summilux for
those evenings at the concours, but decided that having too much to
potentially lose was too much of a tradeoff.  So I chose to push the ASA of
my film instead.  I managed to fit all of this gear into a large fanny pack
that I bought at Target department store for $20 :-).  This was my camoflage
bag.  My primary support was a lightweight Bogen monopod.

On early Friday morning, I got up bright and early to attend the Concours
Italiano.  This is an annual gathering which began as exclusively a showcase
for Italian automobiles, but for the past three years has invited other
European marques.  There were acres of immaculately dressed cars to the
point of excess.  It becomes rather surreal when one passes an automobile
that some like me would stop and admire on the street for 10 minutes. Then
coming to this venue, I would bypass the mint condition Ferrari 355 in order
to spend time with the 5 Testarossas on the next aisle.  I took lots of
photos with the 28-70 and the fisheye. These lenses were necessary to use,
as the crowds surrounding the autos were thick. 

Friday afternoon, I ventured off to Laguna Seca Raceway, where the race cars
were allowed to practice.  A lot of action was happening at the paddocks as
well.  This year was especially vibrant:  the Historics was honoring
Porsche's 50th anniversary of existence.  Porsche went out of their way to
fly in over 20 historically significant vehicles from their musuem in
Stuttgart.  They were the center of an even larger happening, with
privateers displaying their privately owned Porsche racers of the past.

Coresident with the car paddocks were vendor tents.  These were set up for
the shoppers of racing paraphenalia. The special moment for me was meeting
Jesse Alexander, a famous racing photographer.  He was manning a tent and
signing photos, posters and books.  I purchased his book of 40 of his
favorite images.  Catching him at a slow moment, I asked him about some of
his technique.  Unlike many of the photographs we see today in auto sports,
he does not primarily use a long telephoto to capture auto cars in the
highly compressed, aggressive stances that is favor.  His photographs are
first and foremost black and white, printed by himself (some looked as
delicate as palladium prints in capturing shadow details and highlights),
and utilizing for the most part a wide angle lens.  No, I didn't ask him if
it were an M camera that he used through the years, but his images spoke of
that approach that we all know and love - technical excellence, expansive
yet intimate, capturing the human spirit of the drivers and crew members in
the pits, moments that live on as the reference of the era he recorded.  One
image that strikes me particularly deeply is a wide angle shot of the start
of Le Mans (in the '50's sometime).  It is obvious that he was about 20 feet
from the action, and used a wide angle lens.  The image evokes a feeling of
simpler times, where even the most prestigous race in automobilia is devoid
of the heavy commercialism and advertisements evident in every billboard and
racing suit of modern times.  The image also placed me in a time capsule,
which had magically transported me to that location, smelling the dirty
exhaust and hearing the loud rumble of engines coming to life.

After leaving Jesse's booth, I completely changed my approach to documenting
my personal weekend.  Instead of my initial plan to capture race cars with
straight on telephoto shots, and duplicating many photographs I used to take
at the race track in late '70's, I wandered into the paddocks and began
photographing people preparing their cars or bystanders admiring the
handiwork.  The cars became costars with their human companions.

I wandered into the Porsche display area on Saturday morning, just as they
were being wheeled out of their booths and being prepared for their drivers.
The drivers were themselves special events - Vic Elford, Derrick Bell, etc.
who have won major races and contributed mightly to Porsche's racing
prowess.  The area quickly became a circus, with autograph seekers (the
drivers were very gracious to all) and media coverage by a number of
television crews.  It was fun standing 3 feet away from the drivers with my
fisheye, clicking away using hyperfocus without looking through the
viewfinder.  Having the camera mounted on a monopod seemed to impart an air
of officiality to me, as people literally got out of my way as I pointed my
camera and prepared to photograph the drivers and cars!   Anyway, it is
probable that my planned excuse would work if questioned - my photographs
will be contributed to several car club newsletters.

I did return to the side of the race track to pan race cars as they went by
- - kind of a game to see if my reflexes are anywhere close to where they were
20 years ago.  Carrying my equipment was quite easy - I had the camera on
the monopod the two days of walking along the track, facing backwards with
the lens resting on my shoulder as I changed locations.  I called this setup
"Leica On A Stick"! 

I hope to see my results later this week, but I am sure that my images will
be all the better from my brief but influencing discussion from a master.