What does motorsport photography means to me

Photography in Motorsport has been a thing since the start of car racing in the beginnings of the twentieth century. It hasn't stopped since, I'm here to take the challenge the first photographers started back then.

It sure is a challenge I can guarantee that. Whatever track you can imagine, whatever corner or car. Each shot will be different from the other and in its way unique. The speed of the cars is obviously the key factor in Motorsport Photography. There are many ways you can exploit it, for example in pan shots, where you set long exposure times of the camera, and take the shot following the car going past you.

In these pictures you have a real feel about the speed of the car.

Other shots, static ones, are like freezing the car, making it like if it was stopped in the track.

Amazingly I consider those photos harder than pans, this is due to the fact that, in these freezing pictures, you have a really small fraction of time to press the shutter button, and take the picture.

When I'm at the track, it's just me, the camera and the car, I have nothing else in my mind. When I hear the car is close, I bring the camera to my eye, and wait for the car to literally fly past me while I press the shutter button to capture that moment, that perfect moment. Sometimes cars are so loud the ground is actually shaking and that makes the shot harder to take.

Most of the time, the shaking is due to myself, feeling the pressure, espectially when there is a really cool car I have only one lap to shot at, and I know I must not make a mistake.

I always look forward to the next shot, checking old pictures for inspiration and thinking about new ways I can take motorsport photos.

That is the challenge, that is why I love motorsport photography, having to take the perfect shot like if I was the driver and if I messed the timing, I would crash into a wall.

There is this metaphor in my heart when I'm at the track, that makes me love motorsport photography so badly, this sense of searching for the perfection in such a small amount of time. It's just...

The perfection itself.

Francesco Maneo