Click on picture for larger image
No, this is not a Marlboro advertisement!

Elkhart Lake Gallery Reader's Choice

This vote was hard - at least that is what many voters commented. The fact that about 50% of the available photos were chosen as somebody's favorite shows how balanced the selection was. I noticed that some voters didn't even see the second set of images. This may have tipped the vote slightly in favor of the first set of 25 images. Still - the winner was ahead by a clear margin.

This time action shots didn't seem to be as popular - I categorize the winning shot more as an artsy-experimental photo. There were plenty or raw action photos from the pits, and they did receive much of the vote. Perhaps the fact that there were too many of those, the 'action vote' was spread over too many shots and lost against Al Junior's zoom picture in Turn 6? It definitely resulted in the tightest field of all all votes so far.

My favorite (and this is a tough choice, as there are many of my best shots of the year in this set) is "It's 'Hug Your Driver Day'" - mainly because most people usually ignore the little teams. Fangio finishing 8th was the story at the end of the race, not the lucky win of Andretti, nor the long faces at Penske. The whole AAR team was exstatic, almost in tears for finishing 8th!

Here the vote ranking for the Elkhart Lake Gallery:


 Filename                     Thumbnail Caption          votes  percent
 al_at_warp_nine.jpg          Junior enters Warp Nine       13   14.13%
 teamwork.jpg                 Teamwork                       9    9.78%
 wisconsin_rustic_roads.jpg   Wisconsin's Rustic Roads       7    7.61%
 liquid_exhaust.jpg           Liquid Fumes                   7    7.61%
 physical_work.jpg            The Job is Physical            7    7.61%
 record_crowd.jpg             Record Crowd in Pit Lane       6    6.52%
 my_car_has_big_eyes.jpg      Feet Stuck in Bird Brain       6    6.52%
 atta_boy.jpg                 Atta Boy                       4    4.35%
 gregs_speed_lesson.jpg       Greg Gets a Speed Lesson       4    4.35%
 leave_em_in_the_dust.jpg     Shell Boys in the Dust         3    3.26%
 tales_of_the_deep_forest.jpg Tales of the Deep Forest       3    3.26%
 prozac_convention.jpg        Prozac convention              3    3.26%
 over_here_bobby.jpg          It's Us Who Race for Beer      2    2.17%
 contrails_in_the_woods.jpg   Contrails in the Woods         3    3.26%
 alex_near_canada.jpg         Alex Near Canada               2    2.17%
 bobbys_new_silberpfeil.jpg   Return of the Silberpfeil      2    2.17%
 do_you_copy.jpg              Major Mears, Do You Copy?      2    2.17%
 hug_me.jpg                   It's "Hug Your Driver Day"     2    2.17%
 not_cold_filtered.jpg        This Miller is Hot-Filtered    2    2.17%
 we_rocked_elkhart.jpg        We Rocked Road America         1    1.09%
 andretti_hurrydowns.jpg      Michael Hurries Down           1    1.09%
 green_flag.jpg               Gil's First And Last Lap       1    1.09%
 tape_that_ppg_paint.jpg      My Car Looks Like  a Tavern    1    1.09%
 max_peels_away.jpg           Max Peels Away                 1    1.09%

                                                            92  100.00%
About the photo:

"Junior Enters Warp Nine" was taken late on Saturday, when I still had film, but was running out of angles to shoot from. So I tried the old pull-back and low shutterspeed zoom effect in Turn 6. The dark forest behind really helped me keep the shutter speeds slow, and the rest was just pure experimentation. About 3 of 36 images on that roll of film turned out really nice.

lens :35-350mm/f3.5-5.6
body :EOS 1N
exposure:f27 1/8sec
film :Fuji Super G 100asa
flash :none
support :none