Getting What You Want

I touched upon this in the previous post. This is perhaps one of the least impressive pictures I have posted so far but it perfectly illustrates the point I'm making. To take a good picture you must start with an idea of what you want to achieve.

I knew I wanted this framing. I wanted the car on the main straight rushing past and the guy holding out the pit board at the top. It meant a vertical framing which gave me very little margin for error. However, knowing what I wanted I persevered and started thinking creatively about how to achieve it.

I could see that catching the car through the viewfinder would be impossible. I relied on my sense of timing. I prefocussed and then backed my head away from the camera whilst keeping it still. In this way I could see the car coming. I knew which bit of the track I had the camera aimed at so it was just a matter of hitting the shutter at the precise instant the car arrived there. Since I could see the car coming this task changed from impossible to possible.

This aspect of previsualisation was essential to the picture and it happened before I touched the shutter. Without it, there would not be this picture.