Before the Engine Roars

A few weeks ago my sister invited me to come out to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the morning as she took a few laps. I got this shot as she was waiting for them to prep the car. I like shallow DOF and the fact that you can just make out the leader pole and the Pagoda Tower in the background. Your CC's are welcome

Assuming that your sister isn't a professional driver, it is a compliment to your image that she looks like one in the photo. I hope she likes it. Pity about the guy to her left. A half step to your right might have eliminated him from the frame.

Welcome to the site, by the way. It is a helpful, friendly, place. Please post more.

Well-done. Exposure is a tiny bit bright, but it really works. I might crop down a little.

And agree about the guy in back. He could be cloned or content aware'd out pretty easily.

Lucky lady! Is she out for a ride on the two seater ?
I've done pace car laps there, but I guess I'll have to slim down to fit the two seater !

I agree on the exposure for the background, but the exposure for her and the suit looks about right.
I expect you'd need to bring up her and the suit if you had reduced the exposure, or use fill flash.
Working in that bright sun (haven't seen any here in the UK for months) makes it very difficult.
I had no end of problems at the Indy 500 trying to deal with that harsh light.

I think it could lose something off the top, as I scroll the page it looks better as it crops off more sky.
But then I wish it had been a step or two back as well as a bit right and angled a bit lower to show the boots as well.

Hard to think of everything at the time you're shooting, I have plenty of examples - particularly when I use the centre focus point and don't recompose properly after focussing.

Other than what's been said I think a contrast and slight vibrancy or saturation boost. It looks a touch flat. It seems with Olympus files I am adding more contrast than other cameras. I agree the DOF really works.

All Thanks for the wonderful suggestions. I two was not a big fan of the little man on her shoulder but when I showed this shot to my sister she said she liked him there because it looked like there may be crews in the pits. I think I will clone him out and see how that looks. Also I think I will play with the saturation as Greg suggested. I thought as well something looked flat and now that you mention that I see you are right.

Paul, yes she did a ride along with Stephan Gregoire. she had a lot of fun and said she could not get the smile off her face for the rest of the day. I took here out once in my (back then) SCCA pro Rally car at the Snow Drift Rally in upper Michigan. She loved it and said she needed more. Stephan is an old friend from back in the days of Chastain Motorsports. I heard he was going to be at the track doing two seater rides and set it up for her as a birthday gift. I plan on taking her to this years MOTO GP with me as I will be there working with Ducati.

Thanks all for the help

The problem isn't so much that the guy in the background is there, it's that he's too close and not separated from your sister's outline. But leaning a bit further out over the barrier would bring her towards the pagoda and that might not work as well as the composition does now.

If you get any motoGP pictures, please share on the sports forum!
I'll be back out to IMS when our friend Martin Plowman gets a drive, at present he's taking a year in ALMS but keeping in contact with the IndyCar teams for the future.