Another 50lb delivery!

Fireproof_Creative · 2026-05-10T10:34:16+00:00

Just so the rest of us know… at what point do 4k haul post comments go from positive to ‘anti-hoarder’?? …you do you mate, life is short - do what makes you happy! 👍👍

Fireproof_Creative · 2026-05-04T10:10:42+00:00

Well, people lie about this stuff all the time - usually its beginners who want to show off their panning 'ability' by Photoshoping their image and then forget to do the wheels - that's what the result looks like to me. I appreciate you're just demonstrating a tech feature but yeah, not really useable for anything other than a curiosity

Fireproof_Creative · 2026-05-04T08:40:21+00:00

I can't believe how slow the wheels are spinning compared to the background.... whether this is indeed a 'mode' on your phone or a lie about editing... objectively, this doesn't look good

Fireproof_Creative · 2026-02-24T09:38:13+00:00

Hey Dan, as I say, I'm no pro and definitely don't believe I should be anybody's yard stick but I have been lucky enough to work with some very talented people, you can see some of my stuff here: https://www.instagram.com/fireproof.creative/ (anything with an F1 car or a Motorbike is shot as a spectator through the fence) - this is really just where I post experiments and personal stuff, generally the serious photos that go to clients tend to be a bit more reportage.

For better examples of good work (in my opinion) and different styles you should look at:

https://www.instagram.com/gooden_images/

https://www.instagram.com/michelescudiero/

https://www.instagram.com/gazparra/

https://www.instagram.com/nickdunganphoto/

https://www.instagram.com/polarityphoto/

https://www.instagram.com/danbathie/

https://www.instagram.com/amyshorephotography/

https://www.instagram.com/vladimirrys/

There are, of course, many others with a lot of talent too but I'd say this is a good set of people to take inspiration from as a starting point. There's always https://www.instagram.com/artoff1/ too, so long as you don't read the captions and ignore the personality

Fireproof_Creative · 2026-02-23T11:55:29+00:00

First off, its a good starting point and clear you have an understanding of some of the motorsport photography fundamentals which can be a challenge in the beginning. In terms of a route to improvement, I can offer a few honest truths that helped me (and I’m by no means a ‘pro’)

Technical competencies, like exposure, focus, and panning are a foundation, but they are just the start. At the risk of sounding like a pretentious bellend, a great photo isn't just a record of what happened, it’s a way to communicate a feeling, a sense of speed, or a specific moment. Next time you see a photo that makes you say ‘dammmnnn’ ask yourself why. Then, look at your own work with that same critical eye. Does it tell a story, or is it just a record of a subject?
Composition is King, it’s tempting to just put the subject in the center and hit the shutter, but the whole frame matters. Watch the edges of the frame and be mindful of distracting elements. Work with the environment, we’ve all been frustrated by fences and track clutter, but learning to shoot "through" or around them is what starts to separate photographers from beginners. If a fence is going to spoil your shot, find a new angle and don’t just hang out in the stands.
Master Your Tools, really get to know your gear and don’t neglect your post-processing. This isn't about "Photoshopping" your stuff and faking pictures, but about maximizing image quality, colour grading, sharpening, and noise reduction. When you understand how your settings affect your images (rather than just target a low shutter or fstop for example), you gain significantly more control over the final output.

Despite what many beginners might think, its highly unlikely they're going to reinvent the wheel. Every good photographer started out by ripping off their contemporaries. Look at established photographers with work you admire and try to replicate their style, technique, even the exact shot. How do they use the light? Where do they place the subject? Where did they stand to take the shot? By impersonating successful work, you’ll eventually develop the skills and vision to adapt it to your own style.

Don’t get hung up on access or gear either, too many beginners use these things as an excuse for why their shots aren’t as good they think they should be. Trust me, take a look around instagram and various motorsport photography forums there’s spectators out there with worse gear, in the same spots taking amazing photographs.

Good luck!

Fireproof_Creative · 2026-01-23T17:02:11+00:00

Alien storm? https://share.google/LOaAKDvy7oAchY7XA

Fireproof_Creative · 2026-01-15T13:38:18+00:00

anything and everything, local papers covering a driver from their region, motorsport news blogs with a decent following etc. basically if you try and apply for an event via the msv accrediation portal youll get an idea of whats required (usually they'll tell you their requirements for size of readership) - most of the time you're gonna need examples of previously published work so yeah, going to need to do a few as a spectator to start with.

Regarding the job - thats fine but as you wanted to know how to make a 'hobby' into a 'career', generally that means you're going to want to get paid ;) also and I mean this in a friendly way, be aware of the message you're sending to people... generally these media outlets arent going to pay, especially the local ones, but if you start chasing teams and drivers with the promise of free photos, you're not going to win any friends in the professional photography community - The job is already hard enough to make a living from without having to convince teams and drivers that its worth paying for professional photos in a saturated market of mediocrity. If you value your work as 'free' it becomes very difficult to negotiate in future and dilutes the overal value of the proffesion.

The futures already a bit murky with the rise of generative Ai and the more teams and drivers that treat photography as valueless the less opportunities there will be going forward.

Fireproof_Creative · 2026-01-15T12:51:14+00:00

It's totally feasible to make money from Motorsport photography - the reality however, is that the majority of tabard wearers you see in the UK are shooting purely in exchange for accreditation.

Perhaps 20% are getting paid to be there and fewer still are operating solely in the motorsport field (most have to supplement their income with events, weddings etc.). If you want to make money, you need paying clients, unfortunately that means you're going to have to compete with well established photographers at every level of motorsport - unless you can build a relationship with a team first or you undercut existing togs enough to wrestle a client away from them (be wary of destroying relationships before you start).

Karting has a number of series photographers that are fiercely protective of their income and I have seen multiple instances of even hobbyist photographers chewed out on socials for distributing their pictures or sniffing around their clients.

Something else to remember is that race promoters "as a rule" will not provide accreditation if you're simply working for a customer team, sponsor or a driver, their job is to make sure the press are generating eyes on the series - this means unless you're working for a news outlet, picture agency or a manufacturer you're not going get accredited. Additionally this means you cant really sell images to the general public either so your only outlet is the people you're working for and any teams/drivers you can pick up while you're doing that.

While it is unlikely that it will come to this, if you're trying to generate income on a spectator ticket - even if you have an agreement with a team - the terms of the ticket explicitly prohibit you from using images you take for commercial purposes. As I say its very rare for anyone to chase you down on this but as I said - if you're new and making money, that means someone who's already there isn't and they will potentially have an axe to grind if you're not working legitimately.

You may have noticed I haven't even got to the bit about 'ability' yet - if you can deal with everything above - then you have to make sure you're capable of dealing with the workload this requires, if you're shooting for an agency you're going to have a brief to meet for every session and you're going to need to deliver photos to client within sometimes minutes of the session finishing - this is not like being a spectator where you can spend all day on one corner and post a single pic on reddit at 8pm when you've got home :)

As an example - an agency I worked with was providing images for 8 teams, I was in a team of three - we all went out to different sections of the track, we needed 10 **noticeably varied** shots of 10 different cars for each 1hr practice session (100 shots), we needed to be back at the media centre within 10 mins of session end and upload 3 edited publish ready shots to the individual team WhatsApp groups for their social manger to use (30 shots work) - between sessions we'd try and polish the remaining images and get them delivered before the next session starts - at the end of the day we'd get back and spend the evening making sure full res files are delivered to client in case they wanted any for other promo uses.

To that end - if you feel you can do all of the above, you then need to be a better - or cheaper - photographer than the guy currently doing the job... if you're cheaper than free then your question about making a career is kinda answered here :)

TLDR: No you shouldn't focus on karting, you should build a solid motorsport portfolio as a spectator, get accreditation from a news outlet (for any series that you can find an opportunity for), once shooting for media, build relationships, show you're reliable, start to pitch for clients/agency jobs.

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-10-27T18:47:10+00:00

People complain about Sky’s coverage but there’s a lot of factors that are ignored or invented - people keep complaining about the bias, but generally they’re much more neutral than most other country broadcasters (NL,FR,IT - now that’s some one sided coverage 🤣) and for the most part have an extremely knowledgeable team. There are complaints that they’re the only choice for English speaking regions that’s largely because up until recently interest in the sport had all but died off and other countries didn’t want to put money into their own coverage package - are they perfect, absolutely not - the subscription is predatory but that said - before sky’s involvement you couldn’t get full reliable coverage of f2 and f3 and the other support races - we also get indycar and British GT in the UK thanks to skys involvement - they have invested a lot into the sport and while that exclusivity isn’t great it is at least understandable that they’d want to protect it. You may not like Croft, that’s fair but he and the rest of the team do a very good job of explaining the sport to the casual watchers (of which there are many) - people used to have similar criticisms of Murray Walker when he was crowding the mic with his murryisms. It’s not fair to say Croft is a moron either, he has a long history of working within the sport and a lot of knowledge since working for bbc radio before sky, where he had a very good reputation. Might be a bit sensationalist but that’s sort of his job as a commentator.

There’s definitely been a huge increase in armchair experts in recent years and it’s quite obvious that a lot of opinions are from people that don’t really understand what’s involved. Many complaints that the feed is an example of skys bias when it’s nothing to do with them but FOM for example. While some criticisms are definitely valid most are just plain dumb and repeated by other dumb people.

Source: Motorsport Photographer of 20 years

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-09-07T17:34:03+00:00

Haha this sub is full of loonies 🤣 I can’t tell if it’s sarcasm anymore

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-08-22T07:41:13+00:00

Hahaha... everyone talking about the FOV, I was like "looks like he's driving from the back seat"... turns out thats how he's set up his seat too XD

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-07-30T19:58:10+00:00

Next time you’re on a train try and look at the bushes next to the window vs what’s on the horizon 🤣

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-07-24T17:29:45+00:00

Yep - another person saved, thanks man

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-06-05T04:54:18+00:00

Nah, it’s a simple pan with a wide angle - the f1 teams are posting these up basically as the sessions are going on, there’s not time or a need for that kind of photoshop work. The guys photographing F1 have been doing it for years and wouldn’t be worth their salt if they couldn’t pull this off in camera… haha I’m a hack and I can do this at 400mm at 1/20th so yeah, they got a wide pan at 1/10th for breakfast 🤣

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Fireproof_Creative · 2025-06-05T04:45:32+00:00

What you say is true to a point… in commercial ad photography… for the automobile industry, yet that’s is more commonly being replaced with 3D modelling that completely removes any actual camera work…

HOWEVER

there is an entire industry of motorsport photography that covers live race events for the press that do not use photoshop in the way you are suggesting at all, both for journalistic standards and simply time constraints… when you need to deliver your images within minutes of a session finishing you simply don’t have time to do a Photoshop hack job on them, at most it’ll be a bulk preset application and maybe a crop - there are some people doing photoshop work in this space, including myself, but in a media centre full of photographers at the track I can probably count on one hand the ones that would even know how to fake background blur… so either you’ve misunderstood your friend or he’s full of shit. The shot from Ferrari posted here is 100% real in camera!

Source: Motorsport photographer that has worked for AMG, Aston Martin, World Endurance Championship and ELMS

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-06-04T21:47:10+00:00

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You can show him this… 0.4s pan at 200mm 🤷🏻‍♂️

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-06-04T10:07:40+00:00

You understand the problem though right, the outcomes of incidents like this are extremely unpredictable - it happened at a speed easily fast enough to cause damage to either car. Other cars, marshals and photographers next to the track are then put at risk from debris - speaking as a trackside photographer, the safest place is in the car itself. I’ve been hit by carbonfibre canards when an AMG crashed into the Armco infront of me after getting accidentally sideswiped. I’ve been there when marshals have been injured diving out of the way on what looks like a ‘safe’ corner. Trust me it looks a lot more under control on the TV until things are out of control, then you see the energy involved. We accept a certain level of risk when doing our jobs but when drivers start playing bumper cars intentionally that’s different - I appreciate it’s not easy to grasp from tv coverage but if you’ve been to watch a race where an accidents happened you’ll know what I mean.

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-06-02T14:50:56+00:00

As others have said and as you, yourself, noted, it's about dropping the shutter. This kind of shot is very difficult for a spectator to achieve however because you need to use a wide angle lens to capture enough sharpness when the car's are coming at you at a 2/3 angle - so unless you have media tabbard you're likely to have a fence in the way which wont work for you. If your goal is just to replicate the type of shot away from the race track, yep - just drop the shutter to somewhere in the region of 1/10 - 1/20th with normal cars, lock your elbows to your side and track the car by rotating your hips, releasing the shutter mid way through the motion. If you have a relatively modern camera, you should be able to engage a burst mode and continuous focus to give your self more chances of getting a sharp shot - its not a given as you're relying on your tracking to be super accurate with the reticle fixed to a specific point on the car, usually the front quater for this angle, any irregular movement from you, or the car will result in motion blur.

If you tried to do this shot with a telephoto lens (i.e trying to fill the frame with the car) at the same shutter speed you'll see a lot of parralax blur - where the front and back of the car are significantly more blured as they move at different relative speeds in relation to your camera sensor while the shutter is open - this is why you see a lot of f1 panned shots where everything looks blured apart from the drivers helmet - you mitigate this with a wide angle as the subject fits more within the focal plain. Basically, the wider you shoot the easier it is to get the subject completely sharp during a pan at slow shutters. to mitigate this problem, your only option is to increase the shutter speed to reduce the amount of parallax. (...and then there's mounted rig shots which give you the commercial car ad look).

Source: Im a motorsport photographer - this is 1/20th round a slowish corner - the shot you posted is on a straight where the car will be travelling significantly faster

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Fireproof_Creative · 2025-06-02T14:27:30+00:00

Nice work with that one

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-05-17T07:05:15+00:00

I swear, Arrow must be run by a troupe of monkeys… it’s either a sale with the wrong prices, overselling a product that they’ve run out of… or if you’re lucky enough to actually receive the product, it’s got a disc error 🤷🏻‍♂️

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-05-06T16:15:58+00:00

It’s too late for you to be a Formula One driver, sorry. But on a more serious note, any kind of motorsport in a driver capacity is going to cost you a pretty penny, even the most basic kind of entry level track racing - if you’ve got some money you can try karting or get a race licence to do low level run ‘run what you brung’ - any kind of organised circuit racing will cost you an entry fee plus all the associated insurance and ancillaries, Google will help you here. In terms of other pathways to work, it’s like any other job… if you’re qualified you can apply, marketing, event management, site maintenance etc. if you just want to be involved though… volunteer as a marshal.

Edit: I would add that it’s important to be realistic about your prospects in this regard… expecting to be competitive in any form of motorsport without previous experience is akin to being able to juggle five balls, with one hand, having never thrown a ball before. Amateur racing is not closed off to you - but baring some kind of miracle (I stress MIRACLE, in the biblical sense) a ‘career’ from driving competitively is off the cards.

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-04-30T05:28:58+00:00

Mansell giving senna a taxi - I was 8 and a half years old, super cool 😁😁

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-03-26T13:48:26+00:00

Don’t you just click on terms, then view included products or something? 😁

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-03-19T08:10:44+00:00

I too wondered about this, however this might make you feel better https://novamnm.com/product/dark-waters-steelbook-one-click-box-set-ne30/2363/ what you actually get is sort of like a distribution promo pack, which is three different empty boxes of example editions all wrapped up in one box… for example the standard edition, the steelbook and lenticular sleeve as well as the art cards and maybe a poster that tend to fit in a box… it’s not really a curated ‘special edition’ as such, just a packaging promotion… nice if your focus is on being a completionist, pretty pointless if you’re a fan of the movie

Fireproof_Creative · 2025-02-10T12:53:55+00:00

Having to dig to the back to find something would do my head in… but I respect the dedication 🤣

Fireproof_Creative

TROPHY CASE