Sometimes, You Have to Plan in Order to Be Creative

Technical proficiency and a good eye are extremely important aspects of success for a motorsports photographer, but so is something many photographers do not want to do—planning. The cover photo would lack interest without the sun rising behind the cars.

We would all love to show up at an event and let inspiration guide us. You may achieve decent results following that vibe, but chances are you will fail more than you succeed. In sports car racing, the races may be 45 minutes long or 24 hours long, so you need to know what type of photos you need to capture, how you want to do that, what parts of the track will provide the best opportunities for those photos, and at what time of day.

That's a lot, like a lot a lot. If you show up to the first day of on-track activity with no plan, you will scramble and likely miss many of the photos you really want to make. Even with a solid plan, it is not uncommon to finish the event and realize you did not accomplish something you set out to do. It happens.

Before a race, I sit down with the official schedule and review the times for each session I need to cover. That typically includes two to three practice sessions, qualifying, and one to two races for each series. Practice sessions last 30 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on the series, and races are 45 minutes to the aforementioned 24 hours.

The first session typically starts on Thursday, and each series runs until the final headliner race on Sunday. If the race is on a Saturday, everything usually gets pushed back a day. If you shoot single events, it's easy to look at a race schedule and assume you have plenty of time. But if you do not have clear goals and a plan for achieving them, the likelihood of failure is high.

As I note the practice times and the time between sessions, I start planning how I will cover everything. First, I need to know which teams and cars I need to cover across the different series. Sometimes, that is easy, given that my primary focus is just the headlining series and five to eight teams competing there. Other times, I may need to capture a team or driver in several different series, making the time between events to get organized or edit photos almost non-existent.

Once you know what types of photos you need to shoot, where on the track you can best achieve those results, and when the cars will be on track throughout the event, it's time to consider lighting. That is where various websites and apps like Suncalc.org and Sun Surveyor come into play.

By planning these things before you arrive at the track, you give yourself a way to accomplish what you need. The reality is that the weekend will throw curveballs at you; you will not execute your plan as you designed it, but at least you have a place to start from. You know that if your client absolutely has to have a sunset shot with sponsor X's banner visible in the background, you'd better be at the correct turn with your camera settings nailed before peak sunset.

Let's look at this year's Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring race in Sebring, Florida. Here is a portion of the official schedule showing Thursday, the busiest day of the event before the race itself. As you can see, multiple series were on track for practice or races that day, so if your clients are in a number of those series, you will be exceptionally busy.

We'll focus on the headline WeatherTech Championship series to make things easier. The series has three practice sessions that day: the first from 10:05 to 11:35 am, then from 4:00 to 5:45 pm, and finally from 7:45 to 9:15 pm. Official sunrise is around 7:30 am, and sunset is at 7:40 pm, so you have a range of lighting conditions to deal with.

Let's say the client wants a shot with the adjacent airport, preferably with an airplane visible in the background. They also want a shot with the Mobil 1 Fan Bridge in the background, plus a sunset photo from Turn 1.

There are a few places that offer a shot of the car on track, the airport environment, and an airplane parked in the background. The bonus part is that particular shot works well around midday when the lighting is strong and harsh. Using Suncalc.org for my planning, I know that the morning practice session on Thursday and the Qualifying session on Friday (held from 11:25 am to 12:40 pm) will be perfect for the airport shot.

Because of my use of SunCalc, I knew the sun would be high in the sky, the shadows would be small, and I could line up the car and the airport environment and keep the sun out of frame. Perfect, now I knew how and when to get one of the photos I would need. This knowledge came in very handy this year, as I was sharing a golf cart with another photographer. He needed a different shot during the morning practice, so I knew I could get my airport shot on Friday, which I did.

Next up would be the Mobil 1 fan bridge. This one is cheating because the fan bridge crosses the track at the end of the front straight, just before the entry to turn one, which also happens to be the "go-to" sunset photo spot. So it would be easy to knock out both requirements in one shot. Unless, of course, the cars you needed to photograph were executing a pit stop at the beginning of peak sunset light, which is exactly what happened to me.

Let's look at Suncalc again to see the sun's position at sunset. The only time during the event the headline series will be on track during sunset is the race itself, so this shot is one you can only get on Saturday; there is no practice session to help you out.

We can see that the sun will begin to cross the track at 6:55 pm and set at 7:37 pm. That makes the sweet spot for capturing the iconic Sebring sunset photo with the Mobil 1 Fan Bridge in the background between 7:05 pm and 7:25 pm. I was on pit lane shooting for another client at 7:00 pm, so getting in position at the end of Turn 1 with the dozens of other photographers wasn't going to work.

By chance, one of the primary teams I needed to photograph was due for a pit stop just after 7:00 pm, giving me a chance to capture them in the pits during sunset, with the Mobil 1 bridge in the background. Sweet! As soon as I finished with the other client, I rushed to the end of pit lane, which, thankfully, is where the team had its pit box. With no teams in front of them, I had a perfect vantage point for the shot, so I got in position and waited.

The results were great, and I was very happy even though I wasn't able to get the classic shot. After the pit stop, I made my way to Turn 1 to get a few photos. The sun was unobstructed and really blowing out many of the photos. The results weren't perfect, but I came away with a few I really like. 

When I am on-site, I use the Sun Surveyor app to refresh my memory of where the sun will be at each turn as I respond to what the day offers. They have a "Lite" version that offers the basics, but there is a paid version ($9.99) to unlock the full potential. The "Live" feature has proven to be worth every penny; I love it. Even with the app on my phone during the race, my pre-event planning was invaluable to my success.

So do not be afraid to put in some logistical work before a shoot. Planning is not the enemy of your creativity, quite the opposite. Because of my planning and knowledge of where and when I can capture the photos I need, once I get those, I am free to experiment with shutter speeds and compositions that are more creative and artistic.

Whether you are shooting for commercial work, portraits, landscape, or fine art, it doesn't matter. You can improve your results across all outdoor photography categories by taking a detailed look at what you need to accomplish, the location, and the sun/moon position during your shoot. A good plan can make all the difference. It can strengthen your creativity and allow you to expand what you thought was possible.