"Motoexotika", Mar 2005
"Motoexotica" bike expo - more like "Motoerotica" at times though:)
Comments:
Event - "Motoexotica 2005" bike expo in Tartu. I thought I could try my hand on some nice chromed metal instead of taking pictures of women, but alas, that was not meant to be. Not only were there women there, but some of them were even naked. At times the event was really more like "Motoerotica" than "Motoexotica". Since I was constantly alternating between the bikes and the naked girls (later adding candid portraits into the mix as well), I managed to lose some 150 of my best shots in all the confusion. It was such great fun though that I didn't even have time to take pictures of any of the strippers who were performing from time to time. Besides, everyone and their grandma was taking pictures of the strippers, so it was an excellent opportunity to take candid portraits while everyone's eyes and cameras were affixed on the strippers instead:)
Photography - The 50mm 1.8 prime was king. Although cramped, I loved the F1.8 or F2.8 at ISO 800 if the light allowed that. The 50mm fixed length forced me to find details in the bikes to concentrate on, and I'm glad it did, since I absoluely love some of the detail shots. Since autofocus on the 50mm was also broken, I was forced to use manual focus throughout the event and I'm glad I was, because I came to love manual focus. After the hit and miss and constant hunting experiences of autofocus, it was really refreshing to actually focus on what I wanted to focus on right from the outset without having to constantly focus and recompose, change focus points or miss a shot completely, since autofocus failed to focus on anything. Autofocus is still indispensable for sports and action, but for slow-moving or still targets, I now know what all the rage about manual focus is about.