Bringing Historic meetings 'Alive' here!

[John Turner]

An exchange of posts on another thread, with Dex, has initiated a (rare!) thought in my mind!

As you know, whenever I attend a race meeting, I click around like mad, taking pics in pit and paddock and later in the day, try to grab a few 'action' (I use that word advisedly!) shots from the spectators side of the perimeter fence. I then post a few on the appropriate thread here. I accept that the quality is not particularly good, especially those 'action' shots since I'm only using an ordinary small zoom on the same digital camera I use for the close ups. The whole idea is simply to give flavour, or 'life' to the meeting for those reading and posting here. I leave the quality stuff to the professionals, some of whom do pop across here from time to time!

I use a 2 year old Fujifilm S5000 for all my shots and keep it at its highest setting (6M) which means, of course, that you get the highest resolution, but the lowest number of shots per memory card. The great benefit of digital is that you can delete shots that you don't like, immediately, and you can trim and enhance others using a suitable application on your PC.

So, this is really an invite or encouragement to anyone who fancies it to start their own thread (or add to one already started) on any historic meeting they have attended and put on a few pics, as I do, to bring these 'Alive' for the rest of us. It doesn't have to be of professional quality to achieve this, so is there anyone out there who feels an urge to do this? I do hope so.

Any other comments or suggestions about this?

[Al Weyman]

Sounds a great idea, what about a video platform as well for some live action.

[ScottDay]

Sounds like a great idea that does...especially the live action...got my full support

[zac510]

I like the idea too. There is the art/photography area but not everybody ventures out of the forums they participate in.

Should we prefix thread titles with "Photos:" then the event name/date to distinguish?

I can start a thread for the Brands Hatch HSCC meet as I took some photos.

[John Turner]

Zac, which Brands meeting are you talking about? We need to make sure that we haven't already got a thread running for the meeting that we are 'illustrating', unless it's gone way off topic like the Brands 27/28, May meeting thread (my fault as much as anybodies!). I agree that it would be useful to include '(with photos)' in the the thread title. For example, if I get to Snetterton on Saturday and take some pics, I'll probably create a thread entitled AMOC Snetterton, 3 June 2006 (with photos), unless someone beats me to it. I should have done that with the earlier threads, I guess. I'm not advocating a separate thread just for the photos because they often attract additional discussion posts in themselves; merely trying to enhance the meeting threads.

[zac510]

OK I see what you mean - perhaps we can just be more encouraging towards people to post their photos up!

Most people have broadband or fast internet these days so it shouldn't really be a problem in that respect.

[photohsr]

I'm not sure if this is what you had in mind, but a selection of photos from the SVRA "Vintage GT Challenge" at Road America May 19-21 is at "http://www.svra.com/SVRA/photogal.nsf/plinks/EJEN-6PZFMR"
Bob H.

[John Turner]

Bob, we always want to hear about links to sites with pics of historic racing, so thanks for that. My aim with this thread is really to get people to join me in actually posting pictures or thumbnails of the events on the threads concerned.

[John Turner]

I believe we now have one or two people on board with this idea. I have, as well as starting a thread on yesterday's AMOC meeting, started to retrospectively retitle some of the historic meetings that we have put photos on, by adding '(with photos)' to the thread titles. I'm hoping that there maybe a few of you at Brands this weekend who will create a thread on the events there!

Incidentally, it would be great if this was not confined solely to UK events. The rest of Europe, North America amd Australia have some good historic meetings too, so we'd love to cover them,as well.

[Al Weyman]

Can I make one comment and this is not directed at anyone poster in particular but I have noticed with the proliferia of photos being posted these days one thing is sadly missing from many and that is a title and/or description. Without knowing who or what we are looking at and at what meeting distracts from the experience.

[John Turner]

Yes, that's a good point, Al; I hope all mine provide enough info. but if not, please let me know. Oh, and I haven't forgotten about your reference to a video platform, but since I have no understanding of the technicalities of that, I'll have to ask my more techy colleagues! Nothing to stop people posting links to relevant videos, though!

[Al Weyman]

Yours do John thanks!