Racephoto

Monster Mountain CAMS 2011 Fall Race

2011-10-28T12:18:00.001-05:00

Race videos! I raced this past Sunday at Monster Mountain MX. I rode very well, but this was the last race in the Gulf Coast Championship Series, and so several riders had dropped down a class to try to win the championship. So even though I was riding quite a bit faster than I was in the spring race, I actually finished one position worse because the guys in front of me were faster. But, if you've done any local racing, you know how that goes. Anyway, this is the GoPro HD video from Moto1. As you can see, I got shoved into a squared up rut in turn 2 and almost high-sided. I saved it, but was in last place. I eventually worked my way up to 5th. One of my friends was behind me and caught my T2 save here. I am #19, of course.

Now for the chest cam! Moto2's start was screwed up as well, because the gate operator knocked his water bottle into the rut underneath my bike! I signaled to some random guy behind the gate who came and got it out, but right as he did the gate dropped. So I didn't get a great jump, but at least this time I made it through T2 with the rest of the pack. Most of them were a bit faster and simply doing bigger jumps than me (which they're not supposed to do in this class, but again, local racing...), so they pulled away mid-race. But I stayed on my pace and on the penultimate lap I was reeling in 4th place - whom I would come to find out was actually the championship leader. On the last lap I closed him down big time, and right as I was setting him up for a pass, he hit the same T2 rut that I did in Moto1 and nearly highsided. That put me through to 4th place, where I finished, 5-4 for 5th overall on the day.

I'm disappointed with the position of my finish, because I really wanted to at least be on the podium, but on the other hand, there's nothing I can do about guys dropping down from the class above me; they were simply faster and that's that. All in all, I didn't crash, got home safely, rode at my maximum, and had a great day. That's really all you can ask for.

Down on College Street

2011-10-20T22:36:00.001-05:00

Jalopnik used to run a feature called "Down on the Street," profiling interesting cars simply found on the street. Well, it doesn't get much better than this E-Type Jaguar 4.2, found right off College Street. It was perfect. And I mean perfect. Everything on it was clean and in excellent condition. The paint, the bright work, the interior; all above reproach. Unfortunately it was parked in a terrible place for photographic backgrounds, and I could hardly get a clear shot at it. On the upside, it was right at the end of the Golden Hour, and the light, though falling, was beautiful.

Barber Motorsports Festival 2011 - Motorcycles

2011-10-14T14:30:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week I posted my car photos from Barber Motorsports Park's Annual Vintage Festival. Here's the motorcycle set. You'll see some of the rarest bikes in the world pictured here, both from the museum and, just as much, out riding around. It's pretty amazing.

There's a little more than 100 photos total, and the rest of which you can see in the full album here: Barber Vintage Festival 2011 - Motorcycles.

Again, you can see the rest of the photos here: Barber Vintage Festival 2011 - Motorcycles.

Barber Motorsports Festival 2011 - Cars

2011-10-10T19:14:00.004-05:00

Barber's Annual Vintage Festival is one of the coolest events in the world. I've been to a LOT of different races, of all sorts and as many different venues, and nothing is remotely comparable to Barber's Vintage Festival. There is simply SO much to see. Vintage road racing, motocross, trials, air show, the wall of death, the swap meet, the auction, the bike clubs, the vintage fire trucks, the vendors, the museum... not to mention all the incredible bikes that people ride to the track.

I shot over 300 photos from the weekend, and narrowed that down to my top 200, split almost evenly between cars and motorcycles. Here are a few highlights from the cars, and the full album is here: Barber Vintage Festival 2011 - Cars.

The other 62 photos are here: Barber Vintage Festival 2011 - Cars.

Learning to Ride

2011-09-27T19:00:00.003-05:00

This past weekend I had the pleasure of teaching someone to ride. Not just any someone, a beautiful girl who was actually interested in motocross. That's pretty much like finding Bigfoot. Even more impressive, she learned how to use a clutch for the first time ever and completed every drill without crashing once. Stopping without falling over was a bit of a problem, but hey, that 39" seat height is a problem for anyone. Here's a few shots of her going fast and looking good while doing it.

The full album is here, and you can follow her blog here.

Riding the Monster in GoPro HD

2011-09-20T18:06:00.000-05:00

I finally got myself a proper helmet cam - a GoPro HD! The video quality is simply awesome. I've been doing a lot of riding and upping my pace in preparation for October's race. Ride along below.

Daniel New :: Album Photoshoot

2011-07-12T23:16:00.002-05:00

My friend Daniel New is working on his first album, set to release early this fall. We set out to shoot some photos to use on the album art on a stormy summer afternoon. These are obviously just the photos, not the edited album art, but I think we've got a great start.

You can see the full album on Facebook here.

Memorial Day 2011

2011-06-07T18:37:00.004-05:00

Memorial Day is always one of my favorite holidays of the year. We always spend the weekend at the lake with as many friends as we can pack in, and this year was no exception. The weather was excellent, and HOT. Welcome to Summer!

My brother and some friends were playing catch on the dock right at sunset. It was absolutely beautiful, and if you know my style you won't be surprised I thought "hey, this would look great with the fisheye and flash..." Indeed, it did. The results are below!

As always, you can see the full album on Facebook here.

Photo Favorites

2011-05-20T18:49:00.004-05:00

I haven't posted an update in a while, but I wanted to put up a couple of my favorite photos from the past couple months.

January 2011 - Auburn Tigers win the National Championship. This was the celebration at Toomer's Corner.

My brother Wes and his now wife Jessica got engaged last fall. I shot their engagement photos on a beautifully snowy February day.

That's all I've got for now! As always, you can keep up with my more recent photos on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bradleywmiller

Monster Mountain Motocross

2011-01-01T01:26:00.003-06:00

New Year's Eve dawned a beautiful, sunny 71*, and since Monster Mountain MX is open 7 days a week during the winter, I went out for a ride. Here's the video from my $20 helmet cam.

ALSCCA Autocross North vs. South 10/10/10

2010-10-11T09:32:00.004-05:00

A few photos from ALSCCA's North vs. South event. The full album is here.

The full album is here.

2010 Barber Vintage Festival

2010-10-11T08:53:00.003-05:00

The 2010 iteration of the Barber Vintage Festival was held this past weekend. The weather was gorgeous and the turnout was amazing - as were the bikes.

The full album is here.

Recent Portraits

2010-08-31T22:18:00.007-05:00

I've not done a whole lot of shooting lately, but what I have done has been pretty high quality portraiture. This includes a shoot of our secretary's son for his senior portraits, and a couple 50mm shots from a recent beach trip. Enjoy.

These next few are low-res. Click to see the original.

Back in the saddle

2010-06-04T21:04:00.004-05:00

My brother and I used to ride and race motocross for about 5 years, from about 2001-2005. The only reason we stopped was because both our bikes lost compression in the engines, and thanks to college, etc, neither of us could afford to fix them. Now that we've finally gotten out and employed, we were able to get the bikes repaired and get back to riding! Here's a few photos of our first outing.

The full album is here.

Nuclear Cowboys

2010-03-24T13:46:00.004-05:00

I started racing motocross about the same time that "Freestyle" was coming into its own. Thanks to such events as the X Games, it became mainstream enough that small freestyle "competitions" showed up in areas across the country. I went to several of those, and while it's a good event, once you've seen one, you've seen them all - one guy comes out, throws a few tricks for a few minutes, then another comes out and does largely the same thing. It got old fast.

So I heard Nuclear Cowboys was going to do it differently. Instead of the mini-comp format, they instead endeavored to put on an actual show with a storyline. And while the latter was a bit of a stretch, they definitely put on an excellent show (see all 39 photos) :

You can see all 39 photos from the event here.

IRL Barber Open Test 2010 (Part II)

2010-02-28T21:51:00.004-06:00

Day three of the IRL winter test at Barber was reserved for the Indy Lights series. Thankfully, it was about 5* warmer than the previous day and a beautiful day it was. Make no mistake though, it was still plenty cold - ice was still on the ground at 10am.

Unlike Thursday, on Friday I was there only to shoot photos. As mentioned in the post below, I was there pretty much to shoot Martin Plowman (@Plowey), so most of my shots center around him, his car, and the team. And shout out to Martin for being a really nice guy - he made time to have a quick chat whenever he had a spare minute. To top it off, Martin was 2nd fastest on the day, and only .08 off the fastest time. Well done to him and bring on the season! As always, these are just a couple photos; the full album can be found here: Barber Part II

The full album: Barber Part II

IRL Barber Open Test 2010 (Part I)

2010-02-25T21:19:00.005-06:00

Indy held their only winter test for the 2010 season at Barber Motorsports Park. Given that it was a week day, the track was a bit short on corner workers, so my friend Lori called to see if I could help out. And as much as I've been involved in and around racing, I've never been an actual corner worker. It was a fun day, but very cold - about 40*F with a gusting ~10mph wind.

Because of the cold temps, the Firestone hard compound control tire wasn't safe to run until the track heated up, so the cars didn't get on track until about noon. That gave me some time to tour the pits and shoot some of the stars. I finally had the pleasure of meeting Martin Plowman (@Plowey) face to face after keeping up with him on Twitter for the better part of last year. He was kind enough to chat for a few minutes before I let him get on to much more important people. I'll be out there again tomorrow to shoot Martin in work mode, as tomorrow is the Indy Lights test. Here's a few shots from the day:

Martin Plowman & Michael Andretti

Helio Castroneves

Not a bad view from my corner worker station at T10

The view down the back straight at the end of the day

Check out the full album here.

Part II to come tomorrow...

Home Sweet Home

2010-02-18T21:45:00.002-06:00

My parents just finished a beautiful remodel of their house. Coincidentally, we got about 3" of snow on the same day, so I figured I'd do some light balancing and capture a bit of both in one shoot.

See the whole album here.

Barber Vintage Festival

2009-11-08T22:12:00.002-06:00

Last weekend was Barber's Vintage Motorcycle Festival, which is in my opinion perhaps the best event they have at Barber Motorsports Park. There's road racing, cross country, motocross, the Wall of Death, bike shows, a swap meet, an air show... etc. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great this year, but fortunately it cleared into very nice afternoon on Sunday. Here's a few pics.

Air show low pass (haze provided by lingering smoke)

Straight out of WWII

Beautiful old Vincent

Very cool Yamaha chopper

Interesting combo...

The oval piston Honda NR750 - one of the rarest modern race bikes!

An RM ridden by former World Champion Roger DeCoster

The weather cleared up for a perfect afternoon at Barber

The Honda Dream

The Wall of Death - an absolutely perfect place for the fisheye!

They brought go karts this year

Two bikes at once!

Click here to see the full album

End of Summer

2009-09-21T13:52:00.002-05:00

Yeah, so I know I haven't updated in a while. Law school graduation and studying for the Bar exam dominated my summer months. But I wasn't totally dormant. Check out my Facebook albums for more work - in the mean time, I'll work on getting some of the better art shots up on RedBubble. Enjoy!

Mat Mladin Blogs?!

2009-05-07T15:43:00.005-05:00

6-time AMA Superbike Champion, all around wise guy, and forever speaker of his mind, Mat Mladin has just started his own blog. If you like motorcycles, racing, or dry Australian sarcasm, I guarantee you will be well entertained.

http://matmladin.blogspot.com/

Left: Mat Mladin at Barber Motorsports Park, circa 2005.

Blue Angels

2009-04-13T22:11:00.008-05:00

Last weekend the city of Tuscaloosa hosted its first major airshow. Headlining the show were the Navy's renowned Blue Angels F-18 team. The show was absolutely fantastic, as was the weather, which made for a crowd of over 50,000 people. Enjoy the photos, and the full Blue Angels album is here.

Check out the full Blue Angels album.

Beatniks

2009-03-30T22:24:00.004-05:00

This was the most fun photo shoot I've done. Seriously, what a great group of people. So, Leah is going to France in a few months. I did a shoot with them to promote Leah's Beatnik fundraiser. We shot up on Red Mountain and at a lovely cafe in English Village.

The full album is here.

Atlanta Supercross 2009

2009-03-04T23:41:00.007-06:00

Last week, my dad and I made our 9th annual trip to the Georgia Dome for AMA Supercross. Usually my brother attends as well, but work won the battle for his time this year. As always, Supercross put on a fantastic show, the racing was great, and the crowd was huge 70,000 sell out.

Photographically, it's a huge challenge to shoot because it's SO dark and the action is so fast. Ambient is ISO1600 at 1/160 at F/4 (wide open for my 70-200). So there's that problem. Fortunately I had my 430 flash which helped, but I couldn't go over 1/200 without losing too much power. But I made it work, and RAW processing definitely helped pull up the levels on some of the ambient light shots.

All the hauler trucks parked in front of the World Congress Center, which was being used as the paddock.

This is about 2/3 of the line going into the pits. I'd estimate 15,000 people just in the pits; it was insane.

A rider in his trailer getting his gear ready.

Autographs for the kids

The factory Kawasaki crew readying Ryan Villapoto's KX450F

Ryan on the bike in practice, getting the power down for an upcoming triple jump.

Ivan Tedesco coming through the rhythm section

Defending 2008 Supercross champion, Chad Reed

Nick Wey

James Stewart throwing a huge whip over the triple jump

James wheelies in the opening ceremonies

And during the race intermission, Kenny Bartram busted out a one-handed backflip. He's about 40ft in the air here, over a 60' jump!

Tons more photos are here:
Set 1
Set 2

Zip-Craft Motor recording session

2009-03-02T16:09:00.005-06:00

Zip-Craft Motor, as they describe themselves, "began when two dudes decided to make some lo-fi music. As of yet their songs consist of freestyle vocals and originally produced beats." Whatever that means, I know them as my brother Wes and a couple friends (Sam Torres, Taylor Gonzales, and Fletcher Ash). Thus, as you can imagine, when you get a group of good friends in a small room, all sorts of fun happens. I basically tried to stay out of the way and merely capture the fun.

I tried to hit a lot of different styles in an attempt to match what they were doing. So I think you'll see a lot of different looks, from commercial to dark theatrical. And you can check out Zip-Craft Motor on MySpace.

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

ALSCCA Autocross Test & Tune

2009-02-16T13:18:00.002-06:00

Is it time for the new racing season already? I guess so. That's a good thing - I'm always bored in the winter. Sunday was the official test day for the Alabama Region of the Sports Car Club of America (ALSCCA). Being the official unofficial photographer, I came out and took some shots.

Click here to see all 200+ photos

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Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Light it up

2009-02-04T15:00:00.004-06:00

Over the past month or so, I've been putting together an off-camera flash setup. It's quite complex in as far as understanding how everything works. You see, the camera must have a way to trigger the flashes that are not physically attached to it, and oh yeah, this all has to happen in 1/250 of a second. Fortunately, some Chinese engineers have solved that problem with the D-8P wireless trigger system. Essentially, you mount the transmitter to your camera's hot shoe, and when you take a photo, it sends a radio signal to the receivers (attached to your flash), which fires the flash. Really it's like a remote control car - you press forward on the stick and the car goes. Same idea here.

But you still have to control the light output of the flashes. If you can't do that, your system isn't worth much, because what good is it to have your own light if you can't control it? Photography is all about light - balance, shadow, key light, high lights, position, etc. So the biggest advantage of off-camera flash is the photographer's ability to completely control the light. Then it's all in the hands of the photographer - me. You can read about the properties and behavior of light all you want, but as with anything, it's always illustrated best by trying it out.

That's a little bit about what I've been working on - understanding light and how to use it. I'm very much still learning. But below are a few of my first attempts - Jase Vann's Mustang GT, and Carson and his French bulldog, Gus. There will be much more to come as I venture more into shooting portraits and engagements...

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Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

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Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Prevailing Conditions

2009-01-14T17:57:00.004-06:00

A lot of times photography is about taking advantage of the moment. When it involves the outdoors in any extent, mother nature controls your conditions. The weather doesn't work on your schedule, and when it deals you a good hand, you'd better take advantage. That's why professional photographers can get such amazing shots because that's their job to get out and get the shot. But for the rest of us, we've got a lot of other things going on, like that activity called work that takes up most of our time in the day.

Even so, some times the conditions are just too right to ignore. I was on my way to go get lunch for the office on Wednesday and I noticed the sky was pretty much perfect. It was that rich, deep winter blue, crystal clear, and a pending front was blowing all sorts of whispy white clouds around. In other words, the conditions were perfect for landscape shots. My route to lunch took me past Vulcan, so I took a quick detour up to the statue and grabbed a few shots w/ my polarizer.

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The view of Downtown Birmingham from Vulcan Park.

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Vulcan's Silhouette against an awesome sky.

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The view from the parking lot.

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The polarizer adds a great contrast b/t the statue and the deep blue sky.

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The symmetrical view.

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Time for '09

2009-01-01T23:16:00.003-06:00

It's time for another New Year. As is tradition, Brad Hamilton hosted our New Year's Eve party, but this time, at he and his wife's new house. And that wasn't all that was new, as I was able to try out my new Canon 430EXII flash. This is in addition to my two flash off camera setup (which you'll also see used in a couple shots below). Basically, the 430EXII allows me to move around alot more and shoot subjects in rapidly changing light and distances - something you can't do with off camera flashes due to their manual adjustment.

So enjoy a few photos from our New Year 2009 party.

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

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Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Ferrari and Lamborghini shoot

2008-12-18T15:32:00.001-06:00

I had lunch today with a friend from the autocross races, driver of the #56GS mini. We met at Jim n' Nicks to plan out a custom photo book I'm doing for him. In the course of the conversation, he was talking a/b the place he gets all his car work done - HESCO. I've never heard of it, I say. He told me it's basically your old school style hotrod shop. Straight up guys who do a lot of the real work, and he said there's always some cool cars down there, so I should check it out. Well, I did.

The guys at HESCO were completely awesome. They gave me a full tour of their entire shop and talked with me for almost two hours, on top of letting me shoot photos. They work on anything from Jeep CJs to Ferraris to Dodge Durangos - the one I saw was getting a 6.5L twin turbo V-8 put in. They're guessing 650hp+ and it already blew 3 Dodge trannies (so they went with a GM this time).

They have a chassis dyno and an engine stand dyno. They have a full machine shop complete with CNC equipment, they have a powder coating setup, and they have custom aluminum heads they make for 6cyl Jeep. They are also the supplier for Mopar's Jeep FI kits.

In short, these guys don't suck. These are a few of the shots I took there...

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They had a Ferrari 360 Spider and a Lamborghini Diablo in the shop, which I attempted to shoot and came out with some very mediocre results.

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The lighting was AWFUL even with my PZ-1 at full power there was little I could do about it.

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Diablo. As you can see, it was VERY tight in there, so my options for angles was extremely limited.

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6.0 V12. This was a cool result - I used the zoom at 105mm to concentrate the light just on the motor.

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Slightly better light thanks to the white wall beside me.

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I finally got a decent bounce light off that white wall, but the light falls off way too fast - even on full power and zoom. I needed another light at the rear of the car but had no way to do that at the time.

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Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller

Sell photos on photrade | By BradleyMiller