Second day on the stages, with the cars coming in the opposite direction to the previous day, and heavy overnight rain dampening the dust (which is a bad thing in terms of photography ‘cos the dust clouds are gone and the cars get covered in orange sludge). Talking more with Anna and Kishan, I begin to realise that they don’t just want photos of rally cars, they want photos of rally cars next to sponsor’s signboards. The video teams know this and spend some time moving the signboards around to maximise exposure. I do my best to include some signage as I snap away. Sometimes it was subtle:
Sometimes it was too damn obvious:
The day was not as successful as the first. The reverse route seemed to provide less action and the lack of dust and mucky cars did not help.
Anna wanted me to take some shots in a small forest section, which turned out to be quite a walk. On the way I descended into a ditch to catch a couple of cars, and could see some farmers waving at me to join them in the field opposite. I assumed they wanted to admonish me for occupying their ditch; but what they actually wanted was for me to take their photograph. So I did.
Finally arrived in the forest section, to discover I was not alone.
I dropped my camera bag; but soon had to pick it up again as the monkey came out of the tree and seemed determined to check it out. He probably wanted to add to his Canon lens collection, which was strange because he looked like a Nikon user to me.
It was pleasantly shady under the trees, although the sun bouncing off the cars gave some problems.
At the end of the day there was another rush to send off photos to David the media man, another fine meal courtesy of Anna’s cook, and another early night. One more day to go and it was going to be another busy one.