Plains Rally - A great day out by Claire Abel

“Do you follow rallying?” one of the pro photographers asked us. Hmm, what's the answer to that.....… We confessed to just enjoying photography and explained we were there as the Welshpool Camera Club.

That's the great thing about taking photos – I find I can spend a whole day doing something I'm not 'that into' provided my camera is to hand – in fact I even use my camera to entertain (and teach) my nephew when he's looking bored at family gatherings …. he's getting better shots than me already, but that's another story!!

Today was all about a trip to the Plains Rally special stage at a local timber yard, and camera club turnout was good (seven and some extras I think). Thanks to Rachel for suggesting and organising the trip and to her and Ron for scouting the best action locations. I spent a lovely day watching the action and ambled from area to area trying to work out the best spots. The sun was coming down, the dust was flying up spectacularly from the cars – photos should be looking good. There were even good gaps between the cars to check out the images produced and discuss ...

“Are you on shutter priority?” “No, aperture priority” “But that gives stationary looking car shots.” Hmmm .... got to agree … so I tried that – and got a great series of blurred car shots!!

New location, shutter priority, practice panning. Getting better. It's so long since I've used my camera I'd forgotten what to do – but it was coming back with these pointers. Then, when I was tiring of cars and was wandering aimlessly (the point when I'd have been angling to go home normally).....

Adam and Colin spotted me from their comfy resting spot and we stopped to chat about the club. Mike soon spotted us and we all compared pics, which I think Mike won with his great flying car images. He shared his location and techniques with us - which involved a hairy trip across part of the rally course in the centre of the woodyard (the acoustics were such that it was hard to tell if the rally car was approaching and we should stay safe or far away and we could peg it across the track !!) – and we all practiced taking images of flying rally cars - right through to the very last car. All that's left is to download the 260 images and get the two tonnes of dust out of our hair … bring on the next trip !!

More photos of the clubs day out can be seen on the Gallery