I’ve been putting off and putting off posting up photos from my experience at The 12 Hours of Sebring this year.
Mostly because my photos were so screwed up that I simply didn’t (and still don’t) want to edit the majority of them… I’m guessing that many of you read my blog post titled: “My New, Damaged, Canon 1D-X. And Canon USA’s refusal to help” If not, click the link and you’ll immediately see why I haven’t edited much from that trip. And you read the whole thing it will be sure to piss you off at the lack of customer service I dealt with.

However, now that we’re approaching the THIRD Le Mans race of the 2013 season, I wanted to share my images from Florida before people simply didn’t care anymore… if they don’t already. Haha!

My original plan at Sebring was to freelance and attempt to sell my services to various teams at the race that weekend. But that hope was dashed as soon as it was clear my camera was damaged and all my photos would require serious editing.

I did do a bit of work for John Edwards Racing though. So, my focus was the M-Power BMW you see up top.

Go ahead and click the break for a large assortment of shots from Sebring. The majority will be dusk and night photos since those are the images I was able to edit quickly and without much editing because the damage to the sensor was not visible as wide-open apertures.

Enjoy!

I’m currently on my way to Atlanta for Formula Drift this weekend and not Monterey for Le Mans. So, this is very likely my only American Le Mans Series post of the year unfortunately.

Picking up my photo pass the first day… used the same photo as last year. Much easier… haha

Wolf is out on the track for the practice. Of COURSE I still had to a few photos of the #17 Falken Tire Porsche!

A couple random photos resized a bit larger… so… oh well. haha

Since it was a practice day and I wasn’t too concerned with particular photos of any kind, I decided to spend the majority of afternoon doing slow pans

Woo! Go BMW!!!

Once nice set in though that was when things got sexy! Haha. Love dusk at Sebring, the light in the sky there is awesome.

Decided to wander down from Turn 3 all the way to Turn 7. Hoped to get a couple glowing-rotors photos

The Delta Wing was repainted in a chrome finish since the other drivers said the black paint job previously was too difficult to see in their mirrors.
Safety is taken really seriously by the teams, and it was great to see the Delta team be so accommodating.

Those E-Tron’s are just so cool looking… especially at night with all their LEDs

The second day at the track for me was pretty quiet. This was the day I REALLY realized how damaged my camera was. I took VERY few photos. Plus there was only three practices that day and I was only there for 1 1/2 of them.

Porsche driver Wolf Henzler

One thing I really wanted to do while at this race was to create portraits of the Falken Tire drivers. For those who follow my work, you know that portraits are my favorite thing to shoot. So, I talked to Falken’s PR girl, Kelly, who’s also a good friend, and found some time that I would be able to meet up with Wolf, Bryan, and Nick for a bit and shoot with them.

Bryan Sellars

Bryan is a great guy and someone I would joke with a lot at the track. He’s just slightly older than I am, and I like to laugh and point out that clearly I went into the wrong career and should have been a racecar driver. He also swears he can’t take a good photos to save his life, however I’ve received a ton of compliments on this shot. So, Go Bryan! You handsom man, you! Haha

Nick Tandy

Nick was the third driver for the 12 Hours of Sebring, and not a driver that I had met before that weekend. Still an awesome dude who was more than happy to give me some time to shoot.

That was pretty much it for my second day.
I spent part of the afternoon switching hotels when Falken Tire offered me one of their extra rooms that they had left over. VERY cool of them to do so since rooms were limited and at a premium for Sebring. It’s great that I have so many opportunities to work with such a great company, and one who looks out for me when they can, even if I’m not shooting for them that weekend. Thanks guys!

Day 2… hanging out

Chillin on the track. Obviously had to do a few selfshots for my fans! Right…? RIGHT?! Nah, I’m sure you guys just want to see car photos, it’s ok, I’m not hurt.

Wandered the pits that evening to get a few shots of the cars being wrenched on

For you suspension fans… sexiness

So…many….puns

Day 3:

I took a bunch of sunrise photos of the track… but, apparently I forgot to upload them. Sorry guys!

Morning practice and warmups is going to start soon. This is the only time I’ll be allowed on the track

SpeedHunters Larry Chen is shooting there on the right, too

Wolf, focused and waiting

Really love this shot of Jon Bennet racing for CORE Autosport

After warmups the grid was opened up to the fans – it quickly flooded with people and was a pain to get through.

John Edwards, BMW Racing

My day on the track started out slow… I knew my camera was damaged and likely wouldn’t be very helpful…

These were among the only shots I took before realizing that “Anything I shoot above f/9 is going to be unusable. Which eliminates ALL panning shots  for me. So, I went and put my DX away in my car for the time being. Less to carry.. it was just dead weight

Anddd then mid-day it was time to lay around for an hour. Lighting was horrible, it was mid-day, hot and bright… no reason to shoot photos I won’t need and can’t use.

After dropping off my DX, I decided I’d shoot a bit with my 5D2… my VERY slow 5D2.
it worked, sorta, but was not nearly as nice as my newer 1D. Also at this point I was kicking myself for not bringing my 1D3 with me to Florida. but why would I think my brand new DX would have problems, right? hahaha

Decided to focus on the BMW for a while to see how it would photograph. I’m so used to lighting with the Falken Porsche that a nearly-all-white car would be a change.

Some time around this point John Edwards was in the car and driving… so my focus would be the BMW for the next four hours of the race during his shift. The best part is that John would be driving at dusk, too

 

Really dig the sunsets at Sebring. As I said earlier, the Florida light is gorgeous at the track

It was crazy to be shooting ISO50 this late in the day for me. But I needed to use every option I could to open up past f/8 and still get slow enough shutter speeds for blur.

Enjoying that new DIGIC5 processor in the camera.

On my walk back in I shot this of the Falken Tire pit. There was maybe 45 minutes left to the race, but I was calling it a night. Falken went on to take 3rd place though! Very exciting, and awesome accomplishment by the entire team!

So, that’s it for my Sebring post. Not nearly as in depth as my post last year, but, I wasn’t working directly with any team this year like I was during the 2012 opener.

Currently I’m on my way to Road Atlanta for Drift, so, check back next week for a post on that race. Also, follow me on twitter @JOHNREMUS for updates, Instagram is also @JOHNREMUS andddd since I’m shooting for Falken Tire this weekend, most all Drift posts for @FalkenTire will be a bunch of my stuff