So in case you missed it, it’s been a little wet in Melbourne lately. Come to think of it Tassie and Sydney also saw a drop or two. It’s all good, I love the rain as much as anyone.. but this was on a different level.
Lets be honest, it wasn’t an overly hot summer, at least in Melbourne anyway. Although I remember thinking it was bloody hot at the F1, I think that was more do to the fact that I kept on missing the photographers bus, forcing me to walk most of the weekend with all my gear and the media centre not being airconditioned. Well, they had air conditioning and it was making noise for sure… probably pretending, you know, like that guy that walks around the office all day with a blank piece of paper in their hand or better yet, a clip board. They don’t do anything but man, do they look busy!
Anyway, after the F1 my family and I headed up to Queensland for some time on the beach, during a cyclone. So that was good. So it was good to get back to Melbourne for the nice weather!
Then came last Sunday. I was scheduled to cover Round 1 of the Shannon’s Nationals for Alamy Live News and saw that the forecast was for rain but for some unknown reason to me, I decided that my intuition knew better and didn’t believe it. It rained the day before… it would have cleared by Sunday… and even so, it was forecast to rain late in the day anyway. I am commonly known as an idiot and for good reason. It rained. It rained in the morning, late morning too. It rained all day. And when I say rain, I mean the air turned into water. Damn, I don’t remember it raining so hard for so long… It was almost like I’d suddenly turned absorbent, yellow and porous and was looking around for my purple Star Fish best mate. I digress.
So all I took to stay dry was a jacket. And I got wet.. really wet. So did my cameras. They may as well have been submerged in a bucket of water… there’s no way they would have got any wetter. All I can say is that Canon do an amazing job of weather sealing their pro bodies and lenses. I really thought that something would go wrong with them but they performed flawlessly. I still recommend using a waterproof camera cover.. or even a plastic bag in case it rains, there’s no point in risking it, camera’s cost an arm and a leg. But if you get caught, as I did, and you own a pro level Canon body and lens, then you should be OK.
The racing was awesome on Sunday, the rain made for great images and some great driving along with plenty of slides and crashes. Not a good thing for the teams but there’s nothing like a bit of action on the track.
It was also great to see a couple of debuts for Shannon’s Nationals – The Australian Prototype Series and the KTM GT4 – what an awesome looking machine! Click through the links to read more about them…
Here’s some of the pics from the day – enjoy! For the rest of the images, head over to my Facebook Page – davehewisonphotography.
