The Race Of Gentlemen.

Attention all race fans and motorheads!  Check out Pete Barrett’s latest images from The Race of Gentlemen!  

Pete’s continued interest in racing has been evident with his past shoots ranging from The Bonneville Salt Flats to the explosive fast paced IHRA Dragster Racing.  Continuing on in this vein,  Pete recently had the opportunity to shoot at this year’s  “The Race Of Gentlemen” (TROG) in Wildwood NJ.    

The Race of Gentlemen is a vintage hotrod and motorcycle racing event started by the historic Oilers motorcycle club, where they race right on the beach for the glory of seeing who is the fastest on the sand.  Racers and their vehicles are hand picked and must meet certain criteria… To race, vehicles must be American made and have been produced prior to 1935 for the hot rods & motorcycles dating back to pre 1947 complete with a side mounted “Suicide Clutch” on the gas tank for shifting.   

It’s an exciting annual event that looks like it was plucked from the pages of time where you will find bearded/tattooed characters and motorheads of all shapes and sizes dressed in period appropriate clothing such as old leather riding pants & boots and (until this year), old style helmets and goggles.  As an added bonus, the race would not be complete without a sexy, high jumping flag girl to start them off as they go roaring down the beach toward the finish line.

It’s a rip roaring good time full of friendly folks who seem like they are family.  If you ever get the chance, be sure to check it out!    

When creating these images,  Pete chose an equally vintage look which is reminiscent of what you might expect to see from old large format cameras complete with very shallow depth of field and a Petzvall style falloff and distortion on the edges.   To see more work from this collection please click here to go to the TROG section of Pete’s website.    

Additionally, if you are interested in custom prints,  please click here to go to our print store where you’ll have a choice of having custom fine art prints made archival photo paper, stretched canvas or even printed directly onto aluminum.

Bonneville Part 2… Collaboration with Smalldog Imageworks.

One of the great things about being a creative person and working in the industry that I work in is when your work inspires other creative and talented people who’s work you love and admire.   There are times when this brings about opportunities to collaborate with those people on projects that both inspire and benefit each other.  One such opportunity arose when Scott Dorman from Smalldog Imageworks  wrote to tell me how much he liked the first Bonneville posts I had made (as he is very much a fan of classic cars and bikes.)   This led to me asking him if he would be interested in working on producing a few more of these images with me as I am creating a whole series from this shoot.   He jumped at the chance and the result was the first 3 images here in this post. What is interesting about all these images is none of these  vehicles were actually in motion when I shot them.    I shot them and many other pieces with the final images in mind, but the actual scene when shooting was much more random with many layers of people and cars in the background.   When this happens and I will often have the final composition in my mind but knowing that there is no way to get it in one shot in camera.   Instead I will work to make sure I have all the parts at the correct angles and perspectives with many variations and options I need to make it a reality and build it later in post.  I incorporate a lot of this into my everyday work but Scott takes this talent and multiplies it times 10 and was perfect choice to bring these images into reality.  He’s a real pro when it comes to picking the right angles so the perspectives work as well as people, body positions, and adding motion, the flying salt, spinning the tires & moving the ground.  It’s no surprise that he is one of the most sought after retouchers in the business today.