Well said Nick. As a side note I would like to add my biased 2 cents. I know that STT is a business and it's core drive is profit, but maybe allowing a bit of competition isn't a bad thing. I wish STT would allow it's customers vote with their dollars instead of allowing the highest bidder take the event. See you soon! :cheers:
I guess you cant really be mad at Sideline, accidents happen after all. Still, of all weekends to lose the data.......
You know. I'd love to come on here and get on the bandwagon and bash sideline about this. They are my competitors after all. However, to be honest, this is my worst nightmare and I'm very sympathetic. I take as many preventative measures as I can to keep redundant copies of the data but even if their photographer had followed the prescribed protocol this could still happen. It is probably less likely but none the less, possible. I think this is every photographers worst nightmare. I can't imagine the sinking feeling that Jake must have felt when he had to call Mike and give him this news. I probably would have cried myself. The shear volume of data that a track weekend generates is a unique challenge that we have to deal with. Add to that the fact that a photographer is not always an IT savy individual. It's a momentous task trying to preserve the data, sort the data and process the data in a timely manner, then storing the data, redundantly of course, hosting the data online and delivering it to customers in a timely manner is also a very time consuming task. If we didn't make some compromises regarding the way we handled this data you wouldn't see these photos till next year. I think all of the photographers have their own way of solving this unique problem. But...... getting a shot of a rider the first time they drag a knee, or a shot of an advanced guy absolutely hauling the mail is pretty worth it. It's a lot of fun when it goes right. Having said that I also wanted to address the competition discussion. I personally would love to shoot ACC again and think it's a great idea to have some variety at the different tracks but you have to keep some things in mind. Particularly about ACC. ACC lets STT and only STT ride there. Sideline has a relationship with ACC that STT has to respect. Further they have stricter guidelines than a lot of other tracks. Particularly they require the official photographer to have vendor insurance. This eliminates most of the "small" photographers as it is. I have since found insurance but last year when I had 1 opportunity to shoot ACC I was almost told to go home because I was unaware of this guideline and to be frank, I am small, especially compared to sideline. If any other photographers are serious enough to seek insurance please contact me. It took me awhile to find a place that was willing to insure me at a racetrack. None the less, the take away here is, STT is taking a risk letting new photographers shoot at ACC so they need to be sure it's a vendor that is not going to hurt their relationship with ACC. Take nothing away from any of you as I'm sure many of you are capable of being professional. It's just a piece of the puzzle. Lastly, having different photographers at different events is 1 thing, I'm totally for that, there are more track days in a summer with the 2 orgs I shoot for than I can cover alone already. Events still go not covered. So getting some fresh photographers shuffled around to different tracks would be great for the riders as they will inevitably get some fresh angles and viewpoints, even just a difference in processing style. However, if an organization told me that they were going to make it an "open market" at a single event I would not agree to shoot that event. It's nothing personal but there is not that much money in track photography. Splitting it among multiple vendors would likely cause the money made to barely cover travel costs if we were lucky. This for most of us is a labor of love. When you consider the 100s of miles driven, hotel costs and thousands of dollars in camera equipment that we have to haul to these sites, it's not something that makes it possible for most of us to quit our day jobs. And if you do make it your full time gig you'll be like Mike, on the road way more often then you are home. The point is, an open market would not be better for the riders and I think that is what is important. Not to mention, the staff and corner workers don't need the added stress of figuring out where multiple photographers are trying to move to between sessions let alone the one or 2 that comes with a single vendor. Anyway, that's my 2 cents. I'm really sorry to hear about this, for Sideline and for the riders. It's very unfortunate. Hopefully they can get the photos recovered but in the end I think we are all lucky, to be able to ride superbikes at a racetrack and have opportunities to get sweet photos to show our friends. Cheers, - Joe
I will say this since last year it was me complaining about how long it took them to get pictures out to me. That being said the quality of the pics was outstanding and I received close to 200 photos for my $100. While I Ike the concept of being able to purchase at a later date after I have looked at my pics and chosen the ones I liked, the choices I received for my $100 was more than I expected. I could have went to one of those on-line ones and only spent $10 or if they had 5 pics I wanted a $100. They will tell you the reason is because of travel and I will not argue that. What I will say is that there are plenty of cheap a$$ people that would rather steal the image rather than pay for them. Being that they make their living doing this I have no problem with their business model. I would like to see the competition as well if not for the fact that some photographers are simply better than others ,not to mention one may get that special shot that the other missed but it is what it is. While I hear Nicks comments, to me that sounds like they actually charge the photographers for access to their customer base and possibly were burned my some that did not make any money on their shots so they chose not to pay for their access. Of course this is just a conspiracy theory of mine
Yea, Sideline does take some gorgeous pictures. Its kind of funny, because of their business model, i showed up with cash in hand for pictures. Odd that this was the one time they didnt sell them on site. I'm a bit sad, to be honest. New bike, new paint job, new popshadow awesomeness, new leathers, better body position than i've ever had..... i was really excited. But, all of that being said, as an IT guy i have accidently screwed the pooch before too. I know that sick, sinking feeling you get in your stomach as soon as you know what happened. We've all done it before. I imagine the guy feels worse than we can comprehend.
Yah, Data Loss in general really hurts me. ugggg. I've been there, considering the hard drive recovery people. In the end I just swallowed hard and moved on, the data I lost long ago was not worth the thousands in recovery cost. Mostly a bunch or ripped music back in the early 2000s, but also a lot of photos. I learned that lesson though. I bet this never happens to Jake again. Luckily at work I haven't dealt with this. But I'm in networking, hopefully I don't cause HDDs to fail.
Yeah I really feel bad for Jake, makes my stomach sink, really a nightmare for him, I wouldn't even wish this upon my worst enemy. I am mildly irritated I wasn't allowed to take out my "professional" lenses though. There were a bunch of first time track day riders from my group that I could of at least grabbed a photo of them at the two corners we can get to as spectators, but I was trying to play nice this year....and well at the very least not get yelled at (that was reallllly unenjoyable last year). Now those riders may have nothing of their first track day.....
Huh? I see "pro" lenses out all the time at the track. I've seen multiple telephoto lenses out there. Girlfriends, wives, whoever, taking pictures of the person they came with. Unless I'm missing something or someone is using some insane $10,000 lens and taking pictures of every session, or trying to take pictures from somewhere other than spectator areas, that would be understandable to get a talking to.
I think restricting family of friends to use better equipment, might have something to do with a certain vendor trying to cover the cost of his monster rig, huge lens and crushing giga-mega-pixel. Every year we see the same thread popping on the forum and always the same story, except this year they also possibly lost the photos. I hope they get the data recovered and people get their photos. :thumb:
Just did a search of the forums. Looks like STT is cool with family/friends taking photos as long as it's in spectator areas. :thumb:
Oh, didn't hear anything about no pics at ACC. Guess it depends on the event/vendor? Grattan didn't have any camera guys that I knew of yesterday. First track day at Gingerman didn't have any either. If it's vendor specific, and the vendor is imposing this rule, well, then, I know where my money isn't going.
Yes. It can depend on the track for sure. With some venues the contract is between the photographer and the track - so would obey whatever rules they have in place. I am not exactly sure what Autobahn would or wouldn't allow, although I am not aware of them restricting non-professional/hobbist photographers that are friends or family members of riders there. Certainly, I'm fine with friends and family talking whatever they want for pictures at an event. I want them to come, hang, and have a good time. With that being said, if I catch someone vending (pictures or otherwise) without permission, they get kicked off the property immediately. Photographer for this past Grattan was: http://www.mikesmotofoto.com/ t