Catching the 2019 F1 Night Street Race!

Hey everyone!

It’s the month of September, and the usual F1 night race has come and gone as usual. This year it was different… because we got to attend one of the practice sessions this year!

We are grateful to our friend who was kind enough to provide us with complimentary tickets to watch the practice sessions. Although we are not the biggest fans of F1, we were keen to see how the racetrack experience would be, and also to test our night photography skills and experience how loud the engine noises would be! (Spoiler: it was very loud)

Our inaugural F1 experience was quite interesting. For one, it was one of the few events where you could see so many tourists and foreigners gathering in one location (apart from the usual places of interests). The event was also very well-organised, with many helpful signs and personnel to guide us along. We eventually reached our seats at the Marina Bay Floating Platform while the practice session was ongoing. Sadly, it faced a relatively short stretch of the racetrack, so there was admittedly not much action. The F1 race cars zipped by relatively quickly, which meant we had to capture them with fast shutter speeds or we would end up with blurry shots.

DSCF0814 — The underside of the Marina Bay Grandstand: a cacophony of colours lit up the area as visitors mingled with drinks and food. In the background, a live view of on-track commentary.

DSCF0828 — When we started taking photos, we knew that we would require a fast shutter speed to capture the fast cars. Here, the car was still *slightly* blurry at 1/680 shutter speed! Distance would also play a role as the further we were from the cars, the faster the shutter speed would have to be.

DSCF0840 — One of the cars cutting a corner of the track.

DSCF0842 — One of our favourite shots of the night, as we captured the F1 car coming towards us from a distance.

DSCF0848 — You just know where the best camera angles are when you see other photographers taking photos too! The yellow chains indicated an “out-of-bounds” area, but as you can see some people were quite creative!

We also had a modified Polaroid camera with a modified Instax wide back to shoot at night. However, it turned out to be a super difficult task, primarily because we did not have a tripod. Despite this, we had a blast composing and shooting instant film!

Image (623)a — Just a bit more and the couple would have been in focus!

Image (623)b — The backdrop of the CBD looms large.

Image (623)c — Although the picture looks unfocused, the couple in the middle of the photo is in focus, as they were likewise focused on the race!

As the Floating Platform faced the Marina Bay area, we had the full view of the Marina Bay Sands looming tall in the background. We were not deprived of light either, with the tracklights illuminating just about anything in its vicinity.

Image (623)d — One of the iconic memories of Singapore: the Marina Bay Sands and the Museum in the backdrop.

Image (624)a — Sandra also caught Damian in action as he was looking for scenes to capture!

How the side view of the tracks looked on instax film…

DSCF0876 — … and what we captured on our GFX. It was pretty cool to capture the various F1 cars whizzing past!

DSCF0893 — Seems like we found some Australian fans!

Thankfully, the F1 event wasn’t only about the race; it features a lot of musical acts and performances too! In fact, after the last practice session that night, Swedish House Mafia came on at the Padang stage, to the enthusiasm of thousand of fans. We stayed around for a bit, and watched the crowd go wild with the electrifying EDM music performance!

DSCF0940 — A most appropriate juxtaposition of the old Supreme Court in the background and the modern LED screens showing the music performers.

DSCF0950 — Fireworks! How we missed them 😉

Our inaugural F1 experience was quite interesting, although it would not be something that we can easily afford (given the price of the tickets)! Nevertheless, we did get some creative photos from the experience, and we certainly learnt a trick or two shooting ultra-fast subjects.

Till next time,

Damianwithsandra