Tag: Oregon

Team Motorola

The Team Motorola crew works on Michael Andretti's IndyCar at the 2001 CART race in Portland

I was in graduate school when some friends got me interested in open-wheel racing, namely Formula 1 and IndyCar, and early on Michael Andretti became one of my favorite drivers. We were thrilled one year when my stepfather’s brother offered us his Indy 500 tickets, so the great race was the first race I attended. All I had at the time was a point-and-shoot as I had not yet started my photographic journey, and regardless of interest couldn’t afford to start. After interning at Motorola’s pager division a few years later, and after getting an unexpected bonus (both unexpected and unexpectedly large) from them the following January, I was able to buy my first SLR, a Canon Rebel, and the journey began. A handful of years later I bought my first digital camera, the Canon D30, and that’s what I showed up with at the 2001 CART race in Portland.

So I was particularly delighted to photograph the Team Motorola crew working on the car of their driver, Michael Andretti, the circle complete.

Tread Carefully

A snail crawls across a fern frond in the Columbia River Gorge

Walking in the Columbia River Gorge you’re likely to come across slugs and snails underfoot, such as this snail (maybe one of our lancetooth species? I know nothing about snails) near Latourell Falls. It was just crossing over the fern frond that had fallen to the forest floor, not dining on it, I think lancetooths are carnivorous and eat other snails. The little creatures of the forest are one of the reasons I value short close-focusing distances in lenses, it minimizes the need to switch to (or even carry) a dedicated macro lens when you only need to get close, but not macro close. This was taken with the Sony-Zeiss 16-70 f/4 zoom lens, a lens I wasn’t sure about initially but which I’ve really come to like.

The Door I Walk Past

Graffiti covers a door and walls in Portland, Oregon

We’ve lived in Portland for fifteen years and for most of that time I’ve walked past this door every day on my way to work. Except I can promise you I’ve never walked past this door, at least not until a few days ago when it caught my eye. I’ll grant you I’m not the most observant person, but even so I know I haven’t walked past this door. And I haven’t. I found a picture online from last summer that showed the graffiti wasn’t present then, it was a beige door in a brown building, tucked in a little cubbyhole between businesses on Broadway, the door I had walked past for so many years. I made a point to photograph it as soon as I could as it will soon be dark in the mornings, and who knows, maybe beige and brown too.

Cristiano da Matta

Cristiano da Matta in 2001

I was surprised when I bought my first pit pass at the CART race in Portland at how much access you were given. You could get pretty close to the pits themselves and watch the drivers come and go and you could later go back near the trailers and see the mechanics work on the cars. It wasn’t easy to get pictures in the pits, as not only would the crew immediately surround the car, but the VIP’s in between the cars and the crowd would also swarm in. In 2001 I decided to try visiting one of the autograph sessions but to get pictures not autographs. I realized this was a mistake and never did it again, as the drivers are mostly looking down to sign things, and it was still very crowded and hard to get pictures. I did get this picture of Cristiano da Matta in his first year at Newman/Haas Racing that I thought came out OK. He’d qualify second in the race but the next year he’d win it outright (and the championship too for that matter, in dominant fashion).

Mauricio Gugelmin

Mauricio Gugelmin, driving for PacWest Racing, waits in the pits during Friday practice at the 2001 CART race in Portland

Mauricio Gugelmin, driving for PacWest Racing, waits in the pits during Friday practice at the 2001 CART race in Portland. This was his last year in not just IndyCars but in racing, I think big crashes of his own and others, combined with the death of a son with health issues, led to his retirement. I’m nostalgic for this era of racing in many ways but one thing I’m glad to see after being away from the sport for years, is how much safer the cars continue to get, and that improvement needs to continue.