Monaco on Maas

Last sunday I attended the 'Monaco aan de Maas' event; a Formula 1 demo in the streets of Rotterdam. After my somewhat disappointing results at the Redbull Airrace where I photographed mainly spectators heads, I had decided to go for it this time and buy myself an expensive grandstand seat. I bought my ticket on friday, and there were still tickets left (which to me was not a good sign).

Soon after I bought my ticket I found out about the much cheaper paddock tickets that would allow acces to the pitstop/exhibition area. Knowing that a fisheye lens makes anything but the really large/close objects very small very quickly, I was really much more interested in the paddock area.

When I arrived at the venue, my suspicions were confirmed. The grandstands weren't all that close to the track, and there were places with better views. My ticket was refused at the entrance of the paddock ('no sir, you can go to the grandstand...oooh'), but luckily I found a back entrance where the surveillance was less strict and they didn't notice my 'wrong' ticket.

They were handing out the tickets as you left the paddock so you could get back in later on, so someone got lucky and got himself a grandstand seat. They were good seats if you didn't want to do panos, like I did.

A propos, panos, don't forget to click the thumbnail images to the right to go to the fullscreen panoramic versions.

The rain every now and then forced all the people in the paddock into the exhibition tents, which enabled all of us to get much closer to the cars than originally intended. I had a good time shooting panos, though cars are not my thing... But it's the stitching that takes time.