Just in time for May and the Kentucky Derby (this weekend), we’re presenting you with our latest print promotion featuring Washington D.C.-based photographer Simon Bruty and his awesome top down shot of the famous race. Printed by Modern Postcard, our card went out to 2,000 creatives all across the US and Canada. We really wanted to know more about the shot and what went into making it, so Simon graciously filled us in on the process.
I was on assignment for Sports Illustrated. I had been to the Kentucky Derby a number of times before and I have always tried to find a different angle from which to shoot the race. One of the years that I didn’t go, I watched it on television and I saw this very cool aerial shot from a blimp. It took several phone calls with some blimp people to convince them I weighed next to nothing, was very small, and that they should let me on with them.
I remember on the day of the race thinking that this was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel, but I realized I was quite wrong when I saw the space left for me inside. The blimp was large enough for a small person stuffed in between all our camera gear, the operator and the pilot. We spent four hours hovering above the race grounds before the race even started–I found out it’s best to not drink lots of liquids prior to leaving! We were also very high up in the air because of flight restrictions and the potential to scare the horses.
The TV lens on the front of the blimps live camera is this amazing zoom lens and the distance forced me to use my 500mm with a 1.4converter. Even with that, I was still shooting pretty loose. Because the television directors dictated the angle of the blimp, I was shooting over the shoulder of the pilot, missing chunks of the race. After we landed, I had thought the hardest part of the assignment was going to be negotiating passage on the blimp, but it really was the paucity of space and the rivalry with the television camera to get the images I wanted. Ultimately, after all this, SI never ran the image.