Info: Atlanta Motorsports Park (AMP)

[Eric T]

New track just opened in May, just Northeast of Atlanta, GA. I had the opportunity to be the event photographer for a Porsche Club DE a couple of weekends ago at AMP. If anyone plans on shooting there in the near future, I tried to give some additional information on where some of the good spots to shoot are at, and some notes about the facilities itself since it's still not 100% complete.

http://www.awolphoto.com/porsche-clu...orsports-park/

Feel free to ask any additional questions that I did not cover in the write up.

[dinanm3atl]

I will get up there to shoot at some point. Actually was contacted to shoot their opening event for the track... and was offered the potential of selling photo CDs. I declined. Done that setup before and the time spent is simply not worth it. The track would not offer anything on my end.

Going to be shooting a GT3 RS4.0 at AMP soon. Owner won the CTSCC ST Class at IMS. Shooting the trophy/cars as well. Hope to be driving my own car on the track soon too. It's a cool facility but was not up for potentially shooting two days for free.

Enjoyed the results you got. My original thoughts were that the track could be a bit boring. Not saying your shots are bad/boring but the track, based on level of completion/setup, just does not make the photos as exciting.

Do you travel and offer the event photography a lot?

[Eric T]

Originally Posted by dinanm3atl

Enjoyed the results you got. My original thoughts were that the track could be a bit boring. Not saying your shots are bad/boring but the track, based on level of completion/setup, just does not make the photos as exciting.

Going into the weekend before the event, I did a lot of research to try to find photos from previous events. From what I saw, I was pretty discouraged by how boring the shots I saw were. Even into the first day I was having a hard time getting the majority of the shots to be somewhat entertaining due to the track layout. However, towards the end of the first day, and throughout the 2nd day I was able to find some of the more ideal spots (which I shared on the blog) that helped showcase some of the elevation changes the track is probably going to be known for. The problem with some of these areas is they are only accessible by foot since they are tucked away from any access point by a car, scooter, or golf cart. Since I was shooting for the event and providing photos to the majority of the participants it made running between sessions a pain in the ass, I usually had to cut the last session short a couple of laps to make it back to my truck and drop off the card.

If you are going out there to shoot one car, you should be fine. Just remember you are going to have to walk around a lot, and you can't walk the entire outskirts of the track. You can cover about 75% of it but the ass end of it is really only accessible by driving on the track when the track is cold. There is a heavy tree line and steep hills (I call them mountains, being from Florida), that run along the outside of the track...not ideal to try and walk back there.

Originally Posted by dinanm3atl

Do you travel and offer the event photography a lot?

I try to limit the distance I travel for on site event photography to at most once a month, as it eats into profit quickly. You can see my current schedule on my website, try to book as much as I can at Sebring as that's only a 2 hour drive, there are only so many events there though. Always looking for more, try to limit myself to Southeast since I trailer the set up up the event. Also, takes the help of my wife so a 2 day event easily turns into a 4 day trip with travel time, she only has so much vacation time

[dinanm3atl]

Cool. Thanks for the details. The shots with the obviously elevation change does make the photo much better. Feels a bit like some of the Watkins Glen shots you can get.

We'll be 'on track' and doing some rolling shots it looks like. So not too worried about access

[Eric T]

Originally Posted by dinanm3atl

Cool. Thanks for the details. The shots with the obviously elevation change does make the photo much better. Feels a bit like some of the Watkins Glen shots you can get.

We'll be 'on track' and doing some rolling shots it looks like. So not too worried about access

No problem, post up the shots after the shoot