Bangkok Motorshow

Yesterday I made my way to the Bangkok Motorshow, camera in hand.  Last year the family went, and Tim ended up buying a car.  She is still driving on the temporary tags on that one since we are waiting for her "lucky" number license plate.

This year I went alone.  I took a cab because it was on the other side of town, and I read that sometimes you can wait up to an hour to find a parking spot there.

Like a lot of the amateur photographers there, I was more interested in taking photos of the female models than the new car models.  Its not every day that you can photograph models.  I also noticed that there were a lot of photographers there with some nice glass.  Strangely, it seemed like there were a lot more Canons than Nikons.

Overall, I was somewhat happy with the photos.  The lighting there was top down and not very great.  I used a flash on low power, but sometimes it wasn't enough to get rid of the shadows from the overhead lighting.  While the light was plenty bright enough to see in, I had to shoot at a little slower shutter speed than I would have liked, and I used a higher iso.  I didn't have the sharp focus that I really would have liked.

I didn't take my 70-200 2.8 mm lens, which would have been a much better choice than the 24-105 mm.  The 2.8 aperture would have let me shoot at a higher shutter speed, and I would have had a shallower depth of focus, making the models stand out from the background more.    When I got home, I was actually going ot go back with my 70-200 lens.  I had Nalin tell the guard to call a taxi for me to arrive in 30 minutes.  An hour later I walked to the guard station.  He had forgotten.  At that point it wasn't worth going back.

One thing I noticed is that the Thai photographers would all stand around the models, sometimes three or more people deep.  Most of the photographers in the back couldn't be getting a lot of great photos, there were people in their way. I wasn't going to stand in the back and wait for ten minutes only to have the model leave.  I would just walk around to the front of all the photographers and shoot sitting down or kneeling.  Essentially I was in the front row.

Throughout the day, I only saw a handful of Thai photographers shoot from any position but standing.   I'm glad they didn't or I couldn't have gotten so close all the time. Since they were standing, I could work my way up to the front without blocking anyone's shot.  The models look at different cameras so you can take your shot, and since I was in the front, I never had any issue with them looking my way.

I definitely plan on going back next year.  In fact, I may end up going for a few days.

Here are a few photos of the models.  I'll add some more and some of cars (I did take a few) later.