So we were talking about getting some “good” shots of model yachting for a club website or display, and somebody shows me a CD with lots of “photographs.”
What you see is a rectangle of water & waves, and a little white spot on that that is supposed to be a boat.
“Great photo?” he says, then kicks me because I fell asleep looking at pictures of water with little “colored things” on it.
“Wouldn’t you rather see some kind of action shots?” I ask. “These ARE action shots! See the boat racing?” “How can you you tell it’s racing when it’s by itself?” I say.
So the point is that if you want to look at static photos of yachts, a photo of one boat is fine. But if you want to get people interested in model yachts and model yacht racing, you want them to see boats racing TOGETHER. Or some video of boats together racing.
It’s the same thing on TV. You don’t just see one car going around the track, you see a few, or a group going together, and you see the cars trying to pass each other and such. Even on a show about track & field, they at least show you the front-runners, and not just the one guy- unless you are trying to point out something specific that is.
I think that you’d want to get the boats to ‘pose’ for the still shot by getting them all going together on a certain point of sail, as if they were all trying to get to the next mark first (as we usually try to do.) You could even record some video of the whole scene, as long as you can get the skippers to keep the fleet together. The starting line comes to mind, as long as you tell everybody not to pile up!
I think this technique would work for power boats too.
You would probably want to do this on a practice or fun day, because there’s no way you can keep the fleet together for photos on a racing day.
Anything to add? thanks.