THE Hairpin

Hairpin II, originally uploaded by David Romanis.


One of our last holidays before the arrival of our son or daughter was to Cannes. This included an evening trip to Monaco.

There aren't many famous roads in the world, but given that the most famous Grand Prix happens on these streets, this hairpin has its own unique place in history: it's the slowest corner in F1 and requires the teams to have a special steering rack so the cars can get round without having to whack it in reverse and ... oh yeh, that's right, they don't have a reverse gear. Honestly - all that money for a Formula 1 car and it can't go backwards? Rubbish.

The one downside to the evening trip was that by the time we arrived in Monaco, it was already dark (Lou and I went for dinner on the road between Casino and Mirabeau Haute as it was about 8.30pm) so we could only take pictures at about 10.30pm. The only available light was coming from the streetlights.

There's only one thing for it: open the aperture as wide as it'll go and whack the ISO up. Not too far, mind - I haven't got a Nikon, you know...

Yep, high ISO and a steady(ish) hand, a bit of creative tilt and this was the result. I deliberately caught the guys crossing the road to get a bit of context and something other than a kerb, then shot wide open at about 1/15th of a second. This is the result.

I only shot a couple, but this was the best one - I've done very little with it apart from a little bit of a push of contrast.