With Round 1 of the MotoGP 2015 season around the corner, I’m starting to think about my goals for this year. Each season I try to do something new, something different, and everything at least a little better than I have done in the past.

The new and different parts shouldn’t be too difficult – each race weekend is different, right?

Sure, each race weekend is different. And even a race weekend at a track you’ve been to many times before is different from those previous visits. Even if the track itself has undergone no changes (pretty rare in my experience, as there are almost always at least small updates or deteriorations noticeable from one season to the next), the rider and bike liveries are at least subtly different if not substantially or completely changed. And the light is never identical, even if it may be similar to previous occasions.

Yet it is easy to fall into habits when you return to the same track year after year, especially if you have a kind of mental (or physical!) list of images you need to come away with by the end of the weekend.

Some of the MotoGP photographers who have been working the same tracks for years tend to visit the same corners in the same order each race weekend. Sometimes when watching them I get the feeling of seeing a guy who shows up for work, follows a routine each day, then moves on to the next track on the schedule to do the same thing over again.

I believe this is because they have their clients, each of which has expectations to be met, and this process of moving through a race weekend is the best way to meet those expectations.

I like to think people expect something at least a little different from me and images that bear the PHOTO.GP logo. I certainly do, and whether I achieve that difference on a consistent basis or not, I’m always trying to do so. I try to avoid falling into this habit of finding myself at Turn X on Friday morning and Turn Y on Friday afternoon.

But in fact it’s not easy to do so. You find yourself in the same situations over and over again, and I think it’s human nature to try to recreate success. If a certain shot worked before, maybe it would work again. Certainly favorite shots in given circumstances are always floating around in the back, and sometimes in the front, of your mind. Ignoring them and forcing yourself to look for something new can be a challenge.

It’s risky. You don’t know if whatever you come up with as an alternative to a previously pleasing shot will reward you or turn out to have been a waste of time.

I Will Be Brave

Over and over again my favorite images have been the result of taking risks, of not moving to or staying in a spot where I know there’s a safe shot that will be ‘good enough.’

If I’m honest, when I look back at my thousands of MotoGP images it’s clear that I have not been brave enough. I have spent way too much time in safe spots getting safe shots. I need to direct one of my motorsports photography tips at myself.

So one of my first goals for 2015 is to be brave more often, to spend less time getting ordinary images and more time trying to get images that will help me define what I want PHOTO.GP to mean to people who enjoy motorcycle racing.

I don’t know how it will go, but PHOTO.GP readers will find out here on this website…

Photograph: ©2014 by Scott Jones / PHOTO.GP – All Rights Reserved

Camera Info: Nikon D4 with Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8

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