Solarflare

29 Sep 2005

The story behind this one is that in my group of friends, M's hobby is rallying. He's even got a car and co-driver/navigator. Now, somewhere along the line M mentioned he had a rallying friend with some property about 2 hours out of town that we could be borrowed for a weekend, for the price of a carton of beer. So the group of boys got together and we all pitched in to buy a beat up old Volvo for $500. What better car to go hauling round the dirt in than a Volvo?

Since it was a two hour drive just to get there, we figured we might as well camp overnight. And if you're out in the wild, on the weekend, camping, with the boys... that means beer. And lots of it. I mean, what else are you to do after the sun goes down?

So we all met up early, and drove up. The last 15 minutes or so was along a dusty track, and even my trusty RedBug made it. I was quite proud!

Of course, first off round the track had to be J. Likes his cars does J. He shoots off and is back in no time, calling for someone to jump in and join him. No one else volunteers, and I'm closest so I throw on a crash helmet and climb in. J floors it. It's a dirt track, very loose dusty-sandy-dirt, the kind that offers very little traction. J floors it HARD! About half way between the start and the tree at the end, he pops it into second and the engine whails like a wounded banshee. The tree at the end feels like it's coming up pretty darn fast, but J shows no sign of slowing. The needle hits 80k. The tree is starting to look too close. "Alright J!" I say.

Third gear. The banshee kicks it up a notch.

"Alright J! Slow the-fuck down man!" Tree gets closer. And closer. "Fuckin QUIT-it J!" Fourth gear. Tree. Gets closer-and-closer-and-closer before suddenly...third-gear-second-gear-HAAARD-left...slide sideways around the tree...more haaard left then back on the gas and we're barreling back to the start with the banshee singing at full volume.

We're now heading right towards the camp, screaming along in second. Then third. And for a second, fourth, before he brakes as hard as he'd been accelerating and slides sideways to a grinding halt which kicks up a massive dust cloud that sprays across the rest of the camp and coats everything in a fine layer of brown dust.

I didn't get in the car with J again that weekend.

So this shot is the haze of sun through one of the numerous clouds of dust each car kicked up as it rounded the bend near the camp, each time casting us into a dusty, dusky gloom. And then I passed the shot through the 'burned' filter in BWorks. Gives a pretty cool effect to it I think.

[edit 04/11/05 :: submitted to Photo Friday Warmth]

[edit 05/03/06 :: submitted to Pxite Smoke]. (I know, I know... photowhoring!)]

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