Mike Kelley's Architecture Photography Behind the Scenes Episode 3

Where Art Meets Architecture 2 Behind the Scenes continues today with Episode 3. Normally, our BTS episodes include some educational content, but this episode is for entertainment only. In this episode, we leave all of our gear behind, and Pye Jirsa from SLR Lounge takes us all out in his race car. 

Pye has been bugging me to go racing with him for years now. Although I have no real experience racing, I've always been excited to try, and we happened to be in LA, filming Mike's new tutorial during an open track day. Pye convinced me to rent a Mustang to race, but warned me that insurance would not cover any car on a race track. It was probably a bad idea from the start but I did it anyway. 

Once we got out to the track and found that we would literally be racing against other professional race car drivers in cars that cost well over $100,000, we bailed on the idea of racing ourselves. Luckily, Pye was still excited to let us ride along with him. Riding as a passenger in Pye's car confirmed my decision not to drive. I had no idea that a car of that size could produce so many Gs. Every turn felt like we should be sliding off the road, but the tires weren't even chirping. If I had been put on that track with those other drivers without any sort of practice, I'm almost positive I would have caused an accident. 

During the filming of this episode, Pye let me attach one of his GoPros to the outside of his car using a suction cup. After a few laps around the track, we realized that it had blown off the car. After paying for an overpriced rental Mustang, buying Pye a new GoPro, and paying for all four of us to travel and stay in a hotel by the track, it ended up being an extremely expensive day. Even still, it was an amazing life experience and I'm glad we got to see Pye's new man-purse. 

https://youtu.be/YgQDAKsOh-M

You can learn more about the full tutorial here. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel for next week's episode. 

Lee Morris's picture

Lee Morris is a professional photographer based in Charleston SC, and is the co-owner of Fstoppers.com

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4 Comments

Lee, I hate to break it to you, but I think Pye was just using you to equalize the weight distribution of his little car to ensure better traction through the corners :-)

Are you calling me fat?

I didn't know that Pye races cars. Looking from the logo on the steering wheel, it looks like a Hoinda; it could be a Hyundai.

I believe it's a Honda S2000.