The Story Behind the Photo

February 2025: Flags

Stephine Brentson

The outing was planned in advance as part of my husband’s annual birthday celebration; however, the photograph itself was not.

I was casually taking pictures when I noticed the flags positioned on a platform at the go-kart track, with light hitting them in a visually appealing way. This inspired me to experiment with capturing both the flags and the motion of the go-karts in the background.

My initial attempt used a faster shutter speed, which froze the karts, but I felt it did not effectively convey their speed and energy. I then adjusted to a slower shutter speed to create motion blur, despite not having a tripod. This required careful timing, as the go-karts were traveling at approximately 55 mph, and it took several attempts to achieve the desired effect.

I used a Sigma 16–300mm f/3.5–6.7 lens and experimented with multiple shutter speeds before settling on the final settings: f/20, 1/60 sec, ISO 125, aperture priority at 5.1, and a focal length of 100mm. The image was captured handheld without any additional equipment.

For post-processing, I used Adobe Lightroom, making only minor adjustments by slightly increasing the brightness and saturation to enhance the final image.