Roostertail Talk

Episode 156: Chris Denslow

• David Newton • Season 7 • Episode 20

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The unsung heroes of hydroplane racing deserve more recognition - the people behind the scenes who make this thrilling sport possible through their passion and dedication. This week, I sit down with one such unsung hero: Chris Denslow, H1 Unlimited's official photographer for over two decades.

Whether you're a photography enthusiast, a hydroplane racing fan, or simply appreciate stories of passion turned profession, this episode offers a rare glimpse behind the lens at what it takes to freeze time on the water at 200 mph. Visit Chris's photo galleries through the link in our show notes to experience his remarkable work firsthand.

Digital Roostertail's Photo Archive

Nation of Speed Exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum

Smithsonian Museum Virtual Tour

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Speaker 1:

Ruchet Tail Talk, the podcast dedicated to everything about the sport that we all love, hydroplane racing. I am your host, david Newton, and it's time once again, so sit back, relax and welcome to Rooster Tail Talk. Hello race fans and welcome back to the podcast. It's Tuesday, august 5th 2025, and this is episode 156. H1 Unlimited has wrapped up their chapter of the 2025 season in the Pacific Northwest. We just concluded the Gold Cup and Tri-Cities, as well as Seattle Seafarers Regatta. Hopefully, you had a good time experiencing the races if you were there in person or watching the live streaming on YouTube.

Speaker 1:

But before those races happened, I had a chance to sit on Zoom and interview Chris Denslow. Now, some of you might not know the name, chris Denslow. It's not a high-profile name in the sport, but he is one of the unsung heroes of H1 Unlimited, as there are so many people from all different corners that make this sport happen, so many volunteers that really put in time and dedication to make the sport what it is today, and Chris has done so for the past 20 years. Being an H1 official photographer for the sport, he's developed some great photos over the years, has great talent and great eye to take photos for the sport, notably if there's ever any great action on the water, whether it's crashes, close racing he has captured the moment through photography and there's no doubt that you've seen some of his great photos over the years, either on social media or on HON Unlimited site itself. Now there's great photographers that have been in the round the sport for years.

Speaker 1:

I interviewed Bill Osborne a couple of years ago, but there's many others out there Jim Dunn, craig Barney and many others, countless others. I can't name off the top of my head, but Chris has really upped the level of the photography in the sport in the past 20 years. So let's listen into my interview and learn a little bit more about Chris Denslow. I'm sitting on Zoom talking with Chris Denzlo. Chris, how are you doing?

Speaker 2:

I'm good, david. Thanks for asking. How about you?

Speaker 1:

doing fine, doing fine I'm. I was when we were trying to get dates down to figure out how to do our interview.

Speaker 2:

I'm glad now that we're doing it in our homes and not during the race, when it's probably going to be 100 and whatever degrees oh yeah, so I think this is a better route to go yeah, I don't think the interview would have been very productive during the week of madison, when it's like 90 degrees and the heat index of 10. Right it was pretty miserable.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I heard it was pretty bad this year, but I think that's most years right.

Speaker 2:

I think it was making up for Guntersville not having a lot of humidity. Yeah, both had wind, though.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, I'm excited to talk to you about all that you've done for the circuit, for H1 Unlimited and for racing, but I know you've been a lifetime fan of the sport and you've before we get into your your photography skills. Can you talk about what it's been meant to you to follow, h1 unlimited well, it's been had many names over the years, but unlimited hydroplanes over the years. And and what your favorite boat has been?

Speaker 2:

well, growing up in tri-cities, the unlimited hydroplanes was such a big event in the history of the area and I mean it was the thing that you did during the summer. It was what you waited for all years, kind of like another christmas, yeah, wait and wait, and then you'd have it and then it's over and and, uh, you have to wait another year to see the boats again. But uh, so it was always a big focal point of my summer and, uh, and my favorite boat growing up was the winged wonder pay and pack. That was the first boat I rooted for when I was a kid and uh, it was really great to see Ken Muscatel rescue that from Bardish's warehouse and have it restored and then to see it on the Columbia again.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, super cool, and I think, if I'm not mistaken, didn't you incorporate that into your logo?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I did For Digital Wistertail, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Atomic had some artwork for that boat already, so it was they'd done a few t-shirts, so it was. It was. It was a good choice to incorporate it into the logo. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Since that boat's been restored, have you had a chance to get get a ride in that?

Speaker 2:

No, you know, someday I might I uh pay for a ride in that boat. Um, I did ride in the dixon's bar at all the 62 bar at all a number of years ago, and uh, for a hydroplane fan. That's just an experience that you just can't put a price on. And uh, it's just so incredible. I'm uh going down the back stretch and dixon hits the throttle and that thing has the full nitrous system in it. Yeah, it's like the turbo boost in the old Knight Rider TV show. I had this bubble helmet on from that Steve Compton gave me to wear and that thing's catching the air and it it's trying to yank my head off and I'm trying to get my head up and then tilt it down. So the air is hitting it here, pushing it back down. But I needed a canard on the helmet to get the helmet to ride where I wanted it to ride. That's cool, but you've ridden in one too, I believe.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. Well, I was going to say Dixon, he gives a good ride. So if you get the chance, if you're lucky enough to have the chance, I'm sure it was great. But yeah, I got a ride in the 58 Bartol right before COVID, oh, okay, and they didn't blame me. But the next ride out they blew the motor out. So I've done that that boat a few times. Yeah, but it's, yeah, it's an incredible experience and my thanks to the museum and and actually Don mock did a lot to to get that ride for me. So it was, that was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2:

I, I, just, I, just I couldn't imagine driving in one of those and having five others on the water and racing like there were nuts back then I think, well, yeah, when they, when they tell you you're gonna steer a lap and I'm, I'm thinking you know, I don't know how that's gonna feel if it's, you know, stiff or what not, but uh, it's definitely easier than I thought it would be, but you're kind of cutting through those turns. Um, I had a little drama on my ride. It's like when, uh, we were coming around, uh we got cut off by the oberto going into the infield because, uh, they had plumbed the boat wrong, I guess, and it was pumping water into the boat instead of pumping water out of the boat. So we had to take a trip through the TMZ. But another cool thing about my ride is David Williams was kind of pacing us for part of a lap in the Wahoo so I could look over to the side and see the Wahoo. That's cool, pretty cool yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Well, did you ever have a favorite driver or drivers?

Speaker 2:

you know, in early years not as much, um, I think I mean there was always when bill bought the, the uh paying back stuff, my, my uh loyalty sort of transitioned with the boat to the atlas fan lines and then he brought out the cab over boat, and so then bill muncy was probably the first driver that I more closely followed. And then that went to and I was a fan of chip for. And then that went to and I was a fan of chip for. For a number of years Even I used to be in any anybody, anybody but Budweiser fan, basically, except when chip wiser than I drew it for Budweiser.

Speaker 2:

But uh yeah, because of the whole pain, pack Budweiser rivalry when I was younger supporting boats.

Speaker 1:

So right, right, a lot, of, a lot of great drivers over the years, and those were some, some greats, for sure. Well, we're talking about your photography skills, because you have an amazing set of photography skills, but I want to know where did this start for you? Because I think you had some influence in your family. But, but I want to hear more about that when did you start taking photos? Why was this?

Speaker 2:

well, you can uh blame my uncle, cl Clark, for my involvement in the sport. He took some photos in the early 70s and the family gift. One time he gave us some photo albums, copies of some of the photos he took, because we were all hydroplane fans and family. Ok, I still have those photo albums he originally gave us. But uh, I mean back then you know other than the program hydroplane photos you might see in the paper. Um, you know other other hydroplane photos were kind of like getting gold for docking right. I mean I went through those, I can't say how many times. And additionally he had a photo that he took of the pits and it was used in the Lamps and Crane ad for a number of years in the Tri-Cities program Cool. So I could always look and say there's my uncle's picture in the hydroplane program every year, and so I'd say that planted the seed.

Speaker 2:

And when I got out of college I went to work at the Hanford site and the first thing that I bought with money that I had earned from my job was a SLR camera, and that was in 94. And so I have this SLR camera and I don't really know how to use it and I'm walking out of the pits and the Alberto was running and they just announced lap for it. It's like 157 or something and I think this boat had run on like a marine turbine the year before or something it was. It wasn't anything special, but they put like an l7 in it that year to just rip this lap off and like wow, that's fast.

Speaker 2:

And I'm walking out of the pits and the thing just blows over right in front of me and I whip up my camera and I don't know how to use my camera so I forget that it has an auto-wind shutter. So I'm like taking manual shutters, click, click, click. And so now I think I've got flip pictures on my camera and so I go to like one hour photo camera what store was at the time? But it had a one hour photo. I mean, I mean for the what I had and what I was doing. They weren't bad. One of them is actually in the David Williams Tri-Cities book. Oh, okay, kind of hanging in the air like this before it landed and obliterated itself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah that was a nasty flip. Yeah, that kind of ended that boat. I think there were white pieces of it, but so success right out of the gate. Dynamic photo.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And it just kind of went on from there, at least from the tri cities aspect, the H one stuff came later.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, yeah, A number of years later I'm not sure what year that was, but you got involved as an official photographer, H one. How did you make that transition?

Speaker 2:

I made it through the age-old practice of nepotism. My cousin one of my cousins that was in the ABRA years and he had recently redesigned the ABRA website, okay, and he casually mentioned at some the ABRA website, okay, and he casually mentioned that some family gathering were having. Oh, I can print you a media pass. And so I'm like, yeah, sure, why not take this media pass? And so he got me one, and that was 2006, I believe, and so I was at, did Tri-Cities, and then I had that passing all to Seattle.

Speaker 2:

Because I'd been to Seafair a year or so prior for like a Saturday, because I happened to be in Seattle for a family picnic or something which was on Sunday. So I didn't go on Sunday but I went on Saturday. But now I have this media pass, okay, I can go in with an official credential. So I did Seafair that year and I gave serious thought to going to San Diego, but I didn't. But the next year, 2007, I started going to other events, starting with Detroit, and I don't think I've missed anything since, except a couple of test sessions that they've had.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you've been to every race since then.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've been to every race since, and that includes six times to Doha, speaking of long flights, but I just kind of hung around and I outlasted everybody else. So photo photographer survivor. I guess I won. There you go. You get to go to stand in the driving heat and continue to take photos.

Speaker 1:

Well, you're the winner, man.

Speaker 2:

Well, I Trophy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there should be a trophy for photographer. Well, I've had conversations with photographers over the years and there's been a lot of big names, at least for photographers in my books bill osborne and jim dunn and many others but has there been any other? You know photographers that have maybe been a mentor to you or given advice to you that you've looked up to over the years you know, I didn't really know any of the photographer names back in the day.

Speaker 2:

I look back now at photos and say, oh, that was taken by someone. So I didn't know that at the time. But I pretty much was, and this was before I started, before the Internet kind of made everything smaller and you can interact with a lot of these people more, and so I pretty much just self-taught, kind of stumbled my way through it. It's a trial by fire right, Well, yeah, we, yeah, it was just uh, shoot and see what works, see what works and what doesn't.

Speaker 1:

Well, I think you've. You've picked up. You've had to pick up a lot over the years because I've had conversations with people that have said you can have the best camera in the world, have all the setups, but still take the crappiest photos More of a talent and a nuance with that. You picked things up over the years and, like you said, it's just been trial by fire for trying it out. But what have been some big lessons for yourself to to get better at this?

Speaker 2:

uh, you know, it was hard to get better when I started because I was only doing one race and that was back in the film days. And so you'd say, I'd take my 12 or 13 rolls of film and then you'd take them to costco and a few days later you'd have the result, but without being able to quickly go to another race. It was hard to carry any improvement from race to race because there was a year between each event. Um, but uh, digital get instant feedback and you can, you know, adjust on the fly and it's a lot easier to try new things and you don't have to pay for the cost of developing the photos, which, if you paid to develop what you take digitally, would be just astronomical. But uh, it was just a lot of trial, it was just a lot of trial and error. And, you know, once I found a set of settings that work and pretty much stuck with them as camera technology evolved I've had to change my technique a little bit.

Speaker 1:

But uh, it's just all all kind of trial and error yeah, can you take a guess at how many photos you've taken over the years? Now?

Speaker 2:

oh it's, it's got to be hundreds of thousands. I mean it's. I mean I'll take on a typical day. Let's see, let's take madison, for example, on friday or saturday in madison and they're running other classes not not just unlimited Right At about 7,000 pictures in that gallery. Wow, in the, just the raw, the raw pictures that I after I call out the bad focus and bad competition stuff, and that usually runs about 10% of what the total is. Oh, okay.

Speaker 2:

But so I mean, that weekend is probably because we didn't run a lot. Sunday, I think there were only 4 000, 3500 in the sunday gallery, so there's, conservatively counting friday, probably about 12 000 for that race, which wasn't a full race. Wow, but it's, you know, five thousand a day. It's probably a good rule of thumb. I was going to go back and count it when you asked me to do it. I was gonna, like, count a year. Yeah, it's just, but I'm so behind on photo processing right now and it's just, I'm committed to so many things, uh, that I just didn't have time to do it. I just like got like we're the week before water follies and about six boat teams realized they need hero cards and I couldn't realize this a week earlier, guys.

Speaker 1:

But well, well, that's, that's a. That's a trend with hydropon racing. We'll wait till last minute for something.

Speaker 2:

Oh, god, yes, every level of hydroplane racing too, from RC to unlimited. Yes, it is.

Speaker 1:

Man Well, speaking of RC, like you you don't just take pictures of the unlimited ranks, you, you go to inboard racing, outboard racing, vintage exhibitions, RC boat races, uh, and you always take great photos. But there has to be a group that's easier to take and a group that's harder to take. What do you consider to be the hardest class and easiest class to photo?

Speaker 2:

my class probably. You know, rc is probably the easiest because the venues are smaller so I don't have to walk as much. I could go like, for example, in ellensburg, I can shoot a couple of places on the straightaway. I can go walk around and shoot, coming straight into the corner, and there's not a whole lot of mileage on the old legs and uh, there, it's easier to. There aren't uh, there isn't security or you know, a lot of spec meters or stuff. So you can pretty much shoot anywhere on some of these rc venues. Right, remember we used to have this one venue, rock island. Remember that one?

Speaker 1:

oh yeah yeah, just out of what was that?

Speaker 2:

gravel pit. Yep, yeah, I could go up to the top of there and shoot around the top of the rim and it was like I was in a helicopter, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you had some great photos of that reef site.

Speaker 2:

That was, and that was also fun because you'd go on the backstretch and I don't think a lot of people appreciate the skill it takes to drive those VARSE seaboats. Having run one into the bank myself, I certainly appreciate it. But when you get to the backstretch there's a lot about depth perception and you can see who has better depth perception than other drivers by how they're straight either straight or not. So straight going through the backstretch, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I remember looking through some of those photos that you've done in particular and you'd see people turning really hard left and they're like 50, maybe 100 feet off the buoy line, right it's like I'm in lane 27. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I need to be further out. But I mean, it's hard to you know accurately judge those distances from a tower and the you know start, finish line right. But unless you have, you know people like dave brandt who you know have seemed to have this sort of genetic ingrained feel for where the lanes are and and to set the arc you know, just so it's the right arc. You know you can tell the really good drivers are how they perform on the backstretch. But as far as hardest, I don't think any class is particularly harder than any other. Certain venues are harder to shoot than other venues. What venues are the hardest? Seafair being the prime example of that. And seafair you're a lot farther away from the boats and there aren't a whole lot of different places you can easily shoot from, unless you're on a boat or on the log boom or so you're bouncing around out there on the boat right and yeah, that can it.

Speaker 2:

Well, it depends on the how, how the weather is and stuff. But yeah, depending on where you are, you can see some significant wave action and uh, you spend the whole day on the boat and you get back on dry land and your, your equilibrium is still like on the boat. It's like I don't think this ground is entirely stable. But from the day of being out on the boat, yeah, but uh, but yeah, that that would be the Seafair's probably the hardest venue to shoot at, I'd say.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, do you have a favorite venue to take photos at? It's not biased, it's saying home.

Speaker 2:

Well, they all have pluses and minuses. Madison used to be or I mean, madison still is pretty good, but uh, them taking the not having the boats run under the bridge is kind of a major, major drag, and I didn't. I was going to go up to the bridge this year but it was too hot so I didn't want to. I figured I'd eat stroke out on the way back, so it's like I'll just stay in the pits this year. Yeah, the ice by the ice chests of beverages, right, but uh, yeah, I mean, tri-cities is a great course, obviously, because there's a lot of obstruction. You can see everywhere on the course from essentially everywhere except the pits. Let's see where else. Uh, madison, obviously you're right there, the boats are right off the shore.

Speaker 2:

So I mean you're really close to the action, gunnersville. You could see most of the course from the start finish line, which was good, um, just couldn't beat the wind, unfortunately. Right, right, detroit. I'd love to have detroit come back for the rooster tail turn um, and being the first race other than seafair that I significantly traveled for, that was. I mean, if that's going to be your introduction to on the road hydroplane photography, that's the place to do it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I hope I can get that back. I've never got a chance to go there, so I'd like to go there once yeah.

Speaker 2:

See a boat race. My cousin didn't get the opportunity to go there, so I know it seems like they try every year and make a good faith attempt, so hopefully one of these days they'll break through and uh and get it done yeah, we got you know, like san diego too, and there's san diego. San diego's good. I haven't been over to the island in a few years. Maybe I'll go back there this next year. That's a good place to be in the morning, but then the afternoon island.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, but in the afternoon you want to be on the backstretch because the glare over there is pretty hellacious, yeah but uh yeah, the weather's always good. So I mean san diego, it's always good, good to end the year at san diego yeah, it can't beat that.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it's a beautiful city, perfect weather, almost every year.

Speaker 2:

Maybe we need to have him get that Hawaii race back. Yeah, I'd go for that. Yeah, I could go for that, although I don't know about the, the how hard it would be to race on a military base these days versus what they did back in the nineties when they did both the Pearl Harbor race and the the Norfolk race.

Speaker 1:

Right, right, that would be awesome. It wouldn't be hard to convince the family to go to Hawaii for a boat race, all right. Well, when you take your photos, you always seem have like it's, it's a given now, like if there's a wreck or something dramatic happens on the race course. Just wait, we're gonna see chris's photos. He's gonna have some great photos and you didn't. You didn't let us down. This year you got some great photos of gunner o'farrill flipping and pre-season testing. Uh, you got some great shots of villawauks, flip and Gunnersville. How do you always just get great shots? You always seem to be in the right place at the right time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm the best ambulance chaser apparently. No, I went through several, several years of not having those shots. And when you get right down to it, it you can learn about the boats and how they behave and look at the water and make predictions on. You know the courses, you know where there are places where there are speed bumps and the boats are going to hop and things like that. And you know all that and have the best camera settings in the world. And there's still a, there's still quite a high luck factor that that uh factors into whether you're going to get those shots or not.

Speaker 2:

Like, for example, on gunner o'farrell's thing, I was screwing around with my camera and I missed about half of it. Oh right, then I. Then I because I was like, ah, he's not going to blow over, because it's testing. Well, yeah, that was not the right thought, but he hung it in the air long enough that I got a lot of good photos of it. And also the camera technology for autofocus has advanced significantly in the last few years. Auto focus has advanced significantly in the last few years. Um can focus a lot faster and uh and hold the focus a lot better.

Speaker 2:

Like the the uh vilwak sequence. There are 98 photos in that sequence and usually the in a sequence that long, the camera will, at some point during it, see a rooster tail or a splash and briefly focus off topic and refocus, so you get a few shots that are blurred. None of them were blurred, so they were all in focus, which actually doesn't happen in a sequence that long. Yeah, so I mean there's, there's some luck I've I've missed over the years.

Speaker 2:

I've gotten some over the years, but that Villalock one's probably the best one I've ever gotten, and the thing about that one is that you could see it coming, not necessarily that there was going to be an accident, but it was going to be a pretty hot corner because four boats were going to hit it at the same time, and normally you get two or maybe three, but having four to hit it at the same time and yeah, and normally you get two or maybe three, but having four hit it that corner at the same time, it's gonna be something that's gonna happen. So I started, started on the shutter when they're starting the corner and just stayed on it until the lock was stuck in the mud that's Forks down.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, yeah, yeah, well, it's, uh, it's impressive. You can always count on you to get those great shots and I remember for a few years I would try to take photos with it it was like 20 years ago with a camera and, yeah, the focus back then wasn't as good as it is now. You have to wait.

Speaker 2:

Wait, okay, got it focused and yeah I had that same experience before I bought my camera in 94. My my parents had bought a camera back in the day and I tried to use that for a year and, and it's his old, the focus system on it had this ring, this control f stop, and the damn thing wasn't very tight and it would keep sliding out of place and screwing things up.

Speaker 2:

So that was kind of where I decided that that I was in the early 90s and I decided that I'd wait until I could buy a better camera, which is what I did.

Speaker 1:

So yeah yeah well, there's got to be some some people out there in the water that you always want to track because they're going to. You're going to, you know you're going to get some good photos on that and I'm sure you don't want to throw anyone under the bus for that but there are any RC drivers you want to throw under the bus.

Speaker 2:

I never see drivers and RC is it's a. You know, when you talk about getting flips and missing flips, I miss a lot of flips in rc because there's a lot of boats and the action is compressed into a smaller course. I mean the there's scale, eighth scale, but you kind of, when you do the math, it's kind of like they're doing a scale speed of about 300 miles an hour. Yeah, yeah, well, it's just. I mean you're going back and forth with your head on on a swivel and you know some boats will, uh are more flighty and more tend to blow over, like, say, jim white's atlas blue blaster, for example. Right, I mean it's a beautiful boat. It carves up the water like a real Unlimited when it goes into the corners Big, big skid fin spray, but it also tends to go over a lot too.

Speaker 2:

Yeah yeah, but I mean Unlimited. You always want to keep your eye on J Michael Kelly, not because he's going to have an accident, but the way he flies the boat. He really takes it to the edge to get the speed out of it. It's pretty impressive how he can float a boat down the whole front straightaway.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, he's good at turning a three-point into a one-point, isn't he?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly Trying to experiment with a new class of hydroplane. Let's just not go to zero point. Mike. Stay with three point.

Speaker 1:

Well, something that you've accomplished that not really many of us have at all. You have a photo. It's currently in the Smithsonian Museum, part of an exhibit about racing in America. How in the world did you get a photo input into the museum? Did you sneak in there and just drop it off? How did this happen?

Speaker 2:

Well, if James Crisp was telling the story, that's what he'd say. But some sort of mission impossible, you know type operation is. It was a. It was really a long and percolating thing and I had to go back and look at the email chain and find the emails from it. I recently looked at them and it started with ironically, it started with I guess Dan Cole sent a photo to James Crisp asking if it was his, and it turned out.

Speaker 2:

Crisp sent it to me. Turned out it was one of mine. It was one I had shot off. The Madison used to have a start-finish boat in the infield at the start-finish line and one year I got to go out and shoot photos from that 2010. And it was a part of a sequence I'd shot from that boat in 2010.

Speaker 2:

So I replied back to Dan and then somebody from the Visit Madison Inc got in touch with me about the Smithsonian or something. I had a request for this photo for this exhibit they were planning on doing and could I have it in such and such resolution and sign the photo release. And so this was 2018. Okay, I put the photo out on my Google Drive and signed the release and and I didn't think anything really much of it and I think, uh, I think when I checked on it it was supposed open. The exhibit was supposed to open in 2022 or something like that, so it was a ways off so I didn't really give it much mind Around the time the exhibit opened up.

Speaker 2:

I checked again on the Smithsonian's website and they had something about the exhibit but there weren't any really any pictures of what was in it, so I didn't know if it was in there or not. So I didn't say anything about it then and didn't really think about it again for a while. And more recently I checked in again on a lark and found that they had much more pictures of what was in the exhibit and found the photo that I could see, the photo in the exhibit. And they have like a virtual tour you can do on the web. Now you can walk through the exhibit, you can see where it is, and I had a couple of my friends who had actually been to the exhibit and had seen it confirmed it to me too. So that's cool. There hasn't been many much. There hasn't been a whole lot of unlimited hydroplane stuff in the Smithsonian. The 82 Atlas or the 79 Atlas was there for a while.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, there's not. Yeah, not much representation, but but now they have your photo.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, as long as this exhibit runs, it'll be there, so but yeah, it's pretty, pretty cool. I never thought that would be the you know end result of what I do, but yeah, yeah, I mean that's got to feel.

Speaker 1:

Feel great to know that you know you're contributing to the sport in your way and you got a piece in the Smithsonian exhibit and there's a link that has a virtual tour of it. I'm going to put that in the bio below so listeners can go in and view that it's got a nice display next to air racing and car racing.

Speaker 2:

It's got a few hydro buttons there. Yeah, that's why I do what I do. I can contribute something to the furtherance of the sport.

Speaker 1:

That has been besides taxes, has been one of the big things that's been involved in shaping my life basically, yeah well yeah, there's no doubt you've made a big contribution to the sport with all the photos that you've taken and with the our digital age now and how fast we can get the consumption of it, it's uh pretty amazing. But out of your hundreds of thousands of photos, I'm sure you spent a lot of time when I asked you this but to go through them all. Do you have a favorite photo out of everything that you've taken over the years?

Speaker 2:

That's a difficult question because, like you said, there are a lot of photos, but I think if I were to choose one, it would be a.

Speaker 2:

There was a photo I took of Steve David and let's see, it was in 2008 at San Diego and he'd come in from the heat where they'd clinched the boat title and the driver title and Steve had won the driver title before, but this is the first time that addison had won the the boat and the driver title in in their their big runs when they had that, got that new boat and uh, so he's up on the cockpit celebrating and and owen blauman had been with the team and he had this confetti cannon and they shot this confetti cannon and there's a big cloud of confetti and Steve's celebrating and the confetti's kind of behind him and it just kind of captured the thrill of that moment. And next year it ended up on the side of the H1 truck. Next year it ended up on the side of the h1 truck. So, oh, I would, I would probably say got a lot of good photos of steve celebrating wins over the years, but that was probably the best one yeah, I recall seeing that photo.

Speaker 1:

Now it's.

Speaker 2:

That was a magical photo with the, the confetti around and, yeah, pretty cool I'm surprised they got away with that because they're so environmentally uptight and san diego's like can't you know, can't like have your water go back in the, in the, in the bay, and right all that.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if the confetti was biodegradable or not, but well, I'm I'm sure it was all permit approved and everything beforehand right.

Speaker 2:

Well, obviously they never do something against that permit.

Speaker 1:

All right. Well, do you have any? I know there's a lot of amateur photographers out there that do their best to get photos of the races. Do you have any tips for them? Maybe better spots or settings or anything you can, any tips you can give those fans out there?

Speaker 2:

You're looking at getting an SLR camera, it's better to spend your money on a really good lens to start with than a really good body, because the lens will last you for several camera bodies with good glass. No substitute for good glass. Just uh, look online and see what other people are doing, and usually you can. Depending on how they posted their photos, you can drill into the photo settings that are in the image and see how they, how they have their cameras at, and and uh, that's could be instructive.

Speaker 2:

I know I peep on other photos from other photographers sometimes just see what settings they're running. But uh, we're pretty much always all just running a high shutter speed and, uh, keep the iso as low as you can for the lighting conditions, but don't be afraid to move it up, because these days the noise isn't really a factor anymore and there's plenty of software that'll take out any noise if you have to shoot at a high iso because it's cloudy or something. So it's about really all I can think of ask, ask people if you see them. I've had several people ask me questions and I'm happy to answer them.

Speaker 1:

So all right. Well, some good tips there, but one last question I want to ask you before you go, being a native tricity, tricityan, try, what do you call yourselves over there? Try, 509ers I think, okay, right, being a 509er at the columbia cup, what's your favorite spot to go and take photos on the river? I know you know you can get a good view outside of the pits, but there's got to be a spot that you like to go to.

Speaker 2:

I go to several spots and I like catching them coming out of a turn. A lot of times something can happen in the turn. I don't get over there enough, but shooting from the levee on the Pasco side is because that turn usually gets really, really snotty when you get about four boats going through it. I don't get over there on race day but that's a good place to shoot from. Uh, really anywhere down the, down the either front or back stretch, there really isn't a bad spot to shoot from because you can see see everything from uh from the whole course. So there are no obstructions but uh, so no real favorites. But I kind of have a plan each year and it's been kind of foiled the last couple years when we had the depth problem last year and the pond weed problem the year before, where we didn't do anything on friday.

Speaker 2:

But yeah like go to the levee or go to the pasco side on friday and shoot the second turn exit on saturday and sunday. I usually shoot from a man lift and start finish line. So awesome.

Speaker 1:

Well, I'm sure you'll get some great shots this year. I'm looking forward to seeing what you produce. I already had some great shots earlier from Guntersville and Madison, and I know they'll keep on producing more great photos. Thanks for all you do, chris. Well, thanks, david.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for what you do too. You've turned this Brewster Tale talk into kind of an institution. It's really neat. All right, well, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's all the time we have for this week. Knuckleheads, hope you enjoyed my talk with chris denslow, as we got to learn a little bit more about chris, what he's gone through to become an official h1 photographer for the sport and how he has just really preserved a lot of the history of the sport through photography. If you haven't checked out his website on SmugBug, check the bio below. I've got a link and you can spend hours upon hours looking through all of his thousands and thousands of photos. He's really done a great job of preserving the history of the sport. So really, thanks goes to Chris for covering that side of the sport. So really, thanks goes to Chris for covering that side of the sport.

Speaker 1:

Well, I've got some great interviews I have conducted at the Columbia Cup and Seafair. I've got some great interviews for months to come. Some new episodes will be coming out soon on our same time on every Tuesday, but until then, check us out online at our website, roostertaltalkcom. As well on social media, we're on Facebook and Instagram, and if you haven't checked out Rooster Tail Talk Plus yet, you still have a chance to become a member and get one of the collectible trading card sets. You can see a link in the bio below, or it's on our website at bruchertiltalkcom as well. Well, listeners, I guess that's all I have today, so until next time. I hope to see you at the races.