On The Couch with Mark Horsburgh : Key Highlights

September 21, 2021

Australian photographer, and Canon Master, Mark Horsburgh has been the official Supercars’ photographer since the late 90s. We sat down with Mark to chat about his road to being a motorsport photographer, the gear he uses, and his typical workflow.

Mark took an interest in photography early on when a teacher set up a photography club at his primary school. A few years later, he was gifted his first 35mm rangefinder camera to take on a family trip overseas. And shortly after returning, he landed a job at a camera store where he could play with all the latest photography gear.

Also an avid motorsport fan, Mark merged his two interests by regularly sneaking into the local raceway with a mate. He taught himself how to capture gocart, motorcycle, and car racing action. With the quality of his images improving, he began selling prints, and the rest developed from there.

Although known as one of Australia’s premier motorsports photographers, Mark tells us he’ll photograph anything. Over the years, he has shot lawn bowls, table tennis, lifestyle shoots, portraits, weddings, and even photographed at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

‘As a photographer, you'll take a picture of anything. If a client asks you to shoot something, you embrace it and take some shots.’

Mark fell in love with Canon cameras back when he was working in the camera store and has shot Canon his entire professional career. Shooting trackside in a high-speed journalistic environment demands a lot from gear in terms of environmental sealing and the speed at which images can get from the camera to the client. For this reason, Mark has relied on the 1DX series for the last decade.

In early 2021, Mark bit the bullet and moved across to mirrorless. He put aside his much loved Canon 1DX III, invested in a full R-mount kit, and tells us he has ‘no regrets’.

When we caught up with Mark, Canon had just announced the new EOS R3, and Mark had been lucky enough to test a pre-production model. He instantly fell for the R3, loving the ergonomics of the integrated grip, which he found reminiscent of the 1DX III but significantly lighter and smaller.

For fast action photography, muscle memory is paramount, and Mark found all the critical controls on the R3 in a very similar position to his 1DX III. He was sceptical of how the new automotive tracking would perform but admitted the R3 proved him wrong, and he couldn’t fault it.

‘It (Canon EOS R3) ticks all the boxes for a sports photographer.’

Before the R3 was released, Mark’s typical setup was two Canon EOS R5 bodies with the WFT-R10 wi-fi booster grip attached, and he tells us that he’ll continue to shoot with the R5 when the output requires higher resolution.

On a typical day of shooting, Mark will use the RF 50mm f/1.2 L, RF 15-35mm f/2.8 L, RF 70-200mm f/2.8 L, and the RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1, which he describes as ‘a magnificent lens’. He has also held onto a couple of his EF lenses and uses them with the EF to R mount adapter with the drop-in filters. This setup works perfectly for him and opens up a more extensive range of lenses to work with while the R mount lens line-up is still being fleshed out. Additionally, it means he can now use a polariser or ND filters with his ultra-wide and fisheye lenses, whose bulbous front elements typically prohibit attaching filters.

It’s easy to see how much Mark loves his work. But he’s quick to point out that although it is his dream job, it’s not as simple as just showing up and pressing the shutter button.

A typical race day, such as Bathurst, sees Mark arrive at the track around 4:30 am. The day begins in the media room, where he’ll get everything set up, make sure all of the computers are up and running, and everything's ready to go. After that, he’ll head over to the track to capture the sunrise over the main strait.

From that point on, it gets pretty hectic. Before racing even starts, Mark has usually shot a few thousand images of pre-event action. He’ll cover pit tours, grid walks, all the colour and atmosphere of the crowd, as well as the surrounding landscape. Of course, coverage of any motorsport event would be incomplete without also photographing the drivers. Capturing environmental portraits of the athletes is an integral part of sharing the human side of the sport with the fans.

‘People don't get to see the drivers; they see the cars. So it's important to show the drivers with their helmets off so that you can see their faces and people can relate to who they are.’

All of that adds up to a lot of images and a heap of data. It’s insane to think that once upon a time, Mark had to develop rolls of 35mm film trackside to get images to the media outlets quickly.

Today his camera is transmitting them live to the digital team, who can pull the images off the system and keep things moving quickly without Mark having to return to the media room to download files. With 5G now built into the EOS R3, transfer speed is only limited to mobile reception, so he always travels with a Vodafone, Optus and Telstra sim and just runs with the provider that works best at that location.

Supercars racing has felt the impact of Covid restrictions as much as any sport, with many events limiting on-site access to essential personnel. Mark has found himself as the only photographer covering some events. A mammoth responsibility and one that inspired Motorsport Australia to create a new media award in 2020 to recognise Mark’s outstanding media contribution in challenging circumstances.

You can watch the full interview here if you’d like to learn more about Mark’s career and his first impressions of the Canon EOS R3.