CN
III ARCHIVES
R
ace photographers are weir-
dos—at least the good ones
are. Face it, you kind of have to
be a weirdo to spend your whole
life watching races with one eye
closed while the other eye strains
to peer through a little tiny lens
finder, hoping to catch the action
in that split-second instant of
focus. In the same split second,
a shutterbug's brain has to fire a
signal to his or her finger, which
in turn squeezes the shutter but-
ton, hopefully capturing an image
that serves as more than just a
P112
that area. Dirt track was the deal,
but I was never any good, and I
figured that the only way I could
ever make a dent in the whole
thing was to take some pictures
instead."
Shepard more than made a
dent, ascending within the ranks
of dirt-track photographers—at a
time when dirt track still mattered
in the big picture of top-level mo-
torcycle racing—to become one
of the best.
"I actually landed a job with
RJR [Camel] for a few years, so I
photograph—indeed, as a frag-
ment in time.
For over 30 years, photogra-
pher Bert "Silver Shutter" Shepa-
rd has been capturing dirt-track
memories, although the 59-year-
old Shepard of Middletown, Ohio,
can't remember the exact date he
started.
"I think my first National was in
1971," Shepard, a retired eighth-
grade history teacher, recalls.
"I've been riding my whole life. I
was once a Novice up in Penn-
sylvania, New York State—up in
Bert Shepard's favorite shot, photographed in Plain City, Ohio, 1979.
BY SCOTT ROUSSEAU
SILVER SHUTTER'S GOLDEN
IMAGE: BURT SHEPARD
