I had a fun little lighthearted shoot last weekend for TIME to cover NASA’s 17th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.  More than 1,000 students comprising 102 teams from 20 states and Puerto Rico, Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, India, Romania and Serbia competed in this year’s race. Before they arrive, participants design and build a vehicle conforming to certain lunar roving vehicle specifications, recreating the original Apollo astronauts’ early missions to the moon’s surface.  Students race over obstacles, competing against the clock for the fastest time.

This assignment had a very interesting element to me personally, other than the fact that I was surrounded by a bunch of totally awesome math and science nerds (I say that as the highest of compliments for the record).  The interesting twist to me was that I was assigned by TIME.com editor Mark Rykoff, and I mean .com as in not destined for print.  I think more magazines need to start gearing assignments towards the web and not just grabbing what they can find to fill space.  I know it’s being done some places, but not near enough, and I commend Mark and TIME for generating fresh exclusive content for their website and hope it’s a sign of a growing trend.  To see some more images, check out Mark’s edit here. 

As always, a big thanks to our sponsors over at Bron Imaging for the outstanding lighting equipment.