Speedscene magazine cover and article photography
During the course of this motorsport season, I have been photographing the action for Speedscene magazine at the Harewood Hillclimb event in West Yorkshire. This has involved photographing all of the action on track including national events, spins and accidents, cars on two wheels and cars ready to race in the paddock.
The front cover
The beautiful MG Bellevue Special of Ian Baxter getting very sideways at the final turn of the Harewood Hillclimb. This is my first magazine front cover, and I was really impressed with how it came out.
Today I received a magazine which included one of my photographs on the front cover. I was delighted when I found out that I would be getting a picture on the front of the magazine, and seeing it in my hand, in print didn’t disappoint. I must once again thank Joel Rowbottom for lending me a Canon 30D so that I could photograph this event, when my 5D’s shutter mechanism failed and it had to be sent off for repair.
The British Hillclimbing Championship
Other photographs featured in the magazine were from the Hillclimbing championship event. Here, cars from all around the country compete to set the fastest time in their class, before a run off between the absolute fastest cars to set a time takes place. I feel that my photography should capture the speed and excitement of the events, so I often use the panning technique to give people looking at the photographs a sense of speed felt when watching these machines compete.
The article for the British Hillclimb Championship featured a couple of my photographs from Harewood. I feel I captured the essence of how fast these single seaters are when competing for the championship honours.
VSCC photography from Harewood Hillclimb
My favourite championship to follow, the VSCC (Vintage Sports Car Club) also competed at Harewood this year. I had only started photographing at motorsport events the previous year with a visit to the 2011 VSCC event at Harewood. I felt a great sense of achievement going from a spectator with a camera, to a photographer for a magazine. Although the weather wasn’t as good as the previous year, I still enjoyed photographing these exciting vintage cars as they raced up the hill. These photographs were also featured in this edition of Speedscene.
The beautiful blue Frazer Nash of James Baxter at Harewood made it into the Speedscene magazine this month. I feel so proud that I could photograph my favourite car club at my home track.
All weathers, all conditions, all series
Capturing exciting action in all conditions is what I enjoy most about photographing motorsport. I’ve been out in torrential rain at some events, and baking sunshine at others, but it has always been fun to see what moments I could capture while out shooting. Due to the nature of Hillclimbing, it’s the little details of locking wheels, bouncing over curbs and lifting wheels that make good photographs, and a few of these ended up in the magazine too.
Charles Gillett lifts a wheel in the Frazer Nash, and Paul Martin races through the wet conditions at Harewood.
The Harewood championship rounds are also covered in the magazine, usually in smaller articles with an accompanying picture or two. It’s challenging photographing the same cars at the same event, so finding new places to photograph from is a must to try and get a variety of shots.
James Kerr locking the inside right wheel of his Peugeot at Harewood during one of their championship rounds.
Every journey starts with a single step…
I’ve learnt a huge amount this year while I’ve been photographing for Speedscene; from what equipment I should use, to planning where I’m going to shoot from through the day, to creating a digital workflow so that I can sort and export pictures quickly for print and web use. I understand that this issue of the magazine was an important milestone for my photographic career, and I would like to thank Jerry Sturman and Steve Wilkinson for giving me the opportunity and support to achieve this.
I still have a lot to learn about photographing for magazines, but I look forward to taking on these challenges, and can’t wait to see my pictures in print again.
Further reading
The VSCC photographs from the Harewood event are available in my Harewood Vintage Hillclimb 2012 set on Flickr.
The Speedscene magazine is available from the Speedscene online store, and there is more information about hillclimbing events on the Hillclimbing and Sprint association website.
Posted in: Digital, Hillclimbing, Magazines, Motorsport, Press, VSCC
