Cars on Film

I have booked a trade stand at the Cumbria Classic and Motorsport Show, run by Wigton MC on 22 August, and decided to find a few appropriate photos to display.

It reminded me my first ever photos taken with a 35mm film camera were of rally cars, competing in the Manx International Rally 40 years ago.

I borrowed my sister’s Pentax ME Super with only a standard 50mm prime lens - hence the ‘scenic’ shot: it even shows my camera bag on the wall!

Luckily, my photography improved somewhat, with my own ME Super as a birthday present later that year and a telephoto zoom lens. I soon switched to Nikon though, after working in a camera shop for a while and having a barely used FM2 come into stock as a part-exchange.

We are all so used to everything being automatic these days, it’s hard to imagine learning your craft with a totally manual camera (including manual focus) and rolls of 36 exposure film that cost more than I could really afford as a poor student! There was no ‘spray and pray’ in those days and ‘trial and error’ was seriously expensive (and, as you had to wait a week to see if any came out, if it was an ‘error’ weekend you ended up with virtually nothing usable!)

Having said all that, I still seem to have thought over 5,000 motorsport images were worth keeping from the 1980s and I am currently sorting through these to put a selection on my ‘Image Galleries’ page in the next few days…

Enjoy - and if you’re at the Cumbria Classic and Motorsport Show please come and say hi!

Not only had I mastered panning by the late ‘80s, but I even helped design the RS200 car pictured here in its Rallycross form!