Brooklands Motor Museum

Brooklands Motor Museum opens its doors on New Year's Day for car enthusiasts and visitors alike (it's open the rest of the year too), and provides a welcome respite from the festive season. Owners come from far and wide to display their vintage, rare, and specialist vehicles, and it really is quite a sight. The location itself is an historic one, it's the world's first purpose built motor circuit, dating from 1907. It is known as the birthplace of British motor racing and aviation and has seen many of the great technical achievements of both. The museum is home to a wide range of motorsport and aeroplane exhibits, together with a charming array of restored outbuildings and hangars. Brooklands Trust is a charity and works hard to preserve the character of British historic motorsport and aviation.

Brooklands also has its own Concorde and visitors can book a ticket for an 'experience' whilst learning more about the Concorde story.

The event is a social one and it was great to talk to the owners and get a really close look at the sort of vehicles one would never normally encounter. Hot, comforting food is available in the downstairs cafe and the restaurant above and I was able to enjoy my lunch in the company of two racing drivers who shared a fascinating (and slightly hair-raising) insight to their world.

Modern car clubs are also welcome, and I took up my place in the Independent Porsche Enthusiasts Club area before spending several fascinating hours photographing the hundreds of stunning cars spread around the track and grounds, offset by the many static aeroplane exhibits dotted about the site. The weather was spectacular - freezing cold with a strong vivid, low winter sun. This is a little challenging in photography terms, especially when one has no control over the subject's placement, so it's a question of moving around until the best compromise is achieved.

If you'd like to see the full set of images, visit my main website, choose the Flash site, click on the clients tab (at the bottom) and enter the password: 01jan10 (space and case sensitive).

New Year's Day at Brooklands Museum

A fellow Pistonheads member has just reminded me about the wonderful New Year's Day event at Brooklands Museum. This really is something very special, with visitors from all over the country bringing their rare, vintage, or exotic vehicles to what is the most perfect setting. Brooklands is a museum both indoors and out - you'll notice the old aeroplanes dotted about - these lend so much character and interest to the day.

I realised that I had a set of pictures from this year's event, so I'm posting them rather late in the day, but hopefully they'll give you a flavour of what you can expect if you do decide to get up early on 1st January 2010.

I wasn't in the mood to lug around a bag of pro kit on this occasion - all the shots were taken with my old but much loved miniature handbag camera. I always try to carry a little point-and-shoot with me, just in case.

See our main site here.

"Sunday Service" at Rolls Royce

Over the last year or two I have frequently driven past the stately iron gates of the Rolls Royce factory at Chichester, and I have often wondered exactly what lay behind them. The place even has its own roundabout (Goodwood Motor Circuit is about 500 yards to the left) and it has something of an air of mystery. And so when I discovered that one of my car clubs, Pistonheads, had arranged a Sunday morning gathering at the facility, I was amazed, and delighted. I think this shows just how much clout Pistonheads has - I've been to a lot of the meetings and without exception they are impressive and meticulously organized. You can find Pistonheads here.

As one would expect, the Rolls Royce factory is vast, and spotless, and ultra modern. Several hundred car enthusiasts made good use of the enormous car parks early this morning, and what a showing it was. The weather wasn't the greatest, but the staff had kindly opened the foyer to us, and the coffee shop, so we were warm and comfortable. The light wasn't the best, but I wasn't going to miss the chance to photograph some of my favourite cars. We were very pleased to see some Ultimas at the gathering, I feel fortunate to see these cars, let alone photograph them and talk to their owners, who never tire of answering questions and showing people their cars. The owners deserved to have their photographs taken, too, and I can't help feeling that it must be quite an undertaking for such tall men to get in and out of what is in fact a racing car.

I never pressure my subjects to smile for the camera. Sometimes it's appropriate, but often it's not. I like a bit of 'attitude', to be honest. The shot below, of Keith, would have had some real atmosphere if the battery in my radio transmitter hadn't conked. I'd got as far as setting the exposure for the main light (just to camera right) and was about to drop the ambient for a 'twilight' feel, before the thing died on me. So I'm afraid I've had to post the test shot, but you get the feel for what I was about to do.

This picture made me smile - it's the quality check list for that section of the factory. It's reassuringly brief (depending on how you look at it):

Find our main site here.