While still at school in the later 1940s, I began to read books about pre-war motor racing, especially those about the Siamese racing driver Prince Bira written by his cousin Prince Chula. Around the same time, I acquired my first simple camera and began to learn about photography. It seemed natural, as motor sport started up again following the second world war, that these two keen interests should be combined, and I went along to early sprint and hill-climb meetings, and then my first circuit race, which also happened to be the first Goodwood event in September 1948.
I was hooked! From then until 1956, I went to many of the main meetings at Goodwood, Crystal Palace, Silverstone and Brands Hatch, with some interruptions in the two years 1951/52, when National Service intervened. Even then, I was lucky to serve in the photographic branch of the RAF, working on aerial survey photography, so developing my photographic skills, and occasionally skiving off to hitch-hike to Silverstone for the Grand Prix and Daily Express International Trophy meetings in ’51 and ’52.
 This is a photograph of Ascari preparing for the start of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1953.That's me standing in the background clutching my Leica camera! The picture was taken by Alan R Smith and is reproduced with the kind permission of The Klemantaski Collection.
Along the way, that first basic camera was traded up via a Kodak Retina to a Leica 111c, with which the majority of the pictures in this collection were shot. After the RAF, a career in professional photography gradually evolved, but time was always found for some shooting at the circuits.
In 1956, I was recruited by Mobil Oil as their staff photographer, where my first job - at the end of my first week (!) - was to join Donald Campbell’s Bluebird team at Coniston when Campbell raised his own World Water Speed Record, an assignment repeated in 1957.
The catalogue contains images shot through the period 1949-1956 and some from 1964. The earliest photograph is of Stirling Moss in his second competitive year driving his Cooper at Goodwood in 1949. I have included photos of the first nine F1 World Champions: Farina, Ascari, Fangio, Hawthorn, Brabham, Graham Hill, Phil Hill, Clark and Surtees - together with many of their contemporaries.
We have not yet put my complete archive on-line, and don't intend to. We shall be adding more pictures to the catalogue over time, but I insist that we ensure the captions are as accurate as possible and that we can produce prints of the highest quality standard before a picture becomes available on-line.
I hope you enjoy your visit to my web site.
Keith Duerden FBIPP FRPS
(Fellow of the British Institute of Professional Photography)
(Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society) |