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Goodwood Revival Meeting – the last entry

Its a month since I enjoyed a wonderful weekend at the Goodwood Revival Meeting in September. This is the last entry following on from ‘The Silver Arrows’ and ‘The Characters’ and is a final selection of images. It features the motor cars themselves, the shops, some more characters and the aircraft which was on dsiplay. Its an eclectic mix, but all in black and white and hopefully they capture something of the atmosphere of the great event which never fails to impress through its marvellous attention to detail. Provisional dates for 2013 have recently been announced – 13th to 15th September. For more information visit the Goodwood website.

With the exception of the first image which was taken with a Nikon D90, all the other photographs were taken using the Olympus OMD – EM5.

The Race Starts
Nikon D90 – 70-300mm @122mm f8 1/100 ISO800

On the start finish straight

Olympus OMD EM5 45mm f16 1/80 ISO200

Racing round Molcombe

Olympus OMD EM5 45mm f4 1/1250 ISO200

The Shoe Shop

Olympus OMD EM5 45mm f1.8 1/4000 ISO200

The Hat Shop

Olympus OMD EM5 45mm f4 1/500 ISO200

Tesco – Remember Green Shield Stamps?

Olympus OMD EM5 20mm f6.3 1/320 ISO200

Eyes in the back of my coat

Olympus OMD EM5 45mm F2 1/2000 ISO200

Laurel and Hardy

Olympus OMD EM5 45mm f5.6 1/400 ISO200

Plane rivetts

Olympus OMD EM5 20mm f2.2 1/3200 ISO200

‘Miss Pick Up’ on the side of The Catalina Seaplane

Olympus OMD EM5 20mm f2.2 1/4000 ISO200

Miss Pick Up on the side of Catalina sea plane

Looking to the skies

Olympus OMD EM5 45mm f8 1/2000 ISO200

The Characters of the Goodwood Revival Meeting

There are two major elements to the Goodwood Revival Meeting. Firstly the wonderful machinery (the cars, the aircraft and the motor bikes) and secondly the people who attend and frankly make this event what it is today. In the past I have concentrated on the former but this year I decided that I would work harder to capture images of the characters, their outfits and through them the spirit of the event itself.

In an earlier blog entry I made it clear that all my images this year would be in ‘black and white’ and through this medium I think the mood of the event is further enhanced.

With one exception all the photographs have been taken using the Olympus EM5, imported into Lightroom and converted into black and white using Silver Efex Pro.

The Rocker
Olympus EM5 45mm f2 1/1250 ISO 200

The Bike Mechanic
Olympus EM5 12mm f2 1/500 ISO 200

The Artist
Olympus EM5 20mm f2.5 1/20 ISO 200

An Artist drawing one of the Silver Arrows

I later found out that the artist in the above photo is Stefan Marjoram. He is both a professional artist and a photographer specialising in motor sport. In my opinion he produces some wonderful work. His photographic work can be found here and his drawings here. He has a specific blog entry for his drawings of The Silver Arrows, which includes the very drawing he is working on in this image.

The Pilot and the moustache
Olympus EM5 45mm f2.2 1/1600 ISO 200

The Kenwood Shop Assistant
Olympus EM5 20mm f4.5 1/80 ISO 200

The Car Salesman
Olympus EM5 20mm f1.8 1/125 ISO 200

The Couple
Olympus EM5 20mm f2.5 1/800 ISO 200

The Cleaner
Olympus EM5 20mm f2 1/800 ISO 200

The Lady and the bike
Olympus EM5 20mm f2.2 1/800 ISO 200

The American Biker
Olympus EM5 45mm f2 1/1250 ISO 400

The Lady in the bike shed
Olympus EM5 45mm f2 1/640 ISO 200

The Lady and The ‘Spiv’
Nikon D90 70-300mm @ 116mm f5 1/320 ISO 200

The Silver Arrows at the Goodwood Revival Meeting

1934 heralded the arrival of the Mercedes and Auto Union to GrandPrix motor racing. It was a wonderful era and these two makes affectionately known as ‘The Silver Arrows’ dominated top level racing. A year later in 1935 they made their UK appearance at Donnington. 75 years on and to mark this anniversary the 2012 Goodwood Revival Meeting brought this famous racers together once more.

The attention to detail at this annual event is so special that the cars were housed in an authentic recreation of the pits at the Bremgarten circuit which staged the Swiss Grand Prix in 1938.

As well as recording these magnificant cars in camera, there was an artist doing a superb pencil drawing of one the Auto Union racers.

All the photos were taken using an Olympus EM5, imported into Lightroom and converted into black and white using Silver Efex Pro.

The Silver Arrows lined up in the pits
Olympus EM5 12mm 1/320 f9 ISO 400

An Auto Union Silver Arrow with the ‘artist’ in the background
Olympus EM5 20mm 1/60 f2.8 ISO 200

The artist and a superb pencil drawing
Olympus EM5 20mm 1/20 f2.5 ISO 200

An Auto Union being rolled out for action
Olympus EM5 45mm 1/500 f3.5 ISO 400

An Auto Union - one of The Silver Arrows

Magnificent machines all in a row. An extraordinary sight
Olympus EM5 45mm 1/60 f16 ISO 400

This is the first entry about the Goodwood Revival Meeting. When time permits more will follow.

Goodwood Revival Meeting this weekend

It’s mid September so once again its time for the Goodwood Revial Meeting which starts tomorrow and finishes on Sunday. I have photographed this event in the past, so on this occassion I shall be concentrating on capturing the historic ‘vintage’ flavour of the event. Black and white will be the order of the day and I shall be exploring new areas of the circuit and of course people watching. I will be there for two out of the three days, so the Olympus OMD memory card could be quite full by the time the last chequered flag is waved on Sunday. I will post a selection of images in the weeks to come, but in the meantime here is the Ferrari 250 GTO taken in 2010.

‘People and Places’ at Glorious Goodwood

The end of July/beginning of August is traditionally the time for one of the most famous race meetings in the country – Glorious Goodwood. Situated on The South Downs the race course enjoys wonderful views of the countryside to the north and to the south, distant views of the sea and even the Isle of Wight on a clear day. I am not a seasoned race goer and definitely not a gambler buts its hard to resist the allure of Glorious Goodwood which attracts the famous, the not so famous and those that are simply there to win some money or have a good day out.

My reason for going this year was as part of a ‘People and Places’ photography course I was attending at West Dean College which is just down the road from Goodwood. I would thoroughly recommend West Dean College to anyone interested in an arts or crafts course held in a beautiful house set in quite superb grounds. The course was being run by Jacqui Hurst and in addition to myself there were five other participants. I will say more about Jacqui and the course in a forthcoming post.

At the outset of the week I set myself the objective of ‘seeing’ in black and white. We had to produce a portfolio of work by the end of the course, so however good some of the images might appear in colour the final selection would all have to be in monochrome. At Glorious Goodwood I wanted to capture the atmosphere of the place and its people, and whilst we were not in the ‘posh’ Richmond or Gordon Enclosures, the Lennox Enclosure would provide just as many photo opportunities.

I should just mention that a couple of weeks before attending the course I made the decision to buy the Olympus OMD EM5 with the 12mm to 50mm kit lens. The body and lens are weather sealed and having enjoyed the E-PL3 so much together with the three prime lens (12mm, 20mm and 45mm) I couldn’t wait to see how this new camera performed. Being on a photography course for a week was the ideal opportunity to find out. I can tell you now, I was not disappointed, to the contrary the results are quite fantastic and I am now wondering when the Nikon D90 DSLR will get its next airing?

Here are a selection of the images taken at Goodwood. They were all taken with the OMD and one of the prime lenses. Shot in RAW, imported into Lightroom with minor adjustments before converting to black and white in Silver Efex Pro2; a dedicated B&W plugin by Nik Software.

Racing to the line
Olympus OMD 20mm f8 1/500 ISO 200