Every once in a while, an opportunity presents itself that cannot be turned down. Arriving at an unusually sun basked Silverstone circuit on a Thursday evening in June of this year, I was rather casually presented with the task of shooting arguably the best looking car on the GT3 grid, the Team Need for Speed and Schubert Motorsport prepared BMW Z4 GT3. However, there were quite a lot of restrictions surrounding the shoot. Time was the largest obstacle with a window of just 90 minutes to complete a thorough shoot of the car. Positioning the car was another challenge. As you may know, full race prepared cars do not like to be started and stopped and moved short distances so we needed to arrange a quad bike and two mechanics to accompany and manoeuvre the car.
However all of these minor annoyances were quickly forgotten once I looked through the viewfinder. The backdrop of the newly unveiled Silverstone Wing complex and the privilege of being the first photographer to shoot on the new hallowed race surface – the weekend’s FIA GT event would be the first race meeting on the new layout utilising the new complex – more than made up for any of these slight grievances. It was a proud moment when I stood back from the camera and took a moment to take it all in. Here I was within my first 14 months as a professional photographer, standing on the Silverstone race circuit photographing one of my all-time favourite race cars in glorious weather. For all the positives and negatives of my job, I can always look back to this as to why I do what I do.
More images after the break …
For more information on the Team Need for Speed Schubert Motorsport BMW Z4 GT3, check out the latest issue of Performance BMW in stores now.