If you’re looking for a particular post please use the search box below
My final post from the 2024 Goodwood Racing Revival - completed less than a month before the 2025 event begins! The Settrington Cup is a unique race at the Revival, featuring children racing along the start/finish straight in Austin J40 pedal cars. I couldn’t get close enough to photograph the action on track, but there were still plenty of candid moments to be captured around the paddock and in the assembly area just before the race.
Photos taken 8 September 2024
As we career towards the 2025 Goodwood Racing Revival it’s probably time that I finished sharing my photos from the 2024 event! In this post we have a selection of action shots from the various races we watched.
The one afternoon I spent watching the action on track included some rain showers, as you can see from the many umbrellas, but fortunately not enough rain to leave me an my camera soaked!
The St Mary’s Trophy is always a must-watch race, featuring touring cars from tiny Minis to vast Ford Galaxies - a real David and Goliath contrast!
Photos taken 7 September 2024
Way back in April I treated myself to a few days away in Liverpool, with the sole intention of spending the time on pinhole photography. Over the four days I shot five rolls of medium format film, as well as a handful of frames of large format film too. On my second day there I met up with my friend Rachel at Calderstones Park, on the outskirts of the city and we spent a very enjoyable couple of hours exploring the gardens with our pinhole cameras. With so much colour around me, it only seemed natural to use colour film – in this case Kodak Gold 200.
Naturally, we set up a slow motion Self portrait of the two of us while we were there. We’ve since decided that this would make the perfect cover art for an album of folk music!
A trio of scenes from around Calderstones Park, including the ancient Allerton Oak, which these days needs a little support to help keep it standing.
The Japanese garden was looking particularly lovely, with some glorious shades of red among the Acer trees.
Photos taken 16 April 2025
During our holiday in Yorkshire, back in April, we visited the town of Pickering and took a look in the Church of St Peter and St Paul while we were there. I didn’t take many photos but the light was glorious and I couldn’t help but marvel at the wonderful wall paintings.
It was difficult to decide which parts of the wall paintings to photograph but I went for this section, featuring St George slaying the dragon.
A pool of light on the terracotta floor tiles.
Beautiful light in the south aisle.
Photos taken 22 April 2025
Over a decade ago I started a project to photograph all the churches within the Square Mile of the City of London. Once upon a time there were over 100, but the Great Fire, a dwindling resident population, historical town planning and the Blitz have gradually whittled this number down. Yet even today over fifty remain and before Covid struck I’d visited about four fifths of these with my camera. After the pandemic many of the churches were slow to reopen so I’ve focused my photographic interests in other areas for the last five years.
Last week I decided the time had come to reboot my dormant project and I began with a revisit to St Dunstan in the West, in Fleet Street. Over the intervening years my skills and style have evolved so I fear this could become the photographic equivalent of painting the Forth Bridge, but I’m looking forward to improving upon some of my earlier efforts.
St Dunstan in the West is one of two churches with the same name, but St Dunstan in the East, near the Tower of London, remained an empty shell after being bombed during the Blitz and is now a beautiful garden space. Its western cousin is an unusual building. From Fleet Street it looks like a typical, rectangular City church, but when you head inside you find an octagon nave! Although an Anglican church, it shares its space with the Romanian Orthodox Church and London’s Romanian community. This is evident on one of the eight sides, which has an ornately carved wall, creating a private chapel, as you can see above. The three photos below show more details from this corner of the church.
Looking up at the beautiful vaulted ceiling, with the organ below.
The sword rest is a curiosity of most of the City Churches - intended as somewhere for the Lord Mayor to place his sword while at prayer.
The ornately carved pulpit, covered with angels and with a canopy above to help project the speaker’s voice to the congregation.
I found a moment when I had the church to myself to lie on the floor and take this photo!
Smaller details from around St Duntan’s.
Above and below - details and beautiful light among the pews. Each pew is equipped with a number of wooden pegs to hang one’s hat!
Photos taken 28 June 2025
While I love the cars at Goodwood, one of the things which makes the Revival so atmospheric is the way most of the visitors come wearing clothes appropriate to the period between 1948 and 1966, when the circuit was in active use. This creates a wonderful feeling of nostalgia and I love lurking in the paddocks, people watching.
There are always familiar faces to be spotted in the paddocks - in this case former rally driver and broadcaster Tony Jardine, looking very dapper.
The rain at last year’s Revival made added some variety and made for some interesting scenes.
For the 2024 Revival I made a change to the camera kit I used. Normally I’d take a selection of prime lenses, but this time I spent most of my time using my 35-100mm f2.8mm zoom lens. This gives the look of a 70-200mm lens on and was perfect for capturing candid shots of people without being too intrusive.
I’d love to know what these two chaps were discussing!
This was snapped during a downpour when everyone dived into the paddock shelters. It’s one of my favourite photos from the weekend - so timeless and atmospheric.
I had to dodge the rain and the puddles to capture these two mechanic with their “don’t get in our way” expressions!
Motorsport fans are getting younger and younger!
Looking to the skies during one of the early morning air displays.
The work never stops for the Duke of Richmond…
A very stylish young lady.
Photos taken 6-8 September 2024
During my busy working life there are times when I just need to slow down for a moment and pinhole photography is a great way to make that happen. Back in April I headed over to St John’s Church in Duxford and spent an hour or so chasing the light. I’ve photographed here many times before but the light is never the same as the seasons change. On this occasion I started in the churchyard where the cowslips were flowering. Of course my photo doesn’t capture their vivid yellow tones, but I decided to shoot from a low perspective to catch them in the foreground anyway.
Inside the church, the light was as glorious as ever, creating pools of illumination around the building.
This was one of my slower shots (an eight minute exposure) but I couldn’t resist the textural details of this door and its latch.
Two different perspectives of the nave…
More pools of light, this time from the west window.
The light in the porch was very contrasty, creating some very graphic lines.
My final photo of the afternoon, taken from a higher perspective beside the pulpit.
Photos taken 11 April 2025
When I teach at West Dean College I have a couple of hours to myself on the Saturday and it’s always an opportunity for me to head out into the gardens, camera in hand. On this occasion I took my pinhole camera along, with no particular agenda and simply photographed what caught my eye.
An ancient sprawling tree, waiting for the warmer spring weather to arrive along with its leaves.
A perfectly espaliered fruit tree in the walled gardens.
It may have been early in the spring, but there was plenty of blossom to be seen in the glasshouses.
Magical light falling through the folly…
Photos taken 15 March 2025
One of the places which remained tantalisingly out of reach when I visited Liverpool in 2019 was St Luke’s - a church in the city centre which was no,bed during the Blitz. On my latest visit I was delighted to find the railings were unlocked and I could finally take a look inside. Of course, with pouring rain and no roof I got rather wet, but it was worth it!
Photos taken 16 April 2025
When I went to the Goodwood Racing Revival last September I knew it would be a little while before I was able to sift through my photos, edit and share them, but I never intended it to take nine months! Better late than never, I’m going to begin sharing them here, but rather than arranging them by day I’ve filtered them into different themes - for today’s post it’s my colour photos of the people I saw around the circuit.
Dolly and Gracie are regulars at the Revival, dressed up as two cleaning ladies from the 1950s. They can always be relied upon to act up for the cameras, and on this occasion I caught them planting some red lipstick prints on the roof of Nick Swift’s racing Mini!
There was a western theme around the entrance in 2024. I have to confess I’m not entirely sure what the connection with Goodwood was but it made for a good photo opportunity!
Of course, there were also plenty of opportunities for people photography around the paddocks…
Photos taken 6-8 September 2024
