Photo Notes
I
n Spring 1988 I was asked by Supercar Classics magazine to join Phil Llewellin on a road trip in Citroën SM-fettler — Andrew Brodie’s metallic green example of the famous Franco-Italian grand tourer. Over the next nineteen years I subsequently recorded all the other adventures in this book as well, and used ever-changing choices in camera equipment and techniques. The Nikon FM2 featured in the photograph is the one that I was still using when we set off to Normandy on that very first trip. I had favoured the lightweight compact SLR all through the 1970s as my everyday reportage camera for location portraiture and automotive action photography. In the early 1990s I moved to the Canon EOS system to take advantage of their silky-smooth auto focus system, which was far superior to the Nikon alternative. The Canon EOS 1N was also extremely user-friendly when operating the various mode menus that were beginning to appear on professional cameras at that time. I was always looking for a new way of presenting a story and on the ‘Charge de Gaul’ trip in Andrew’s DS19 I persuaded the Art Director of SCC to let me try a new Ilford black and white film called Delta 3200. I have always liked grain and the thought of shooting the story hand-held, free of a tripod, was inviting. The printers made a marvellous job in the magazine but it was the only occasion I ever used the film stock as its extreme contrast and lack of detail had limited appeal.
and £5,500 for the camera body alone. I still carried an old EOS film body for attaching a camera to the side of a car on a rig. This was a wise move as Andrew Brodie, quite preoccupied with his duties at the wheel, scraped the perilously positioned camera along a wall on an Alpine pass while I was shooting a duelling Citroën SM and Maserati Quattroporte. My aim is always to reduce the equipment I need, as in my view too much inhibits me as a photographer! My basic bag for these road trips contained the following: 2 camera bodies 17-40mm zoom lens 24-105mm zoom lens 80-200mm zoom lens 2 small flashguns 3 radio triggers Tripod Remote camera mounting rig Reflector
– MARTYN GODDARD 2012
In 2003 I made the move to digital photography and have hardly touched traditional film since. For the 2005 story, the first after Phil’s untimely departure, I used my state-of-the-art Canon EOS 1DS, then the pinnacle of digital weaponry 143