Beyond the Wheel is my first project at Uni, it aims to show racing drivers beyond the car. This covers all disciplines from sim racers to drivers who have raced at Lemans.
This project involves 3 core images which will be exhibited, but will be apart of an 8 image series.
“I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by instinct, only I was in a different dimension. I was way over the limit but still able to find even more. It frightened me because I realised I was well beyond my conscious understanding.” - Ayrton Senna
I started this project off with a clear aim of photographing a team of riders with the local team at the Oxford Cheetahs, as you can probably tell from these photos this did not end up happening, which sums up how this project has been.What began as a solely speedway project changed into a series surrounding all different forms of motorsport, predominantly circuit racing. This project was my backup, but I'm so happy with how it turned out. Originally named ‘Drivers Eye’, this project tried to capture the feelings of racing drivers at the track, from focus to concentration and nerves, then the happiness after getting to drive on the home of British Motorsport. However, I felt like the title was too narrow, so I changed it to 'Beyond the wheel', which let me fit a lot more into the portraits instead of forcing myself to focus on the eyes. The broader title I think represents a celebration of the passion in motorsport and explores a more human side of it. I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from a lot of places for this project, one of the main ones being Canadian videographer Mark Urban who had an incredible home made shot of a driver, helmet visor up and manages to make it look like the driver was in the car, I tried to replicate this with my photo of Jude Peters (the blue lit one) creating a slight glint in the eye and light that really focuses on the drivers eye. The 3 photos I’ve chosen to display I think really show the people behind the wheel, although not showing their faces you can see a bit into their personalities and a bit beyond the wheel.
I also wanted to share some of the non portrait work I have done during some of these shoots.
