samedi 29 janvier 2005

Hot Car... Don't freeze! Earlier today I was stuck again - not for ideas, but time... as there's always more to do on a Saturday than a weekday for some reason. Why it is I don't really know... perhaps it's because the people who are normally at work during the week spend their first day relaxing by mingling in the marketplace to catch up with whatever news is on other's lips. I shop twice at the Saturday morning market because my hands are full after buying the local goats milk yoghourt and apples... the latter now looking slightly tired four months after picking. However, a quick trip to the open tables and covered stalls is not a simple three-minute walk followed by a couple of purchases and a quick walk back... it's an hour each time because of mingling with the small knots of locals, listening intently, muttering a few oaths when they do (frequently... although I sometimes know not what about... maybe they're talking about me because I'm still not wearing a jacket even though it was only a couple of degrees above freezing) and generally being friendly with a population I find truly aimable, or perhaps gentile is a better word. The rest of the day was spent e-mailing, invoicing and packaging many items which are selling on eBay... plus cleaning, washing and cooking. At some point I had to start writing this weblog having more or less decided that perhaps a single image and an extended caption would be sufficient - or at least better than no communication at all. It's strange how coincidences happen... the first photo I saw when I lifted the lid off a box of 12x9 prints, chosen at random from a tottering pile, was the above shot taken in the mid-1980s of a racing Mini exploding in flames a few seconds after spinning out of control on a fast corner and hitting the barrier. Although the incident happened at the Castle Coombe racetrack, only a mile or so away from that most attractive of villages, I'm sure I'll have much better images and words to describe the tight cluster of cottages, church and cross which make up that name for my "More Scenes From Wiltshire" series, and of course those scenes I write about are there to be seen year after year and not unique events. The special saloon car race was lively from the start... as often happens when hugely popular British Minis - albeit with big engines - are pitted against American "muscle" cars with much bigger engines. But it often proves an interesting contest because whilst the American cars can power away on the straights, they have to brake hard and sooner for the bends... and the Minis who are left chasing on the long straights play catch-up-and-pass on the corners... which is how I sometimes used to drive as described in yesterday's weblog. Special saloon car racing has been waging similar contests for years and I remember many races at the Oulton Park circuit in Cheshire where the closest of finishes were witnessed between seemingly unmatched cars racing at unequal odds. There again, when Jim Clark used to take Cascades and other corners with both inside wheels of his Lotus Cortina well off the ground there was no way a Ford Fairlane or a Chevy Camaro could get a glimpse or even a whiff of "Castrol R" racing oil from his exhaust pipe by the time the next straight had come and gone! I remember well the day this particular Mini crashed... although it was a hard impact (you can see where the roof has split) it didn't look too bad until the marshall ran to the driver's aid. The flash of exploding petrol was dramatic and I caught it several times as my camera was already focused on the scene. I was using a motor-driven Nikon F3 fitted with a 500mm Reflex-Nikkor "mirror" lens and loaded with fast Ilford XP-1 chromogenic film. It looks as if I was quite near to the action but in fact I was some way away... the image being pulled from about a quarter of the negative! It's difficult to print too because I was shooting through the crowd and the dark patch bottom-right of frame was someone's out-of-focus head in the foreground. An unusual thing I remember about the incident was that many other people had cameras and telephoto or zoom lenses... but I didn't see one of them pointing towards the drama and being used. Maybe that's what happens when fear enters the mind... we freeze! For once I didn't and made a series of freeze-frames which have been published many times since. 9:50:04 PM    comment []