Mille Miglia

The Mille Miglia is a classic car race that is held every year in Italy, taking in over 1000 miles of Italian roads; through the rolling Tuscan hills, to the busy streets of Rome. The participants race with the original cars that attended, and they can not have been produced later than 1957. Therefore this is an endurance race in every sense, for man and machine. After a long days driving, many of the competitors will then have to spend long hours into they night maintaining or fixing issues in these vintage cars.

For me these type of assignments are a dream; the drama, the passion, the excitement are etched into the faces of the competitors and the crowds. I can do what I do best and melt into the scene and capture these many minor moments that make a major spectacle. Fortunately I was assigned my own driver (sadly it was a people carrier not a classic car!) and we would race from point to point often reverting to motorways and back streets to get ahead of the competitors. In the down times I would be downloading and captioning images in the back of the van, trying to keep up with where the cars had got too and where on the route ahead would make for a good spot for images.