Passion, Creativity and Commitment

in BUSINESS by admin — March 13, 2010 at 5:26 am | 2 comments

Passion, Creativity and Commitment A lot of people will inform you that to the motor racing-addled individual, the sport is a drug. It’s difficult to argue against that line of thinking, especially since for practically always, I’ve never had much of an idea as to why I completely adore it. Certainly there’s adrenaline there, but to be completely and utterly honest, I’ve been pretty lucky since becoming interested in motor sport, to enjoy quite privileged behind the scenes perks as a photojournalist. Having said that, there’s probably nothing quite worse than the uncomfortable heat of a Barcelona mid-morning as you weigh-up the perfect shot against a killer-headache from the previous night’s excesses, but it beats the hell out of my nine to five, it really does.

Unless you’re really lucky, getting in as a motor sports photographer is always supplemented by other jobs at the start. That’s just the way it is, and despite what they’ll say to the people they meet along the way, the pros have an awesome job. Last summer, I shared a lift with one of the top F1 photographers who was shooting the Red Bull test team at Goodwood Festival of Speed. Largely there as official press because of my blagging skills, I will be forever indebted to the guy for landing me my first paid job doing some production stills for Endemol. On the Saturday, heading back after enjoying a few cold beers with the test team, he asked me just why I wanted to be a photographer. The answer, then as it largely is now can be found in the first paragraph. He said he knew an architect and this guy took home twice the amount he did each year; I was crazy to be scrapping the career. You certainly can’t argue with that, but then, if you ever find yourself doing something for the money, it’s probably time to quit.

The best photographers in the world are probably not doing it for the money, but then again, it’s equally as likely that they’re not doing it in spite of a nine-to-five. To be the best, to be the guys like Martin Trenkler, Darren Heath or Steven Tee, it takes passion, creativity and tireless commitment and, if it’s not too flippant a suggestion, an ounce of luck. The point of this rather long-winded preamble is to highlight that working as a photographer has brought me into contact with some incredible people, and in striving to find a niche, some fantastic racing series.

At the beginning of 2009 I began working quite closely with newly established championship Formula Two. Run by MotorSport Vision and fronted by Dr Jonathan Palmer, it offers, regardless of the budgets involved, the best route to Formula One outside of the Ecclestone-backed GP2 series. That issue budget, is a particularly pertinent one these days, both in and out of motor racing. Last summer’s breakaway kafuffle had everything to do with costs, but it was nice to see that the junior series was one step ahead of the big guns in addressing the major issue of the day.

The problem was, and sadly still is, that the majority of the kids in Formula Two and elsewhere, whilst hugely talented are largely bankrolled by Uncle Charlie’s company. It’s certainly not a reinforcement of the old adage of ‘whom you know, not what you know’, but without prejudice, it does remain whom you know. Succeeding in motorsport will never be fair, but what I’m doing with Be Part Of The Journey, will hopefully make it fairer.

As the tagline reads, Be Part Of The Journey is a new direction in junior motorsports. “Which is… what?” Most companies ask when approached. Well a scholarship-fund to be precise. With the greatest of truths, I’m not a driver manager, the best skills I have to deliver this successfully are a background in fundraising and like the aforementioned photographers, passion, creativity and commitment. But at the end of the day, someone’s got to do it, why not me?

Do forgive me though, as there is perhaps, a slightly ancillary motive behind this goal. Whilst it’s all fair and well to conceive a scholarship programme, it is as you can imagine, an entirely different beast to deliver. 2011 is the target for the first official driver from the Be Part Of The Journey programme to make it into a junior single-seater series, but it all began with a wish to see my best mate fulfil a life-long ambition to go racing in single-seaters. That ambition soon snowballed and saw Jamie become Be Part Of The Journey’s Guinea Pig in a sense. We can’t just launch the programme having not guaranteed an interested and supportive partner base, so the 2010 plan is to launch in the very cost-effective Formula Palmer Audi series and take it from there. One day I’m sure he’ll forgive me this, but his racing dreams now rest on the success of a somewhat bold business plan.

So over the coming weeks, I’ll be keeping you updated on the programme, no doubt giving people out there, vastly more qualified than I, the inspiration to do something similar. At times, it may turn into somewhat of a sponsor-naming ceremony, but I promise to keep it a factual and entertaining narrative of the exciting and at times nauseating journey to launch one’s self and associated mates into motor racing. See you next week.

Ciaran Bodenham