Description
Author: George Monkhouse, Hardbound, ISBN: B000N27134 - First Edition, 1937 - **VERY RARE EX-LIBRARY BOOK IN GOOD CONDITION**
A thing that has always disappointed me in the majority of books I have read on motor-racing is the lack of illustrations showing cars and drivers really in action. Most books contain a large variety of posed pictures of interesting men and machines, but high-speed action pictures are almost always conspicuous by their absence. In this present collection I have tried to make up for this deficiency.
It has not been easy. When I first took up the photography of cars at high speed, I found that more often than not my films, when developed, showed no trace whatsoever of a car, or, if I was lucky, perhaps just a blurred impression of its rear wheels peeping in from one side ! However, I persevered, and now I find I can generally make sure of catching the objective just where I want it.
The difficulty is, of course, that in a great number of the pictures in this book the cars were passing me at close range at speeds of over 200 feet per second. To offset this one has to swing the camera, that is, pick up the car in the view-finder as it approaches, and then swing the camera round to follow it, releasing the shutter at the precise moment the car reaches the spot one has selected for the picture.
The selection of this spot, incidentally, is of the greatest importance, since a badly chosen background can spoil even the finest bit of photography. The swinging of the camera, by the way, is largely responsible for the distortion of both the background and the wheels that can be clearly seen in several of the pictures. This distortion is, however, • not wholly a disadvantage, since it often serves to give an impression of speed that would otherwise be lacking.
It may interest photographers to know that I use a 5 x 4 Speed Graphic camera, fitted with a 6i-inch f.3•3 Zeiss Tessar lens. I have found Kodak S.S. Pan. film ideal for this class of work, as, apart from its high speed, it also gives extremely good reproduction quality. All the pictures in this book were taken on film packs, which are very light and quick in operation.
In the letterpress accompanying the pictures I have attempted to incorporate as many, interesting facts as I can, so that anybody not absolutely au fait with motor-racing and its personalities may find something to amuse them.
My special thanks are due to Messrs. Percy Bradley and Fred Craner, Clerks of the Course at Brooklands and Donington Park respectively, to Bunny Dyer, of the Junior Car Club, and to Harry Edwards, of the British Racing Drivers' Club, for the facilities they have always given me to take pictures. I must also thank both Alex Dohmer, of the Nurburg Ring, and M. Bruyere, of the Autorhobile Club de l'Ouest. I cannot close without a word of praise to Roland King-Farlow for compiling the most interesting table at the end of this book, and to Richard Bickford, who took me to my first road race in 1932.
GEORGE MONKHOUSE.
