Amy Shore

b500 magazine

Journalistic Photography

Amy Shore is renowned for her photojournalistic style in the automotive world. Her aim is to portray the love and passion we all have for machines on wheels through rose tinted spectacles, whether that be road trips across Europe, humble workshops or worldwide events such as the Goodwood Revival. T he first car I ever photographed was a replica Ferrari P4. The night before the shoot, I was panicking a little, Googling ‘How to photograph a car,’ and hoping that my wedding photography skills might help a little bit. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. But this was an opportunity I certainly wasn’t going to turn down. I shot the car like I would a wedding couple, I looked for what I felt to be the most beautiful sections and angles. I cropped bits of the car, shot details, photographed the workshop it was in, the father and son who built it.

The car world, I quickly realised, is never just about the car. I continue to love the stories that the automotive world holds, from 80 year old blokes who have worked in the same workshop for 65 years and refuse to retire, to young female karting champions aiming to be the first woman to win an F1 race. Since that first shoot in 2013, I’ve been very lucky to find myself shooting moments such as Vettel and Leclerc with a Ferrari Monza in Maranello, Guy Martin attempting a land speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats, a 4,000km road trip in a classic Mini from Athens to Oxford, Sami families in the Artic Circle with Porsche, and cowboys singing in a basement honkey-tonk, to name just a few. Like everyone else on the planet, 2020 has been quite a different year to usual for me. On the last trip I did, I turned to my companions at the airport and said ‘This Covid thing will blow over in a couple of weeks, I’m sure of it.” Ha... This year did allow me one more trip, though. A great feat for a little car, I celebrated owning my own 1985 Austin Mini Mayfair for 10 years by driving from the most populated place in the UK to the least populated place. Islington to the Shetland Islands. 1,800 miles by road plus another 600 by sea in total with many, many mechanical issues along the way, there was no better way I could have celebrated the anniversary than a solo road trip during a pandemic. There’s something selfishly freeing about road tripping solo. Being able to stop wherever you want to take a photo (and in my case, that’s roughly every 2 miles) or eat whenever you want or wherever you want (in this case, it was many takeaways in my room thanks to local lockdowns). Standing at the most northern point of the UK in gale force wind and rain with thunderous waves crashing, I felt such pride in my Mini for making it. As I sat back inside my little car, eating my Twix, windows steaming up as the rain lashed and the winds rocked us both, I contemplated what the next year may bring. I doubt the world will ever be ‘normal’ again, but I hope that this pandemic has made us each crave adventure a little more. The desire to leave our homes and explore further than the doorstep or the cheapest package holiday destination. I look forward to sharing my own adventures with you, whether they be from the comfort of my own country or further afield, in the next issue of b500 Magazine.