Shutter Speed

Shutter Speed

Neil Bruce (PH 56-60)

I was at - ‘attended’ maybe not an accurate word - Tonbridge School from Autumn 1956 to Summer 1960, and was in Park House. I was not an academic by any interpretation, and it took 2 years of detention to get seven O Levels. Having a bike for the shooting club, I spent most summer Saturday afternoons cycling round local antique shops, instead of watching boring cricket matches, which was compulsory. Thus there was no way I was going to Uni, and I had to decide how to earn a living. I spent from 1960 to 1970 mostly in TV advertising, starting as an Ad agency messenger and ending as a sales Executive at Woman’s Own Magazine, when I was made redundant by Channel TV!

When ‘asked to leave’ Woman’s Own - I hated it - I took up photography, inspired by my dear friend Lewis Morley (who took the iconic shot of Christine Keeler naked on the chair), and found my way into photographing cars, which were my love. Early on I took snaps for the Esher News road tests, meeting racing drivers Tony Brooks and Roy Salvadori, who ran local garages. When we decided to road test a Ferrari Dino, we went to Maranello Concessionaires (MC) in Egham, and I was taken for a ride by racing driver Michael Salmon, photographing the speedo reading 108 mph along the 50 mph bypass!

As I left MC I was asked by their MD Shaun Bealey for some prints, which I duly sent. I received a reply saying that I was the first photographer to actually keep their word, and send prints, and would I take some pictures for them. This first commission was to shoot a Daytona Spider for the 1971 Motor Show stand. There was just one black example in the UK, and I had to shoot it on the very wet October Saturday before the Press day the following Tuesday, and get a 4ft square print on the stand in time. We moved the car into the showroom…

The next job was in January 1972 when I photographed the whole Ferrari range at nearby Wentworth golf course. I continued to shoot all new models and other subjects for MC until press material came from the factory in 1983.

In April 1973 they took me to the Factory on a dealer visit, where I managed to get lots of great material, including Enzo and his PA Dr Franco Gotzi at the Fiorano circuit, but I was shooting film with a 5 x 4 inch plate camera, and a 6x6 cm Rollie, not digital, so of course one had no idea whether one had good shots until one developed the film at home! ‘Chimping’ meant nothing in those days…

I even had a hair-raising ride round the track in the prototype 365 Boxer Berlinetta.

Working freelance I spent many happy hours with my MC driver pal Alan Mapp, including a day spent in the Black Mountains with the new 1984 Mondial Cabriolet, and was allowed to drive that back home in Burghclere, North Hants.

By then, I was also becoming the main supplier of car photos to UK and overseas calendar companies, as well as having hundreds of pictures used in motoring books.

I was trusted enough to be lent Ferraris, so I borrowed several around that time. When the new F40 arrived in 1988, I was allowed a whole fine October morning with the pre-production prototype, with Alan Mapp driving and positioning it for me, and I was allowed a drive. It was a monster. It was so important to get a car precisely positioned that I much preferred to have a driver, and I must be the only snapper to have turned down the offer of a Testarossa for the day, as Alan wasn’t available!

Of course I was doing other car photography at the same time, and was the UK snapper for the luxury American motoring magazine, Automobile Quarterly, between 1974 and 1985. Sadly AQ didn’t survive for long after it was later sold by its owner, Scott Bailey.

I met classic car dealer Nigel Dawes in about 1975 when doing an AQ shoot on Lagondas, and became a regular visitor to his lovely Malverns home Birtsmorton Court. Nigel would ring me and tell me he had just bought some exotic classic and I would drive the 1 1/4 hours planning exactly where I would position the car, as I soon knew the site so well.

In about 1978 I had met car collector ‘Bob’ Roberts, who was later to start the Midland Motor Museum at Bridgnorth, Shropshire, and I became the museum photographer, until it was sold and then closed.

In around 1980, while working for AQ magazine I realised that there could be a market for the posters that they were producing, so imported some to test. They were so well received I started a secondary business which I named ‘Classic Car Goodies’, selling the posters to all the UK motor museums, including Beaulieu where I was soon supplying some 60% of their stock. I was also selling the Ferrari, Aston Martin and Jaguar factory posters, and soon had a thriving business, with the Beaulieu Autojumble the high spot of the year. I then obtained licenses to print car badge stickers, but it soon got too much, and I found myself telling people I was a ‘packing clerk’, shipping some 10,000 posters worldwide a year, and so, sold the business to get back to photography.

One of the finest cars I shot was the concept Jaguar XJ220 which was a true 48 valve mid V12 engined car, unlike the horrid V6 production result. I have a framed print of this photo signed by its stylist Keith Helfet.

I’m now retired from photography, but still work freelance for MC as I have reprinted all out of print Ferrari handbooks, parts books etc. since 1980, so I have been associated with them for 47 unbroken years

All good fun.