Driving

Last week's drive around Germany, France, Belgium and Holland shooting some billboards for Fujifilm reminded me, after 3000Km and about 50 hours of driving, of the importance of a comfortable car and of two other long journeys I did in the very luxurious Lexus LS 400 - one to the Arctic Circle in Norway with James May (one of my favourite road trips ever) and another around the UK for this magazine feature. When I arrived to do this shoot at the bauxite plant, at Burntisland in Scotland, there was a gale force wind blowing in from the sea that meant it would have been impossible to keep the 5"x 4" plate camera I was using at the time still even on a heavy tripod, so I was forced to shoot from inside the doorway of a large shed on site and as the longest lens I had was equivalent to about a 70mm on an SLR, to make a much wider shot than I'd originally intended, resulting in a significantly stronger image than would otherwise have been the case. It was very well received by the client and I was quite happy to take the credit for an inspired choice of viewpoint.......