GoodWood Members Meet 2025 shot on camera

The Goodwood Members’ Meeting is known for its classic cars and tight racing, but when you’re actually there, the real story sits in the paddocks. That’s where you see the drivers before and after each race, surrounded by their teams, chatting with other competitors, and spending quick moments with their families. It feels surprisingly relaxed for an event built around high-speed competition.

Before the races, there’s a buzz, but nothing over the top. Drivers lean against their cars talking through last-minute details, checking things with mechanics, or catching up with people they clearly see year after year. Families drift in and out. A partner adjusts a collar, a kid carries a helmet that’s almost bigger than they are. And there’s always someone quietly pointing out that, despite the pace, there are plenty of gentlemen’s agreements about not pushing the old cars too far. As one person put it: “We are racing in the grandchildren’s inheritance after all.”

When the cars head out, everything kicks up a gear. Engines rise, crowds move forward, and the whole place gets loud very quickly. But even then, the small signals stand out: a quick thumbs-up from a driver, someone jogging alongside a car until the last moment, a mechanic giving one final tap on the roof. These became some of my favourite interactions to photograph.

After the race, the atmosphere changes instantly. Drivers get out, shake hands, laugh about whatever just happened on track, and talk through the details with their teams. Families come back in, and you see that shift from race mode to real life in a matter of seconds. Someone hands over a bottle of water. Someone else passes their gloves to a kid who has been waiting all session. It feels casual and honest, and it shows how much community sits underneath the competitive side.

I shot the event on a selection of films. I was mainly comparing Portra 400 with Kodak’s Pro 100, and I mixed things up by pushing the Pro 100 while overexposing the Portra and shooting parts of it at box speed. The soft pastels of the Portra suited the event beautifully and gave a gentle tone to the paddocks and driver interactions. Both films handle pushing well, and the colour shifts you get can be really pleasing. There’s enough latitude in both that white balancing later is straightforward if that’s your thing. The shadows are where film can catch you out, so I tend to expose for the darker areas, though too much light can sometimes be just as unforgiving. It’s always a bit of a balancing act.

Most of the day was shot on my Olympus OM40, which continues to surprise me with how reliable and intuitive it is. I also had the chance to try out my Exakta Varex 2B, fresh back from being serviced in Germany. There’s something special about using a camera that’s been brought back to life so carefully, and it added a bit of extra enjoyment to the quieter moments between races.

Photographing Goodwood from this angle changes how you read the event. I found myself focusing less on the cars flying down the straight and more on the people around them, the way they prepare, how they support one another, and how quickly they settle back into conversation once the helmets come off. The in-between moments, the unstated interactions, tell a story of their own.

In the end, Goodwood feels less like a historic motorsport showcase and more like a yearly meet-up with fast machinery attached. The racing is real, the engineering is impressive, but it’s the human side the jokes, the routines, the family dynamics

that gives the whole event its character. And with a camera in hand, I was glad to be right in the middle of it.