Le Mans 2008

The annual 24 hour race at Le Mans in France is historic as it is spectacular. This year saw the return of both the Audi and Peugeot diesel race cars, each battling for the outright win this year. In the GT1 class both the Aston Martini's and the Corvette's were each battling for the class win. In both classes the racing was expected to be close, tough and a true display of endurance racing. The 2008 edition did not disappoint, with extra emphasis being placed on the '8' as Tom Kristensen and Audi successfully won their 8th Le Mans race win in the past 9 attempts. In the GT1 class the 009 Aston Martin was able to hold off the Corvette challenge, but with only four and a half minutes separating the two top GT1 cars after the whole 24 hours of racing.

Paul Chapman Pictures was on hand to capture as much of the action as possible. Throughout the whole weekend the weather conditions changed from summer sun, to April rain showers, from early morning sunrise to middle of the night darkness. All of which created difficult photography composition. (Although he lack of sleep probably didn't help at this point)

The circuit naturally provides some beautiful scenes, with the amphitheater at the Dunlop curves being a personal favourite. The addition of the glistening racing cars on track set the scene for photographs. More importantly it allowed Paul Chapman Pictures to use for the first time some newly acquired photographic equipment. Up until now all of the photographs which have been published on www.pcpimages.co.uk have all been taken with a Fuji 5600 digital camera. This time Paul Chapman Pictures was armed with not one camera but two! The second camera which many of the photographs were taken with was a 35mm film Canon EOS 5 camera. The decision to use a 35mm film camera was taken for a number of different factors, but the idea of using older (but by no means inferior) 35mm equipment at such a historic racing event seemed the perfect match.

The majority of the photographs that will be published on the website will be uploaded by the end of the week, once they have all been developed. At the same time the YouTube video will be finalised and posted on the pcpimages YouTube channel, which of course can be found in the top right hand corner of this blog too. In the mean time Paul Chapman Pictures is now beginning the organisation process of the next motorsport event to be attended - the Formula Student competition at Silverstone between the 10th and 13th of July.

We hope that everyone will enjoy all of the photos and the YouYube video, the experience gained at this years Le Mans event will continue to improve the quality of the websites content.

In the meantime heres a sneak peek preview of what to expect to be uploaded onto the website within the week... A Peugeot LMP1 race car in full pursuit of a possible first place.

Many Thanks.