Paul Chapman Photography - Motorsport Photography Through the Lens

Paul Chapman Pictures Gets Muddy!

2009-03-08T15:43:00.002Z

With the majority of motorsport championships beginning their final preparations before the serious business of racing begins, Paul Chapman Pictures has found one of the few categories that have already begun their season.

Last weekend the Cornwall & Devon Land Rover club held their first meeting of the season. The first meeting was an RTV (Road Taxed Vehicle) event - This comprises of road legal (and relatively unmodified) Land Rover 90's, Discovery's, Range Rovers and the odd Lightweight.

The aim of the off roading competition is to drive around a tricky off road stage, whilst driving through a set number of challanging gates. Unlike most motorsports, speed is not essential. If any of the gates are touched, the stage is over for the competitor, like wise if the competitors vehicle stops/stalls or gets stuck on the stage, the competitor can no longer continue or finish the stage. Each gate has a number, every time a competitor touches a gate, or cannot otherwise complete the stage the last gate that the competitor pasted through is scored. At the end of 8 stgaes, the competitor with the lowest number is deemed the winner.

Vehicle control, and driver skill is easy to learn - but hard to master, and can be shown by the wide range of ages of the competitors (which are also both male and female). Some of the members have been driving Land Rovers off-road for decades, others have only been off-road a couple of times. But everyone shows the same amount of friendly competition, which enables grass root (or in this case muddy!!) motorsport to flourish despite the grim economic climate.

The future to come in 2009

2009-01-04T14:24:00.002Z

Paul Chapman Pictures would like to wish all of its customers and fans a peaceful and prosperous 2009. The final months of 2008 have shocked both local and global economies with large financial institutions failing to protect its own customers. As a result it has been predicted that Internet crime and fraud is likely to increase during the next 12 months. (Source BBC News website). To reassure all of our customers Paul Chapman Pictures would like to once again take this opportunity to say that although our website is still small and young, it is a very serious business, which is taking all the necessary steps to make our customers feel safe and secure when visiting our website.

By joining the SafeBuy scheme the Paul Chapman Pictures website has had to conform to SafeBuy's code of conduct. The SafeBuy organisation will also undertake anonymous orders from our website. This is to ensure that our website delivers what we promise to our customers. Secondly to combat online credit card fraud our website uses secure third party PayPal shopping cart technology to handle all financial transactions carried out on our website.

In the up and coming year the website will continue to evolve and feature more photographs, our YouTube channel will also continue to grow, with both more videos and even more video views.

Until next time...
...Paul Chapman Pictures.

Paul Chapman Pictures Puts the Consumer First

2008-12-29T20:23:00.003Z

As of today the Paul Chapman Pictures website has been accredited by the SafeBuy company. The Purpose of the SafeBuy Assurance scheme is to allow online retailers to differentiate themselves from both less reputable and secure competitors. The SafeBuy scheme is supported by The Office of Fair Trade, the institute of Directors as well as the Institute of Direct Marketing. In order to comply to the SafeBuy scheme the Paul Chapman Pictures website has had to adhere to several requirements including:

Adhere to the terms of the Sale of Goods Act, the EU Distance Selling Regulations and the EU Directive of Privacy and Electronic Communications.
Confirm to the Data Protection Act 1998.
Provide security for the processing of credit card transactions.
Include physical location and contact details for themselves on their website.
Display the total price consumers must pay for goods including delivery costs and provide a clear explanation of the delivery procedures.
Advise the consumer if 'cookies' are required for the processing of data.
Not use 'spam' for marketing purposes.

The SafeBuy company vets all sites during the accreditation and continuously carries out 'mystery shopper' exercises and standards checking to ensure that retailers are adhering to the scheme.

In the event of a consumer purchasing problem, SafeBuy has a mediation service, at no cost to the consumer or retailer, which can be referenced via the contact tab. The consumer has further right of redress through the SafeBuy arbitration scheme run by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators at www.idrs.ltd.uk/safebuy

(Courtesy of SafeBuy Ltd.)

It is Paul Chapman Pictures wish to ensure that every single customer is treated fairly and with the utmost of respect. By displaying the SafeBuy logo on our website all visitors can feel safe in the knowledge that our website is a professionally run and maintained website.

We feel that by gaining the SafeBuy accreditation Paul Chapman Pictures can be further taken seriously as a website which puts the interests of the consumer first. Although the website is still relatively young, we feel that this accreditation shows our commitment to creating a safe, professional and pleasant website to visit, enjoy and shop at.

Another benefit of gaining the SafeBuy accreditation has been the receipt of legally correct and proper privacy policy and terms and conditions documents. These are now fully in force and available throughout the whole of the Paul Chapman Picures website.

Lastly Paul Chapman Pictures would like to wish all of its customers a pleasant and peaceful new year, and a joyous 2009. Here at Paul Chapman Pictures we are franticly working towards confirming the 2009 motorsport racing season.

Ready, Steady, Rally!

2008-12-08T20:11:00.003Z

After spending the whole weekend up in Wales photographing the final round of the World Rally Championship its now time to start publishing the best of the shots. In true Paul Chapman Pictures tradition the first item to be published is the YouTube video. This time the video features photgraphs from the Swansea SA1 service park, as well as night time photographs from inside the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, and to top it all off the final part of the video features live action from Sebastian Loeb, Steve Perez and the unmissbale Valentino Rossi!

Stay tuned as the photographs will be added to the website, ready to be ordered within the next week, and just in time to still make the last day of trading in which Paul Chapman Pictures can guarntee Christmas delivery on the 19th December.

Paul...

Christmas Shopping

2008-11-20T14:41:00.003Z

Once again we begin to reach the time of year when the weather turns cold, the warm glow of the fire fills our hearts and dear old Santa decides whether you've been naughty or nice.

This Christmas give that someone special something that they can use all year round - a brand new Paul Chapman Pictures 2009 A4 calendar!! Each month a specially selected photograph has been chosen to reflect the mood of each month. The picture choices were hard as the ever growing archive of photographs that Paul Chapman Pictures has taken over the last 12 months has steadily increased.

One final note is that to guarantee 1st Class Christmas delivery of any photographs, A4 prints or even the brand new 2009 Calendar all orders must be placed and confirmed by the 19th of December.

PCPimages YouTube Channel Turns 1 year old too!

2008-10-31T15:57:00.005Z

Hello to everyone once again. This short blog entry is just to raise awareness to the fact that as of the 28th October the Paul Chapman Pictures YouTube video channel has been in existence for a full year. In many ways this short blog is also a huge thank you to all of the motorsport fans around the world who have been watching all ten short videos over the last year. Thanks to all of your help a total of 9,447 videos have been watched on our channel. Building on this fantastic first year of YubeTube videos Paul Chapman Pictures will continue to expand on our video catalogue, as well as increasing the multimedia qualtiy throughout the new videos.

The initial idea was to use the popularity of YouTube to help raise the impact of the Paul Chapman Pictures - Motorsport Photography website through the use of free and entertaining videos. We feel that this is being achieved with many other postive spin-offs for the website.

Quickly to summarise we wish for all the YouTube watching to continue, and rest ashored more videos will be added over the next year - starting with the WRC at the Millennium Stage in Cardiff at the beginning of December, with more info coming soon...

Paul Chapman Photography Returns to Wales

2008-10-25T12:58:00.004+01:00

For the third consecutive year Paul Chapman Photography will be covering the final round of the World Rally Championship at the Wales Rally GB from the 4th-7th of December. As usual the final stage on Saturday will be held within the Millennium Stadium in the heart of Cardiff. Although PCP will not be able to cover all of the rally stages it is possible to confirm our attendance to the Millennium Stadium stage and the service park throughout the weekend, with any luck additional stages will be added to the weekends schedule.

As is becoming customary of Paul Chapman Pictures a full multimedia YouTube video will be created, featuring the main highlights of the rally weekend. To date the pcpimages YouTube channel has seen nearly 9,000 video views. No other motorsports photography website offers such a free service to its customers and fanbase. Rest assured PCPimages.co.uk is working hard to confirm future 2008 and 2009 motorsport events - with the announcements being made here first.

In the next blog entry the long awaited Photosynth application will be discussed, as well as other 3D photographic applications. However this blog has had to be delayed as we are currently still awaiting further 3D converted photographs to correctly show and discuss the latest developments in photographic production.

Paul Chapman Pictures 1 year on...

2008-09-21T19:36:00.003+01:00

After a long a break, Paul Chapman Pictures has returned with more blogs, website updates and much more.

Firstly I have to confess that this break in blogs has been too long. However now that my MSc dissertation has been completed at Oxford Brookes University I can now fully commit to the website to improve its functionality and looks. Although the amount of time that was spent working on my dissertation distracted from the upkeep of the website, I had no option, degrees are never easy, but postgraduate degrees are even harder - period. However I wouldn't change a second of it, as the experience I have gained will stay with me forever.

My main experience at Oxford Brookes was being the official photographer of the Oxford Brookes Formula Student race team. This role has now been completed as the team attended the Formula Student Germany Competition at the Hockenheim F1 race circuit. This was the last event of the three competitions that the team were intending to participate in. These photos can of course be found on the website.

After travelling back from the competition in Germany the Paul Chapman Pictures website achieved its first birthday since its inception in late August 2007. In its first year the website has grown and evolved. The photo gallery alone has grown to hold an impressive 560 photos, ranging from 11 different motorsport events, taken in 4 different countries.

One of the key differences that Paul Chapman Pictures has strived to make is to widen the websites appeal and awareness by using new and innovative technology. The main way in which this has been achieved is through the YouTube videos. The first YouTube video was added to the servers in late October 2007, since then a total of 10 videos have been added to the pcpimages YouTube Channel. These videos were intended to showcase many of the best photos taken from each featured event, with many of the photos then available to order directly from the website. The popularity of these videos has been overwhelming, since adding the first video a total of 7,216 video views have been made worldwide. No other competitor website offers such a service to its customers and fan base.

This very Blog has been used to allow everyone to understand how the website has evolved, and what to expect in the future with regards to updates, news and forthcoming motorsport events. Look forward to more regular and entertaining Blogs in the coming year.

From the very beginning Paul Chapman Pictures has utilised technology to showcase the website, the future holds more technology - More details will be disclosed on another dedicated Blog, all I will say for now is Photosynth...

Formula Student Silverstone

2008-07-06T19:17:00.002+01:00

After watching today's British Formula 1 race at Silverstone, it was fantastic to see Lewis Hamilton win is home grand prix. At the moment all of the teams will be clearing up all of their equipment and moving onto the next race in Germany. But the are another 107 teams frantically preparing for their own race at Silverstone next week.

This time next week the annual IMechE Formula Student competition will be over. The competition sees universities from across the world bring student designed, manufactured and driven racing cars to the Silverstone race circuit. After a series of design, cost and business presentations the cars will hit the track to compete in straight line acceleration runs, figure of 8 loops as as well as a single lap sprint and a final endurance race. After all of this one team and its car will be crowned the Formula Student UK champion.

Out of all the international versions of this competition (including an Australian, Brazilian, Italian, Japanese, German and 2 American events) the British version is the only competition not to see a 'home' team win the competition. This year Oxford Brookes University will once again be aiming to lead the British challenge in a weeks time.

Ahead of the competition Paul Chapman Pictures was once again invited to a recent testing session with the Oxford Brookes Racing Team. This was the last opportunity for the team to finalise the on track setup of their car before the competiton begins in Silverstone.

In a similar way in which Paul Chapman Pictures travelled with the team to the FSAE competition at the Michigan International Speedway, Paul Chapman Pictures will be present at the Formula Student event at Silverstone. Paul Chapman Pictures will aim to capture not only the Oxford Brookes University Racing team, but also many of the other British teams which will be present at the event. All of the photographs will of course be uploaded onto the website and professional 6"x4" photographs will be available to order direct from the website for just 99p plus postage.

As a teaser for what to expect at next weeks Formula Student event please enjoy the photograph of the Oxford Brookes Formula Student race car during the recent testing session.

Le Mans 2008

2008-06-16T21:05:00.004+01:00

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.

Paul Chapman Pictures Abroad!

2008-06-09T22:10:00.002+01:00

Hello again, with another monthly round up of all the goings on here at PCPimages.co.uk. During the 14th-18th of May Paul Chapman Pictures travelled with the Oxford Brookes Racing Team to America, more specifically to Detroit and the Michigan International Speedway. Oxford Brookes University were the sole British representatives of the FSAE competition, a competition in which student designed, managed and built racing cars compete to be the best in the world. Paul Chapman Pictures was on standby for the whole of the four day event to capture all of the action as it happened to the Oxford Brookes Racing Team. However Paul Chapman Pictures still found time to capture the excitement and atmosphere of many of the other international teams that were taking part. These photographs can of course be seen online at www.pcpimages.co.uk.

As part of the work carried out for the Oxford Brookes Racing Team Paul Chapman Pictures has once again created a YouTube video which encompasses all of the trials and tribulations of the Oxford Brookes Racing Team over the whole four day event. The video can of course also be seen here on this blog page, in the top right corner - check it out now!

Now that Paul Chapman Pictures has begun to spread its wings in the global motorsport arena, we decided that we liked the idea of travelling sooo much, that we thought we'd do it again this month!!! Paul Chapman Pictures can confirm that we will be present at the 76th running of the world famous 24 Hr Le Mans race in France! We hope to be able to come back with plenty of photographs which will of course be uploaded onto the website a.s.a.p, and the complimentary YouTube will follow later on after the event. Whilst attending the Le Mans race it will be an opportunity for us to try out some new photographic equipment which was recently bought to bring much higher quality photographs to you.

Whilst attending the race weekend in France we will be unable to process any orders, or respond to any emails sent to us. However any orders will be processed by mid day of the Monday after the race has finished. So again we will be out of the office from Thursday 12th June until the Monday morning of the 16th June.

Please find attached one of the photgraphs of the Oxford Brookes University Formula SAE race car taken on track at the Michigan International Speedway, and thank you once again for your time and consideration in reading this blog.

Latest Update

2008-05-04T14:36:00.005+01:00

What a busy and eventful time it has been since the last entry with and both good and unfortunately tragic reasons. Firstly on the 30^th March David Leslie and four other occupants were killed during a plane crash at Farnborough,. David Leslie was amongst other things a part time lecturer at Swansea Institute of Higher Education. As a previous student at Swansea Institute of Higher Education (now renamed Swansea Metropolitan University) I was fortunate enough to meet David on a couple of brief occasions, clearly those occasions will be my last.

But with death comes rebirth. On this occasion hundreds of unique student designed and built racecars are beginning to show their presence on test tracks frantically preparing for the FSAE event on the 13^th-16^th May. For any non American teams, the added headache of having to crate up and ship/fly the team’s car out to America in time for the competition. For the sole British team entering the competition Oxford Brookes University have to design, build, test and now crate up their car and send it across to America in time for the competition. As the photographic supplier for the Oxford Brookes Racing Team Paul Chapman Pictures will be present to capture all of the action from all of the teams during the four day competition.

Preparations are fully underway for Paul Chapman Pictures to leave with the Oxford Brookes Racing Team on the 11^th May and travel to America. Unlike most of the other European teams entering the American Formula SAE event, the Oxford Brookes Racing Team are competing with a brand new race car, which has been conceived, designed and built all by students in just 8 months. Prior to the team sending the racecar and all of their support equipment to America the brand new car was unveiled outside of the Oxford Brookes University School of Technology.

Monthly Round-Up

2008-02-13T19:31:00.004Z

Hello to everyone out there! Todays blog is really just a quick round-up of what has been happening on the website in the last month.

Firstly its been a month since the Autosport International Show at the NEC in Birmingham. Soon after the show had finished Paul Chapman Pictures had created and edited its own short video, showing many of the highlights of the show. Since it was posted on YouTube it has so far been viewed over 1,000 times. The response that this video has created has been far greater than we ever expected. But we thank everyone who has seen it, and if you haven't you can still find it at:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vPJFTgD8kXg

The second bit of fantastic information that we can report is that Paul Chapman Pictures is currently finalising an association with Oxford Brookes University Formula Student Team. This association will include supplying photographic and video coverage to the team. This year the team will be competing in 3 interantional Formula SAE events, the first will be in Detroit - America, the second will be at Silverstone Race Circuit - UK and the last event will be at Hockenheim - Germany. To kick start this association, Paul Chapman Pictures were invited to a recent test session of the Oxford Brookes Formula Student Team. The test session took place at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground. Whilst we were present we were able to capture some exclusive on board footage of their car whilst it was on track. It was fantastic to be able to show the team, through the use of our equipment how the front suspension and wheels were in fact moving around as the race car went around the track.

Luckily for everyone we have also made this video open to the public, and this exciting and unique footage can also be found on YouTube at:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TxGMnijHfZY

With many more testing session planned in the future for the Oxford Brookes Formula Student Team Paul Chapman Pictures hopes it will be present at as many as possible to be able to capture and share with everyone more exciting footage of a real race car and team in action.

Lastly this month Paul Chapman Pictures has been joined with another motorsport photography website. This time we would like to publicly thank everyone at www.ncrallying.co.uk. Like I said in the previous blog, Paul Chapman Pictures takes every single partnership and association very seriously, and we look forward to creating stronger links with ncrallying.co.uk and Oxford Brookes Formula Student Team in the future.

For more information about Oxford Brookes Formula Student Team please visit www.brookesracing.co.uk

Many Thanks,

Paul...

Paul Chapman Pictures & Friends...

2008-01-28T22:33:00.000Z

Yes, its true. In the last week Paul Chapman Pictures has been able to create three new website links to other motorsports photography websites. I would like to be the first in personally thanking the websites owners in agreeing to support my own site. Whilst I am continuing to learn about motorsports photography, and whilst the website is still in its infancy (5 months and counting!) I believe it is a true measure of the websites appeal to be able to create new links with more experienced photographic companies.

Therefore I would once again like to personally thank;

Alan Medlock at www.motorsport-images.net,
Ant Jackson at www.antjacksonimages.co.uk,
and Ian Hardy at www.ianhardy.net.

I feel that as a newly linked website I should return the favour by helping to raise the profile of those who have linked to my website.

Not to be left out I feel I should also give a quick mention to Paul Smith at www.paulsmith-photography.co.uk. as his website was the first to forge a relationship with Paul Chapman Pictures.

I hope that all of these new relationships can continue well into the future, further enhancing not only www.pcpimages.co.uk, but also those four websites listed above.

Please check out these websites, as they all offer different insights into the joys of motorsport.

Many Thanks once again,

Paul...

Autosport Show Video

2008-01-15T22:44:00.000Z

Just another quick one, like the other racing events have I have attended in the past I have made a quick video of some of the highlights of the 2008 Autosport International Car Show. This time the video is a simple slide show of my favourite photos that I took during the event.
Although the video is fairly basic in its composition, I did spent alot of time tracking down a relevant piece of music that would accompany the photographs. Eventually I settled on a song titles "Ride In My Car" written and performed by the Woodsmen. Fortunately this song is free to download, and therefore I won't be having either YouTube or the music industry running after me with pitchforks and torches!!

Anyway the video is live and can be found on YouTube @ http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vPJFTgD8kXg

Enjoy!

Paul...

Autosport International Show

2008-01-12T19:17:00.000Z

Well you know when its a new year, because its time for the annual Autosport International Show. This year Autosport were teamed up with PistonHeads.com, who brought along their own smaller sports car show. Being a motorsport engineer and a part time motorsports photographer means that I can appreciate both sides of the Auotosport Show. The Thursday and Friday of the show are dedicated "Trade" days. During this time many of the companies produce or supply components, equipment, software or hardware for race car teams throughout the world. This year some of the new innovations included Flybrid's new and so far the only fully built and tested KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) flywheel. In 2009 the FIA have insisted that all Formula 1 cars have to have these new energy recovery storage systems fitted to them. As this is the first of these KERS products to be shown to the public there was alot of expectation and interest.

On the other hand this year saw even more sports and racing cars present at the NEC in Birmingham. This was partly due to the addition of the Piston Heads sports car show. The Piston Heads show had a huge host of Porsche, Ferrari, Lotus and Lamborghini sports cars. There was even a display of every single Mitsubishi Evo car that has thus far being produced! Other highlights of the Autosport Show was the newly liveried Le Mans spec Aston Martin's. Celebrating the 40th anniversary since the iconic Gulf Oil liveried Ford GT40's of the 1960's. Gulf Oil are now main sponsors of this years GT1 title defending Aston Martin's.

Another welcome addition to this years Autosport Show was a large and emotional tribute to the late, great Colin McRae. Many of his most recognizable rally cars were also on display - including the very Subaru in which he won his only World Rally Championship title in 1995. Each year the F1 Racing magazine creates a complete display of all the current F1 cars. In previous years this has been achieved by re-creating iconic racing circuit corners - these have previously been based on Monaco and Monza circuits. This year the display recreated a full pit lane experience, with each car positioned outside of mock pit lane garages. And for an extra special treat the newly created Force India F1 team officially launched their new F1 car at the Autosport Show.

After such a long day, (and countless miles being walked!) It was a pleasant surprise to find that it was, and had indeed being snowing outside of the NEC. Although the added snow ended a wonderful day at the show, it did make the long walk back to the car very very cold!!

So now at least I'm back home and slowly warming up - hopefully in time for the next event! Although this has not been decided yet, keep your eyes on the website to find out.

Paul...

Website Update 2.0.2

2008-01-04T13:32:00.000Z

I hope everyone has had a pleasant 2008 - so far! This week as promised I have spent my time updating the website, originally the plan was to add a 5 star rating system to all of the photograph previews, allowing everyone to rate each photo. Unfortunately the 3rd party company that I was using have had their severs down for the past few days. Without any idea of when their servers will be back up and running I have decided to remove this feature from my website pages. If it isn't going to work perfectly then I don't want it on my website - Period.

Apart from removing this feature from the web pages I have revamped the main web pages. Before the latest update the main pages used frames to create the layout of the pages. But I have realised that many people appear to only be directed to one of the two-framed pages. Thus I fear that many people visiting the site have been unable to access any of the photographs. If this is the case I am extremely sorry. Now the website layout has removed the need for the frames, meaning that all of the information and links will always be displayed to every single visitor to the site.

Anyway, with a week left until the 2008 Autosport International Car Show I would like to remind everyone that I will be present, and the latest batch of super car and supporting girls will be uploaded onto the site under a new "Autosport International Show" category. One of the highlights of this years show is going to be a tribute to the late and great Colin McRae. As well as this the first public appearance of the new Force India F1 team will be made, with many of the current F1 drivers making appearances at the show.

For more information about the show visit www.autosport-international.com

Many Thanks,

Paul...

Season Greetings & Happy New Year.

2007-12-31T20:21:00.000Z

May I first send out my season greetings by wishing everyone a very happy Christmas, and a very merry 2008.

With the formalities out the way I have to unfortunately appologise again, by saying that the current updates that are being rolled out across the whole website are still not complete. My excuse for this is that I decided to take a much deserved and needed week long break. After having worked flat out since September on all of my post graduate degree studies, and especially all of my Oxford Brookes Formula Student responsibilities I have needed to take a long week (or two!!) just to simply relax and to switch off.

Until the 7th of January I am not expected back at Oxford, and in the coming week I can promise that the majority of the updates on the website will be completed. However these changes will not be updated onto the server until I get back in Oxford - sorry but thats just the way it is.

I can also confirm that I will be attending the Autosport International show on the 11th of January, where I hope to capture some of the greatest racing cars from past and present.

It leaves me to only repeat my initial season greetings and I really do hope that everyone has a pleasant, prosperous and peacefull 2008.

Paul...

Website Update 2.0.1

2007-12-16T20:54:00.000Z

WOW what a week its been!!

Firstly I have to apologies and say that I was hoping to be able to announce that all of the 421 photographs that are now online, and ready to order, have all been updated with the new 5-star rating system. But the last week has been very hectic and stressful with my current MSc degree studies. I had to sit a 3 hour "advanced engineering management" exam on Friday, so up until Friday I couldn't do any more updates on the website. But now that its Sunday evening, and my brain has had a chance top relax, I have now been able to update all of the 2006 Wales Rally GB photographs with the 5-star rating system. I should be fairly relaxed now for the next month, so I will try to roll out the remaining updates asap.

Just a quick note for anyone thinking of ordering any photographs for Christmas presents. The Royal Mail have a cut-off delivery day to ensure that all parcels and mail can be delivered on time for Christmas. This year it has been set to the 20th of December. On a personal note could I ask anyone wishing to receive any orders from the website before Christmas to place their orders no later than the 18th of December. This is to ensure that all orders can be guaranteed to reach you in time for Christmas.

Oh, before I forget, anyone who hasn't seen any of the pcpimages videos on YouTube, we have our own channel on their, and that has had a quick face lift as well to fit in-line with the website a bit better. Check it out now at http://uk.youtube.com/pcpimages
And of course you'll have noticed that this blog has now had the same face lift to also move it in-line with the pcpimages brand -sexy!!!

Lastly I hope everyone who visits the website, reads the blogs, buys any merchandise from out spreadshirt.com shop or watches any of our videos all have a very merry Christmas and a very happy and safe New Year.

Paul...

Wbsite Update 2.0

2007-12-07T20:25:00.000Z

Hey everyone,

Another quick note for everyone that is following the site recently. Last week I went to the Wales Rally GB in Swansea, all the photos that I took are now online and available to order. The next event that I will be attending is the Autosport International Show at the NEC in Birmingham on the 12th-13th January 2008. To help everyone out I've installed a countdown clock which will tell everyone exactly how many days are left until the show.

Lastly I am in the process of adding a 5-star rating system to all of the photographs that are online. This will allow anyone to vote which photographs they feel are the best in my every growing collection. At the moment the rating system is only live on the new Wales Rally photos and a few others. But within the next week I hope to have it available throughout the whole site. Eventually I hope to be able to create a top 10 area, which will have all the currently best rated photos in a special area, they might even have a special price attached!! But people will have to start voting on them before I will think of doing anything like that - you have been warned!!!

I hope everyone will continue to enjoy the site, and especially the new features.

Paul...
www.pcpimages.co.uk

Website Update

2007-12-04T20:49:00.000Z

Just a short note for today.

A new video of the footage that was taken during the WRC Rally Special Stage at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium on Saturday has now been posted online, both on YouTube and on the pcpimages.co.uk website - under the videos section.

I hope everyone took advantage of the free shipping that was available for all of our PCP branded clothing and merchandise during November - T-shirts make great Christmas presents!!

The next event that PCPimages will be attending will be the ever popular Autosport International - The Racing Car Show, on the 12-13th January 2008.

www.pcpimages.co.uk - or should I say Wet, Windy and Wild.pcpimages.co.uk!!!

2007-12-03T21:43:00.000Z

I knew that before leaving oxford to go back to Swansea on Friday evening that it would rain. I have just spent 3 years living and studying in Swansea - So the weather wasn't really going to be a surprise to me (It always rains on a Sunday morning before lunchtime, for instance). But I think in the short time that I have spent away from Swansea I have forgotten just how heavy and wet rain can, and in fact is in Wales!!!

The weekend didn't really get off to a fantastic start when it took me 2 hours to get out of Oxford via public transport. [I know that no-one could have done much about a freight train that thought it would be fun to empty its fluids all over the track] But its no way to start a long journey packed on trains.

Anyway as soon as I got into Swansea (some 5 hours later) guess what - yep it started to rain!!

Friday night passed into Saturday morning, and by now it was only lightly raining, so off to the rally stages it was! First stop was Epynt and the Army Firing range. After watching all the WRC cars drive past, we thought about moving off, and back down to Cardiff where for the last 3 years the super special stage has been held within the Millennium Stadium. This year the organiser's promised a winter wonderland atmosphere, and with the cold weather, and the stage being run in the dark it really did feel like a real winter stage. But before we left Epynt, we were able to see local Welsh hero Gwyndaf Evans decide that his car didn't like its current gearbox, and proceeded to grind, crunch and mangle as much metal off any gear that got in the way. Needless to say Gwyndaf had to retire and wait for a toe.

After watching all the cars race through the Millennium Stadium stage, there was an extra treat, the organiser's had added an extra challenge to the rally weekend with representatives from the army, navy and air force competing the rally in Land Rovers. So after all the rally spec cars had completed the stage it was the turn of six Land Rovers to tackle the stage!

Sunday morning came after one of the best nights sleep I have ever had on a sofa. By now my only pair of socks and shoes had dried out from the soaking on Saturday, which meant that I would at least have the pleasure of having warm feet. Sunday morning was mainly spent around the service park area in the newly developing SA1 area on Swansea's waterfront. By now as usual the rain had once again started. But this time it didn't matter as the majority of the service park was sheltered. I was fortunate enough to witness Marcus Gronholm's last official World Rally service, and he made an extra effort for his loyal supporters. But ultimately as the cars left the service park Sebastian Loeb would be champion by the end of the day - unless the unexpected were to happen on the Welsh hills. But Sebastian kept his nerve and his World Champion title for another year (thats 4 in a row now, and who could take it away from him next year?)

After the end of the Wales Rally GB it was time to climb aboard another train back to Oxford, and back to bed. If only it was that simple! Engineering works between Swansea and Cardiff meant an hour journey by coach, but at Swansea there were enough people to fill 2 coaches, but the first had left 10 minutes before the second one appeared. This meant that by the time I (and the rest of the second coach) arrived at Cardiff the train had decided to leave without us. So it was now a very cold 50 minute wait on the platform for another train to arrive. Eventually it did, so I could rest until getting off at Swindon, except the next train I had to catch was also delayed by 20 minutes. Once that train turned up it was a sort journey to Didcot Parkway, fortunately the final train to Oxford wasn't late, but it was still busy. All in all it took a good 5 hours from leaving Swansea to getting home in Oxford. I know for a fact that one of my mates (who works for one of the rally teams) can travel from Cumbria to Swansea in the same time that it took me to travel half that distance!

Anyway, please check out the website, and especially have a look at the new Wales Rally GB 2007 photographs. Remember all photographs only cost 99p, with some available as A4 prints as well.

PCPimages.co.uk Launches to the world!

2007-11-19T20:52:00.000Z

Welcome all photography and especially motorsport fans, to my new site called www.pcpimages.co.uk. On this new site you can buy professionally printed photgraphs of all the motorsport events that I have recently been to, all from just 99p!

Although I said that this is a new site, it has in fact been live since September, but due to my university studies I have had little free time to set everything up in time for the initial launch. But better late than never.

The site has much more to offer than just buying photgraphs. I have already created two promotional videos that can be found not only on my site, but on YouTube as well. The best addition to the site is our own shop, where anyone can help spread the word of pcpimages.co.uk by purchasing offically branded clothing, lanyards and even a cuddly teddy bear (awww!) All of this is thanks to SpreadShirt.com. Even better is that all deliveries are free during Novemeber!

I hope everyone just takes a few minutes to check out the site, and if anyone has any comments about anything on the site, jst let me know.

Well that was my first blog, and I'll be back soon to talk about the next BIG event that PCPimages will be attending - Wales Rally GB.