Iconic Motorsport images by photographer Steve Theodorou.

Over the summer Paddock42 have been out and about in the paddock, attending various motorsport events -and we kept bumping into Steve Theodorou. Steve was “on the lens” throughout the late 1970’s and early 1980’s and we wanted to share with you some of the images that he captured.

Steve went to his first motor race race in 1967, started working in photography in 1970 and got involved with motorsport by photographing a friend racing at circuits all over the UK in the late 70’s. Silverstone in 1979, was Steve’s first GP where he shot a couple of rolls of film and from then on he got the bug for racing and that same year went to his first his 24hr Le Mans.

Some more attempts in the following year blagging his way into the pits at smaller events and shooting whatever he could, eventually getting low level press passes until a very kind photographer supplied Steve a press pass which gave him access to the track and pits. From then on Steve shot as many events as he could, returning home to process and print the images and then sending them off to various magazines. Amazingly not one image ever got published and in 1986 Steve decided to call it a day on his motor racing photography.

“Blagging his way into the pits at smaller events and shooting whatever he could.”

Roll on 25 years and Steve had the urge to go through his collection of negatives and slides. The thought quickly hit him of creating a website and then doing exhibitions. After the first exhibition at the “Autosport Show” which was received pretty well he decided to try a couple more events. It has been a long road but the dissapointment of not getting work published back in the day has been long forgotten as the images are being appreciated a lot more now than they ever would have back then.

All those budding motorsport photographers now using digital photography and photoshop – take note the skill required to get quality high speed shots using a 35mm camera is not to be under estimated. Its fantastic to see these great photos and the likes of Senna up close in the paddock (take a look at Steve’s website Motorsport Classics for that one) these are images that would grace any home, office, shop or “Man Cave”.