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The art of the cornering shot
2 years ago
Did it come back? Thanks to the magic of photography, the reader will never know...
I remember Steve Cropley, then the 38-year-old editor of Car magazine, hanging around the art department eagerly waiting to see photographic evidence of recent artistry behind the wheel. The pics were worth the wait because Steve’s fine work in a Jaguar XJ-S made one of the best oversteer shots I’ve ever seen. What made it so good was that instead of the car being at some comical angle with several turns of opposite lock applied, you had to look carefully at the picture to see the slight angle of the front wheels. What was obvious from the shot was that Cropley and the Jag were travelling very quickly indeed.
Car’s longest serving contributor, Georg Kacher, was an even greater enthusiast of the cornering shot and Uncle Georg didn’t care what car he was in – he had to make it go sideways through a corner. There was nothing funnier than seeing all 6ft 8in of Kacher barrelling into a corner in a Fiat Panda or Citroën Visa at right angles to the intended direction of travel.
Ideally you’d learn the art of managing oversteer for the camera somewhere with adequate run off. Autocar and several other magazines used the legendary Longcross test track in Chobham, Surrey, but we at Car were banned from the establishment for publishing a spy shot that we’d taken there. We did most of our testing, particularly for the mag’s trademark Giant Tests, at Castle Combe in Wiltshire. The only drawback with the ‘Combe is that before the current chicanes were fitted, it was a ridiculously fast circuit. Also, there was too much space which gave a false sense of security. Most of our cornering shots were done on roads with no run off at all and more often than not something very solid right next to the road. Like a stone bridge abutment or a tree.
"Photographers are the unsung heroes of motoring journalism. Not only do their images bring a story to life, but their bravery in the face of testosterone-fuelled fire was the stuff of legend. Safety is taken much more seriously these days, but in the 1980s, ’90s and early 2000s snappers simply hung out the back"
Driving for a cornering shot should not be confused with the modern cult of drifting. I’m sure that much skill is required but it’s one thing drifting a 400bhp Nissan 200SX with the (modified) steering lock of a London taxi and quite another fighting a Dodge Viper through a wet corner in the Brecon Beacons. It was all the more challenging in the era of film because the photographer couldn’t be sure that he’d captured a sharp image. This meant that we had to do multiple runs through the corner which upped the risk of getting one of them wrong and falling off. Crappy weather meant even more attempts might be required due to tricky light conditions.
Photographers are the unsung heroes of motoring journalism. Not only do their images bring a story to life, but their bravery in the face of testosterone-fuelled fire was the stuff of legend. Safety is taken much more seriously these days, with harnesses worn for shooting out of the back of a car for tracking shots, for instance. However, in the 1980s, ’90s and early 2000s snappers simply hung out the back, sometimes with an extended seatbelt to cling to but usually not, often with the camera held inches off the road, hoping they’d neither fall out or be rammed by a Diablo. Or both.
Their greatest bravery, however, was during the cornering shot element of the shoot. Gus Gregory has worked for most of the UK’s motoring mags including Car and Evo. He’s been in the firing line more than most in a career spanning more than 30 years. Is he surprised to have come away unscathed? ‘You’ve absolutely got to trust the driver,’ says Gregory. ‘I never thought I’d get hit, not least because I worked with so many good drivers. Guys like John Barker and Dickie Meaden could put a car on the same black mark on the road time after time. That was what you were after because in the days before digital photography and auto focus you had to aim at a particular point that was in focus and press the shutter button as the car crossed the spot.
“When you really trusted the guy behind the wheel you would stand or crouch wherever you’d get the best angle for the shot. But with less experienced drivers, who you might not have worked with before, I was certainly more circumspect about where I’d shoot from”
‘I went through a phase of using a large format Hasselblad camera for almost all shots including cornering. It had a digital back but it was still a very analogue camera and you needed a consistent driver. When you really trusted the guy behind the wheel you would stand or crouch wherever you’d get the best angle for the shot. But with less experienced drivers, who you might not have worked with before, I was certainly more circumspect about where I’d shoot from. Not on the outside of the corner, where the car is almost certainly going to go if the driver loses it.’
If the corner being used isn’t wide open then most sensible road testers and photographers would nominate a lookout to check that there was no traffic coming and that it was safe to proceed. They would keep an eye out for oncoming vehicles, and wave or radio to the driver when it was safe to go. Unless the lookout was very young and called Colin Goodwin.
It was around 1998 and we were shooting a twin-test between a Chevrolet Camaro (which Vauxhall was making a doomed attempt to officially import) and a Nissan 300ZX in Wiltshire. My Autocar colleague Andrew Golby was the driver, and takes up the story: ‘Goodwin was meant to be keeping a lookout but when, on one run in the Camaro, I nearly ran a Skoda Estelle off the road it was clear that our man was not doing his job properly,’ he explains.
‘It turned out that he was concentrating on a phone call arranging a date with a girl and not paying attention at all. There were two people in the Skoda, both wearing light blue shirts. Not only did these two members of the constabulary give me a serious dressing down on the spot, but another two coppers came to Autocar’s office to interview me about the incident. It was just at the start of the speed awareness and driving courses and I was sent on one of the first that dealt with dangerous or reckless driving. It was held in Swindon and went on for two days! It took a long time for me to forgive Goodwin.’
Fortunately that incident is my only serious cornering shot disaster. I did once momentarily lose control of a Volkswagen Corrado VR6 but got it back again using a couple of feet of grass verge in the process. I never liked doing cornering shots in front-wheel drive cars. Peugeots, and in particular the 306 Rallye, were okay because they had very predictable lift-off oversteer but I didn’t like having to use the ‘bung and lift’ technique with lower-powered and more understeery cars. I preferred powerful rear-drive cars with more power than grip. My best ever cornering shot was in a TVR Cerbera, which like Cropley’s XJ-S shot was quick with just a hint of oversteer.
My days of driving for cornering shots are long behind me. Lack of regular practice has dented my confidence and eroded the skills required. Also, so many of today’s cars have enormous mechanical grip so do not slide so readily or predictably. I’m just glad to have got away with it for many years and in the era before smartphones captured everything – good and bad.
