Following my recent trip to the Porche Museum, I read an interesting item on the PetaPixel blog in which Neil Burgess, 25 years a photojournalist, head of London-based photo agency NB Pictures, former head of Network Photographers and Magnum Photos, and twice Chairman of World Press Photo claimed photojournalism was dead.
“I believe we owe it to our children to tell them that the profession of ‘photojournalist’ no longer exists,” says Burgess. “There are thousands of the poor bastards, creating massive debt for themselves hoping to graduate and get a job which no-one is prepared to pay for anymore. Even when photographers create brilliant stories and the magazine editors really want to publish them, they cannot pay a realistic price for the work.”
As someone who packed in working 9-5 to concentrate on being one of the “poor bastards…hoping to get a job which no one is prepared to pay for anymore”, this is disappointing news, assuming it is accurate.
I recently took a trip to the Porsche Museum, where I shot a few hundred frames on my Leica D-Lux compact camera. Some are seen here. I had intended the pics for blog and library use but, as I was pleased with the quality, I decided to pitch them to the editor at Total 911 magazine.
“What about people who take once-in-a-lifetime trips to the Porsche Museum, Schlumpf Collection, Spa Francorchamps Museum and so on?” I asked. “Why don’t we run a feature with the pics taken on a compact camera, like most folks will use on these trips? Let’s get Leica involved. I’ll go to London and talk to Brett, the Leica M photographer, get some critique on my pics, and ideas for myself and those coming after me to take with them to the museum.”
The editor liked the idea. I went to the Leica Akademie in Bruton Place, London to meet with Brett, and the piece is in this month’s magazine. It’s not the perfect manifestation of the concept, but I’m sure it’s not the last piece of this nature we three will do together, and reaction so far has been positive.
My first words-and-pics feature was the R Gruppe Bergmeister Tour in 911 and Porsche World magazine: it made the cover. I’ve since done a few more and they are steadily improving in my eyes, as is the copy that accompanies the pictures. What matters to me is exactly what mattered to every photojournalist that has gone before: that the vision is actualised and presented to a wider audience.
I started photography to support storytelling, and still see my pictures as helping to tell a story in three dimensions. Will my photography ever be as good as a full-blown professional’s work? In most applications, it doesn’t need to be; one way that photojournalism is evolving.
I feel the incredible buzz that surrounds these pieces, so I say photojournalism is far from dead: it is just assuming new forms in new media. After years of neglect, the art is waking up to endless potential, thanks to the rise of blogging, personal publishing, the iPad and all like it. To anyone who thinks they can make a living at it, I say you can.
Burgess’ career points call to mind a friend of mine who can make people laugh at a party feeling like she’s a natural born stand up, or another friend who once bluffed his way past customs, believing that he was a great actor in the making. Both are beautifully talented and both chased their dreams, only to discover that the commitment needed to transform that talent into a career is enormous; well beyond what either had imagined. The same is true of photojournalism in modern media.
Believe me, taking a salary from your vision is hugely challenging, but doable if you commit to it absolutely. Get ready to fall over a lot, and to be off the pace of many of your peers. If you don’t think you can turn that into something worthwhile that an audience will pay for, stay with the 9-5. But be sure the choice is yours: no one else’s.
Just whizzed my 1976 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.0 down to the local tyre shop, to fit some all-weather tyres in place of the well-worn Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tyres I had been using. Or not using as is a better way of putting it: the classic Porsche has not turned a wheel since July of last year.
As ever, the Porsche fired up straight away. I just reconnected the battery isolator and the miniature Odyssey battery cranked it into life on the first turn. I crammed four Continental Sport Contact tyres into the cabin and off we went.
The damp weather today gave me some interesting new-tyre moments on the greasy roads. A massive powerslide out of the tyre depot T-junction make a few people laugh, including me.
Off to the UK launch of the new 911 Carrera GTS down in Bournemouth now. Will try to post some pics and details later.
About the 1976 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.0
This model is uniquely important in the history of the 911 series, as it was produced for two years only (1976-77).
The Carrera 3.0 used standard impact-bumper bodywork (with Carrera RS-width rear arches) and offered much improved performance over its 2.7-litre 911 and 911S contempararies. In magazine road tests of the time, the Carrera 3.0 set quicker 0-60mph times than the 911 Turbo or 930 model.
Key to the appeal of the Carerra 3.0 is its 2993cc engine, using the same cast aluminium crankcase as the 930, with the lightweight six-bolt crankshaft from the legendary 1973 Carrera RS.
The Carrera 3.0 engine was developed from the very rare Carrera 3.0RS, which formed the basis for the 3.0 RSR cars: highly successful racers in the 1974 and 1975 seasons, winning both the FIA GT Championship and the IMSA Championship each year.
I had to share this official Porsche video. It’s an excellent bit of filming and editing, shot on location at the Porsche Experience Centre at Silverstone, showing the GT2 RS at its wild best.
I’m posting this video for all those who insist that the only Porsche worth having is some obscure race special that was built in low volume back in the day, before being delivered to owners who drove the tits off them and sent them to the great Zuffen House in the sky.
It’s usually the case that the loudest shouters have never sat in their ‘one true Porsche’, let alone driven it. A large part of the attraction for some seems to be the unobtainability, but how pointless is lusting after the unobtainable?
The GT2 RS is another Porsche destined for this fate. All are sold out, there are no more to be built and many are bound to be destroyed. It’s just a matter of time before today’s 10 year-olds are tomorrow’s forty year-olds, banging on about how the 997 GT2 RS is the “only 911 worth having”, despite this video being the nearest some of them will ever get to it! As Jean-Baptiste Karr put it: “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose”!
I understand enthusiasm for a model, but not to the exclusion of all others. There’s something good in every Porsche, even if the best one can say is that it keeps the AG coffers full for Porsche Classic fun.
Anyway, all this rambling brings me to my point! Rare-groove snobs usually reckon that Porsche is trading on past glories and can’t build sports cars any more. To them we say: stick this mental 911 in your pipe and smoke those rear tyres, baby!
I just got back from California: my third trip in two years. Before my last visit, I bought a sweet little 1980 Porsche 911 SC Coupe on Craiglist. The car had been owned by the same guy since 1989 and was an honest, rust-free 911.
Sure, the paint had weathered a few storms and the trim had seen better days. But, riding on Fuchs, with an engine rebuilt to Euro specs – new pistons and cylinders and SSIs too – it pulled like a train with a Tornado strapped on top.
I used the SC (christened The Varmint) for ten days and over 2,000 miles. Let me tell you: there is nothing like ripping around sunny California in your very own 911. I went everywhere: across the Golden Gate, along Mulholland Drive and down the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu, at sunrise and sunset.
When the trip was finished, I shipped The Varmint home. A friend made me an offer I could have refused, but chose not to. I put the money away for next time.
A few weeks before we were due to leave this time around, I started looking for Varmint Mk 2: something that wouldn’t break the bank, but could transport us in SC comfort for a week, before we sold it on or shipped it home. Shergar would have been easier to find.
In the year or so since buying Varmint, the exchange rate had shifted, the economy had lifted and the number of affordable 911s on offer had drifted away. Between the breakers and the other European speculators, California had been drained of sub-$10k 911s.
My regular trip to Essen earlier in the year had showed there was no letup in the number of 911s finding their way back to Germany from the USA, but California is Porsche nirvana: these cars are everywhere! I couldn’t believe how fast the tap had dried up.
Markets shift and money follows. Economies ebb and flow, and cars like the 911 move around the world. My first 911 lived in 5 countries before I bought it. Of the three I have now, one has been registered in three European countries, another has been though four states and three countries and the third has just left its fifth state/country, en route to the sixth. Pretty busy stuff.
When I first got into 911s, left hand-drive was the cheap option. UK dealers were buying in Stuttgart and selling in Stoke on Trent. I prefer left hand-drive, so it suited me fine, but it wasn’t long before Germany woke up to the UK bargains and took the left-hookers home. The same thing has happened in west coast USA.
Now however, the Euro has slumped to a four-year low against the Dollar, so might the USA begin buying cars back? Ebb and flow is how it goes. In the middle of it all are the shippers: making a living, whichever way the cars sail.
November 2010 is 911 & Porsche World magazine’s 200th edition, so Editor Bennett has pulled out as many stops as possible to make it entertaining. The centrepiece is a conglomerative effort from all editorial contributors, in a feature called ‘Ultimate Porsche’. The idea was we had to pick our ultimate factory Porsche, and bring it to Bruntingthorpe to run them all back to back.
My ultimate Porsche is a 917: nothing touches that car for drama and all-round Porsche cleverness. Entered via loophole and raced hard by our favourite heros, the 917 demanded king-size balls to drive quickly. Just looking at it makes me feel a bit funny, so what it must feel like to drive one at 250 mph down the Mulsanne Straight, with the lightweight body flexing and pinning your foot to the throttle pedal, I have no idea.
I tried everywhere I could think of to get a 917, but to no avail. Once I was used to the idea of not being able to bring my Ultimate Porsche, the next best thing was probably an easier solution than most people would believe.
My take was that the Ultimate Porsche beyond the 917 should be something you can get into right now and take to the Bergmeister Monte Carlo route: surely the most incredible driving ever done in a car. So it had to be something within easy reach.
Looking in my garage, I had two 911s to choose from: my Carrera 3.0 and the 964RS I was advertising for sale on behalf of a friend. Both are quick, in nice condition, both sound and smell like a proper Porsche and both are wonderful to drive. So which one to take?
964RS v 3.2 Club Sport v 2.7 RS
Picking your own car for one of these things is dodgy ground. Much as I love my C3, there is barely an as-factory part on it. I also make no secret of the fact that it could one day go to a new home, so by definition it is not the last word in Porsche for me. If I had the asking price for a decent 964RS sitting in my bank account I would buy one, no question and with absolutely no hesitation. So, red one it is then.
This choice may seem tough to reconcile with my well-known love of the early and impact-bumper style cars, but it’s not that tricky really. The 964 Carrera RS looks like them, sounds like them, smells like them but goes faster than any of them in factory guise. The one in my garage was set up by Water Röhrl and rides beautifully. It’s built like the brick proverbial. Every time I get in it, I soon find myself driving like an eighteen year-old.
3.0 RSR v 997 Turbo v 964 RS v rest
It’s a time machine, plain and simple. If you want to make yourself twenty years younger buy a 964 RS. It comes from a time when Porsche built sports cars: the world’s best sports cars. And they all looked like classics, straight out of the box.
My Top Ten from the Ultimate Porsche line-up:
964RS. Uncompromising in every positive sense of the word. A Stuttgart V-sign to all Porsche-hating motoring journos, it says: “Don’t like me? F**k you, get me a proper driver.”
2.7 RS. Think of it like Scarlett Johansson lying on a bed, summoning you with her finger. There is no saying no.
997 Turbo. Faster than a shooting star strapped to a 4wd comet. There comes a point where outright ability matters: this car is past that point.
3.0 RSR. Won’t run under 4k rpm and is too noisy to take anywhere but I’d live in it.
911 2.4S. Every inch a classic.
356 Cabriolet. The original. The one that started it all.
Cayenne Turbo. A Porsche for every day. As Fraser says: if you could only have one Porsche for the rest of your life, then….
996 GT3. I’m never going to get past those headlamps. Sorry GT3 boys.
Carrera Club Sport. Gas-filled exhaust valves do not an RS make. If they’d gone further it’d be the Ultimate, but they sold us short.
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