After spending years and possibly thousands of pounds going to Mike Greenwoods ‘Photostox’ stall at meetings as a young lad, I decided to have ago at taking photos myself figuring it couldn’t be that hard could it and would work out cheaper in the long run, wrong on both counts!!
 
I picked up an old Canon AE-1 SLR camera from a photographic shop in Northampton and a 70-210 zoom lens and flash from a bloke down the road, off I went to try my hand at taking my own photos at a mid August banger meeting at Brafield in 2002 with varied results of success. I then returned to Brafield on October 19th to try my luck again this time with the F1s on track, notably racing for the Grand National Championship.
 
That was pretty much how I started, still with the AE-1 in hand my first full season in 2003 behind the lens saw me capture the action at a few different venues such as Birmingham, Mildenhall, Skegness, along with more trips Brafield’s domestic rod & banger meetings to practice!

With more experience and helpful advice from other photographers I seemed to be getting the hang of it, but that said there are some shockingly bad photos in the loft!

I started to submit photos to magazines such as SCM and Unloaded 7.3 and often wondered why they didn’t get into print more often, looking back it was because they where rubbish!

For the 2004 season I took the plunge and purchased a digital camera, a Canon 300D along with a Sigma 28-300mm lens and a Canon EX Speedlite flash gun with which I had a good season taking thousands of photos over the course of the year with one or two regularly appearing in Stockcar Mag, Stoxworld & Unloaded 7.3.

I acquired a Canon 20D with 18-200mm Sigma lens mid way through the 2005 season which is now my first camera with the 300d being the back up.

‘Bwplive’ came about because of a couple of ‘free’ websites that my photos appeared on before I got in touch with ‘Digital Red‘ who I have had web space from now for the past three years and counting. This new site being the second version of bwplive.com   - as for the name, well I adjusted Paul Browns ‘PBP-live’ title to suit, luckily Paul (& with him being bigger than me!) took it as a compliment. 

Since Aug. 2002 I have taken photos at the following venues;

Arena Essex, Barford, Belle Vue, Bristol, Birmingham, Bovingdon, Buxton, Coventry, Cowdenbeath, Hednesford Ipswich, Knockhill, Kings Lynn, Mallory Park, Mildenhall, Northampton, Onchan I.O.M, Ringwood, Sheffield, Skegness, Standlake, St Day, Wimbledon.