Chasing the Dream: F1 Photography

One of Badger’s avid fans, Shivraj Gohil is a professional photographer who’s determined to get into Formula 1.  When you see his beautiful images, you’ll see why we think he should be involved in F1 too.  We asked him about his passion for F1 and how’s getting on with chasing the dream of being an F1 photographer.  

Have a read and check out his work – let us know what you think in the comments.

Dream job?  that’s a pretty straight forward question, but I had no idea how to answer it until recently, all I knew was it must have something to do with Formula 1 or motor sport in general.

So how did photography come about?  Once I left university, my dad and I started a family business of wedding photography, to say the first few years were difficult is an understatement and Formula 1 took a backseat. Once I educated myself in lenses and camera techniques, I started applying this knowledge away from the wedding scene and made a trip to the British GP 2010.

How did that go? Being an avid Schumacher fan, I was completely pumped up to see the man I had cheered on as a young fellow during his comeback year. I’ll never forget that weekend: my race ticket got stolen from my backpack, I got sunburnt and almost fainted, all within the Friday afternoon. Great start, but saying that I had 4 hours of solid practice and captured these beautiful machines in motion, I was hooked (I never found the ticket so I missed the Saturday and Sunday).

2 things I learnt from that weekend: the first being never keep your ticket in your backpack and second, I needed to invest in kit, more specifically, a lens. For those who don’t know price ranges, lenses start from expensive to very expensive, but once you have your heart set on something, it’s difficult to turn your back over some obstacles, well for me anyway!

What have you done since? Next stop came the British GP 2011, ILMS (International Le Mans Series) race at Silverstone, the 2nd Barcelona F1 test 2012 and the Monaco GP 2012. My priorities were pretty simple, see as many Schumacher races before he retires again, develop a very artistic portfolio and get accreditation through an agency, journalist, website or a contact within the actual F1 circus. Not easy to say the least, but like anything in life, you just have to dedicate, hound and make a lot of positive noise and people will sit up and take notice.

With the power of social media and the incredible presence Formula 1 fans and bloggers have online, I can share my best pieces and get the feedback and exposure I wouldn’t have got if I had started 10 years back.

So what’s in the pipeline in the immediate future? Well, Austin Texas is the next stop, then the Barcelona tests 2013.  From there I’m not too sure, wherever I feel my portfolio would benefit greatly, but you never know, maybe I will have accomplished accreditation for a race by then and when someone asks me ‘what is your dream job?’ I’ll just smile and say ‘ask me what I do’.

And here’s more of Shivraj’s work – follow him on Twitter @ShivyF1 for more or leave a comment below.