Capturing Guiness World record speed attempt by Nathan D'Amour with IQ180 by Phase One

Photographer Nathan D'Amour went to Noble Automotive, a leading British sports car manufacturer, to help promote Mike Newman's work. Mike Newman is already a four time Guinness World record holder who will later this year make history by attempting to become the first British triple crown holder for land, water and air speed records. The first record attempt of which will be driving a British supercar, the Noble M600, the ambition being to drive unaccompanied in excess of 200mph. These achievements in themselves are impressive but when you find out the person embarking on these record attempts is actually completely blind, takes it to a completely other level!

We asked Nathan about his visit to Noble Automotive and why he is part of this project:

What is the overall idea of these images?
The idea behind the shoot was to produce some portrait images of Mike Newman to support his cause with the Speed Of Sight charity.

What is your key source of inspiration for these images?
Mike's passion and drive is inspirational not only to disabled people but to anyone facing life's challenges, I wanted to offer my services so we could draw attention to Mike's vision and accomplishments.

Inspiration came from Noble Automotive and its hand built carbon bodied production car the M600. Nobel is a British sports car manufacturer and is sponsoring Mike's land speed record attempt and supplying the Nobel M600 for the attempt.
It was pointed out that we could include the M600 car in the shoot and Noble offered two possible shoot locations, their headquarters and Bruntingthorpe proving grounds where they test drive all their cars.

How much time did you spend on preparation and the actual shoot?
Very little time was spent on preparation due to other work commitments, I didn't even have time to prep all my equipment it was a case of a few hours sleep and loading up the car and driving off to the shoot locations, hoping I hadn't forgotten any key equipment.
I'd drafted a basic brief and knew we had several locations to shoot at, which had not been seen or scouted. In fact when we turned up at Nobel headquarters early morning and they we under the assumption that we where just photographing the car in its show room!
The show room was limited for space and after seeing their workshop areas I thought this would make for a more interesting environment. Luckily Nobel where amenable and accommodated this idea.

What was the most difficult part of the project to accomplish?
The weather was the most challenging part of the project as one of the locations was outdoor. We shot during wintertime so we battled against the cold temperature and winds.

What has been the reaction you have received from these images?
The Speed Of Sight Team loved the photographs as I think they had never really had much in the way of good publicity shots before, as well Nobel was very grateful.


What are the next steps in the projects?
So the next step is to follow Mike and his team and document his speed attempts latter this summer. It would also be nice to build up a series of portraits shot out on location just prior to his attempts.

Follow Mike's charity and Triple Crown adventure here: http://www.speedofsight.co.uk

[Photographer]: http://www.nathandamour.co

Via PhaseOneDK