Having covered over 150 ARC rounds, and more than 100 WRCs, rally photographer Stuart Bowes has been there and done that, capturing millions of images in that time.
Now he's swapped the camera for the steering wheel, and relays some of his memories from an incredible career.
RSM: Let's start at the beginning. How did you get involved in rally photography?Stuart Bowes: Probably easier to answer how did I get started in rallying, which then led me to the photography side of things.
It was Jeremy Browne who opened the door to the sport back in the 1970s and for that I am forever grateful to him. He’s well known to many in the rallying community both around Australia and overseas, and in fact as I sit here writing this today, at 72 he’s actually sitting alongside another old rally stalwart, Rob Hunt, doing the Adelaide Hills ARC Rally.
It started off with helping out servicing then getting the obligatory Group G Datsun 1600 and competing, but a working career got in the way.
I guess I always had an eye to business and an interest in photography, and so when Ed Ordynski started doing the ARC with Mark Nelson in a Galant VR4, we were all from SA and that opened the door to an opportunity with Mitsubishi.
Bumping into the new editors of Australian Rallysport News (ARN) at a Kalgoorlie motel en-route to the very first Rally Australia (that’s a story for another day) provided a visible outlet for my pics, which helped to get me known in the early years.
Stuart Bowes shooting a Mitsubishi Lancer WRC on the 2005 Acropolis Rally in Greece.
Riding with Hyundai's Kenneth Eriksson at Rally Australia in 2001.
RSM: When, and how, did you get your first big break?SB: Hard to say as there were several in the early years, all of which led to more opportunities. Ed was a strong advocate for Mitsubishi to use my pics and that drove me to do a better job.
As mentioned beforehand, ARN gave me an outlet which built my public profile, when really no one else was doing it seriously.
Nick Senior at Subaru (via an enquiry through ARN) bought one of my first images of Rob Herridge at Coffs Harbour, long before the Subaru Australia rally team was formed.
Very early on, Paul Gover opened the door at Toyota, which thanks to Mike Breen, never closed until the day we ceased covering the rallies 25 years later! The Toyota work led to my long friendship with Jon Thomson, from which many more opportunities came along.
The Mitsubishi work introduced me to the Italian photo agency, Photo 4, in the mid 1990s and that’s when we started to cover F1 etc. Several key people have created links which just kept spreading.
Subaru's Cody Crocker passes the private WRX of Simon Evans during the Subaru Safari Rally in 2002. Photo: Stuart Bowes
RSM: Did you then realise there was a market for rally photos in Australia?SB: Yep, very early on I could see an opportunity. Group A, both here in Australia and internationally, was gaining traction with the manufacturers in the late 1980s and early 90s and they had the cheque books!
Rallying is an expensive sport and I didn’t like the idea of chasing sponsors to go competing, so setting up a photo agency was a great way to have someone pay for your passion while they received a benefit also. I just never imagined it would grow to be as large as it did.
RSM: What equipment were you using back then?SB: I started with two very basic Ricoh KR-10 bodies and fixed focal length 135mm, 50mm and 28mm f2.8 Ricoh lenses.
I always used the genuine lens, never after-market, absolutely crystal clear and pin sharp. Brilliant cameras, even had a motor drive, no auto focus, self-taught and asked a lot of questions of great mate Richard Whitford, who came along to many of the rallies.
Stuart Bowes and wife, Gayle, in the snow at Rally Argentina.
Bowes with the photo of Possum Bourne that adorned the Subaru Rally Team Australia truck.
RSM: How did you approach it as a business? Many others have tried and never succeeded.SB: Without doubt the #1 thing that every business should do, and frequently overlooks, under promise and over deliver. It was never about the price (be prepared to walk away rather than work for nothing), but strive to deliver far in excess of what the client was expecting – the money will come. Deliver the goods on time, every time…. or before.
Nothing frustrates clients more than failing to deliver on time. Buy a watch and use it – deadlines are there for a reason and work to them. Use your connections to open doors, you’ll find clients are more than happy to see you become even more successful off the back of their introductions, it makes us all feel as though we’ve all played a part in someone else’s success.
Equally so, I felt it was far better to have a guaranteed income stream rather than chasing piece work. We did deals with most of our clients for the entire season at an acceptable price, win lose or draw. If the car retired on the first stage we still got paid, we minimised the risk while maximising the outcome.
I was never too protective of copyright, unlike some photographers, after all we were not exactly creating beautiful artwork, but merely recording a newsworthy moment in time.
News is the most perishable commodity of all, once we’ve heard, read or seen it, we rarely have any further interest and we move on. This is how we generally treated the use of our images.
While some photographers were worrying about a magazine or client using an image from last weekend, we were already working on the next event – life just raced ahead and so too did our clients.
At the Brick Yard - the famous Indianapolis circuit in the USA.
Perks of the job .... Rally Jordan's WRC round in 2008.
RSM: Who are some of the major clients you have worked for over the years?SB: Pretty well all of the vehicle manufacturers both here in Australia and overseas. Either directly or via another agency.
In addition, we also picked up many of the peripheral companies like the tyre manufacturers (Pirelli, Michelin, Yokohama, Kumho, MRF), safety equipment suppliers (Sparco, Stilo, Sabelt), sponsors, etc.
Very rarely did we do work for private individuals, too many headaches and they’ve never got any money, it always gets spent on the car.
When people used to ask me for free or cheap images or say, “… but you’ve already taken the pics” or “you’re going anyway”, I used to say no problem, I’ll tell the airline, ‘Hey you’re already going that way, surely you can take me for free”, or to the hotel “hey you’ve got all these rooms, surely you can spare one that’s not being used”….. They soon learn not to ask.
RSM: Do you have a statistical record of the events you have covered over the years? For example, how many ARC and WRC rounds have you attended?SB: Okay, so this is where the OCD kicks in! Yes of course, probably the only thing I have kept a record of.
Since 1989 when we registered Stuart Bowes Motorsport Photographer as a business (although I’ve attended far more), 154 rounds of the ARC, 109 rounds of the WRC, 38 rounds of the Australian Off-Road Championship, 32 Grands Prix (very few in Australia), and of course multiple other international races, motorsport events and motor shows.
Sebastien Loeb limbers up before a stage at Rally New Zealand, 2005. Photo: Stuart Bowes
Bowes was on hand soon after Tommi Makinen's massive crash in Corsica in 2003.
RSM: Similarly, do you have any idea how many images you took over the years, and what was your average number per event?SB: Last time I looked on the server we had close to 4.5 million digital images backed up, and that doesn’t include the tens of thousands of images shot on film between 1989 and 2000.
When we shot on film generally around 10 rolls for an ARC and about 20 for a WRC event, but over the years that grew significantly as we went to auto focus and higher speed motor drives.
Once we went digital, the explosion really took off, but I noticed a significant drop off in skill from some of the contract photographers we used. ”Ah, you can touch it up in Photoshop” was the most common saying, to which I simply responded, “But if you had taken the shot properly in the first place I would not have to waste my time fixing it up!”
We had a policy when trying new photographers (yes, when the workload grew I simply couldn’t do it all myself). We gave them a roll of 36 and if we couldn’t get 30+ useable shots from the roll, we couldn’t afford to use them.
They also had to show they understood who paid the bills. A great shot of someone down the back of the field was of no value if we missed the one client shot we needed!
That was a big challenge. We ran it as a business and you needed to focus on who was paying the bills.
Getting chased by a horse in New Zealand is probably not one of Stuart's best rally memories.
RSM: What are some of the best memories you have from your time photographing rallying?SB: Way too many to recall…. There were very few days where I wished I was doing something else. I loved covering the unusual events for the adventure. Acropolis is still one of my favourites – we would do a lock-in stage in the morning up in the mountains, go down to the coast for lunch by the ocean, then back in the mountains for another stage in the afternoon.
Before the advent of digital cameras, we always had time for a meal in the evening with other photographers and journos. Now you spend hours in front of a computer in the middle of the night sorting thousands of images someone thinks the world needs urgently – I don’t miss this at all.
I covered some wonderful events in China, Cyprus, Indonesia and Jordan when they joined the WRC for the first time. The classics like 1000 Lakes (Finland), Monte Carlo, Safari, Argentina, Corsica, Portugal are just iconic, but the number of spectators and the traffic jams send you crazy.
Taking a seat in Henning Solberg's wrecked Peugeot 307. Rally Australia 2006.
RSM: As the years progressed, digital photography become a reality. How did that change the landscape of your business?SB: It changed it immensely. The workload grew enormously and the timeline (along with people’s patience) grew shorter very rapidly.
The term “digital image” arrived ahead of the explosion in the internet, so initially the convenience of the digital image was handy, as the first transition to the digital world was scanning the film.
We would select a handful of images each day that would be scanned for press releases, using a heavy Nikon Coolscan we to lugged around.
Initially, digital cameras were convenient as they removed the scanning process, but the image was not good, nor was the performance of the camera, and they were very expensive.
With the arrival of the internet, the problems started as the hard copy publishers were being squeezed out and the online use of images grew, so the speed in which you could have your images uploaded to a website became more important than the image itself – this is where I stated to lose interest and the fun went out of it.
RSM: Moving further forward, social media became a thing. Did you see this as the beginning of the end, because it wasn't that long before you stopped shooting?SB: The big issue with social media is no one has ever worked out how to make money from it!
Everyone wants everything immediately (often at great expense to the provider), and no one wants to pay for it! Anyone with a phone is a photographer these days, and we search for instant gratification and give little thought to the future.
It’s a giant problem the world is yet to deal with. I have a theory: the social media world has everything, uses anything, occasionally saves something, and pays for nothing – it’s not sustainable.
Stuart Bowes receives a CAMS Media Service award from former Rally Australia boss Garry Connelly.
RSM: Since then you have become an avid rally car collector. What's in your collection now, and how do you decide what you buy, and whether it's good value?SB: Ah yes, this is my real passion now. I understand why people like Group 4 Escorts or Group B, but Group A, in my mind, was close to the halcyon days of rallying. It was one of the rare times in motorsport where the manufacturer had to produce a homologation special to be able to compete in motorsport, so you have this lovely contrast of the road going car matched with its motorsport stablemate.
I’ve been building a collection of cars from both the WRC and the ARC of the 1980s and 1990s with the matching pair of each.
It’s well known I’ve got a beautiful TTE Group A Celica GT-Four (and the matching road car), plus a Ralliart Group A Galant VR4 (with matching road car), but I’ve also got another half a dozen cars that are yet to see the light of day.
Ultimately I buy them because I like them, but as the dollars increase substantially, I look more carefully at the provenance of the cars.
I’ve also chosen cars that are internationally recognised, as their true value can be realised at anytime, anywhere. 1970’s Aussie muscle cars, for example, appeal to a very small demographic and I believe their value will diminish over time, whereas Group A cars are only now starting to show some real attention, and probably will do for some years to come.
Eli Evans and Glen Weston pose for the camera. Rally SA 2015.
RSM: Unlike some others, you're using your cars as they were made to be used, competing in rallies yourself. After all the years behind the camera, it must be great to be out driving yourself?SB: Yep, fabulous to be spending time with my old rally mates out there competing.
Garry Kirk built a lovely Mercedes 450SLC 5.0L replica in which I’ve had great success with former ARC champion co-driver, Mark Nelson alongside, and I’ve had a couple of runs in the TTE Celica.
Next year we hope to get the VR4 out, along with a couple of others from my collection.
Stuart Bowes now competes regularly in his classic Mercedes Benz. Photo: Bruce Keys
RSM: Can you ever see yourself getting back into photography, or is that now a thing of the past?SB: Nup, done and dusted. I sold the cameras last year and have put that part of my career behind now. It was a wonderful time for almost 30 years, but other things are more important to me now.
RSM: What does the future hold for Stuart Bowes?SB: Semi-retirement in 2020, spending more time with my very understanding wife, Gayle, and enjoying my cars with my mates.
The proud owner of the TTE-built Freddy Loix Toyota Celica GT-Four ST-205.
FAVOURITESFavourite rallies: Acropolis, Argentina, Mexico, Australian Safari in the NT, Indonesia, any rally around Broken Hill or the Flinders Ranges (!), and anything that involves an adventure.
Favourite drivers: I don’t really have favourites, but for different reasons Carlos Sainz, Neal Bates, Ed Ordynski – probably because they all played a significant part in kicking off my career in the early years.
Also, a special mention for Ross Dunkerton as I became involved with him in the latter years of his career through Mitsubishi (although that’s now a long time ago!). He has some wonderful stories from rallying in an era I find fascinating, since he spans such a long period in the sport.
I also own one of his cars and am looking forward to him firing it up again soon.
I’ve always had a lot of time for Scott Pedder, given the amount of voluntary time he’s put back into the sport, his driving skill and his marketing prowess – he’s close to the complete package.
Favourite rally cars: ST165 TTE Celica GT-Four, but they are bloody expensive if you can find a good one!
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