Paul Lund (British, b.1960) knew by the age of 10 that he wanted to be a photographer. He was influenced by a mass of wonderful imagery that he had immersed himself in and was fascinated by the beautifully designed and engineered equipment. He found the whole process, all the way through to the fully processed image, truly magical.
Paul was born in Liverpool less than a mile from the legendary Aintree Race Course, which back in 1960 not only hosted the World famous Grand National but also the British Formula One Grand Prix. Although he was too young to appreciate who and what was making the sound, the racing Gods - Moss, Surtees, Hill, Clark, Brooks, McLaren, Gurney, Brabham, Salvadori, and Piper could all be clearly heard roaring around the circuit on race days.
Perhaps it comes as no surprise that Paul has spent over 25 years photographing beautiful racing cars at the only other venue in the country to host both horse and motor racing - Goodwood.
Aged one Paul and his family moved to Beechwood, a leafy suburb in south Liverpool on the banks of the River Mersey, where he lived until moving away aged 20.
Attending Quarry Bank School in the ‘70s, he got involved in photographing various school events - plays, sports days etc. When an after school photography club was created, he joined immediately.
Interesting fact : John Lennon attended the same school in the 50s, forming his first band ‘The Quarrymen’, derived from the school’s name. The band, of course evolved into ‘The Beatles’
In his late teens, Paul got involved in photographing lots of bands at Liverpool’s Empire Theatre. He also went to a number of race meetings at Oulton Park featuring cars, bikes and the Lombard RAC Rally.
When Paul left school, Liverpool was in the midst of a deep recession. Jobs, particularly photographic ones were in short supply. Despite this, Paul found a job in the Medical Photography department at Liverpool University. Here he met the first person to have a real influence on his career - his boss, an ex World War II Lancaster pilot, who was a real ‘Dead Poets Society’, Robin Williams type character. Mr Bailie was a positive, influential and wonderful man, who encouraged Paul to break from the norm and ‘spread his wings’. On his advice, Paul embarked on a three year photography course at Gloucester Art College.
Completing the course in 1983, Paul, headed to London where he assisted a plethora of the world’s greatest advertising, fashion and editorial photographers including Bailey, Duffy, Brian Griffin, Barry Lategan, Rolph Gobits and Peter Lavery to name a few.
The work was massively varied and took Paul all over the World.
Assignments ranged from photographing cars, musicians, supermodels, actors, celebrities, diamonds, food, aircraft and even ‘Dolly’ the sheep .... all sorts of things in all sorts of places.
Some of the most memorable shoots were with Brian Griffin which included taking polystyrene palm trees to Barbados and miniature gondolas to Venice for P&O. Japanese fashion label Comme des Garçon, took them to a cattle market in Paris to photograph John Malkovich, John Cale and Julian Sands prior to their Paris fashion show, as well as taking them to the wilds of the Caucasus Mountains for another fashion shoot.
Recently, Brian got in touch with Paul to ask him to contribute to his biography ‘Black Country DADA 1969-1990’.
During this period (late ’80’s) Paul started working for the photographer who has probably had the most impact on his career, high-end advertising photographer - Charles Settrington, the then Lord March, now the Duke of Richmond.
Having worked with many of the best photographers of the time, Paul found The Duke to be in a different league altogether. His creative thinking and passion for his photography was unsurpassed, refreshingly different from his peers. Paul worked with him for several years, until family tradition dictated that The Duke take over the Goodwood Estate from his father.
Applying his creative talents and passion for motorsport, The Duke took Goodwood through a complete metamorphosis. As a result, the first of many motoring events was born - The Goodwood Festival of Speed, followed by The Goodwood Revival and the resurrection of The Members Meeting.
In 1994, Paul resumed working with The Duke, photographing The Festival of Speed, which proved to be a ‘decisive moment’ in his career putting him on track to create his stunning Fine Art imagery.
Since then, Paul has continued to cover the majority of those events as well as The Revival, Members Meetings and equine horse power at Glorious Goodwood, now The Qatar Goodwood Festival.
It’s all about the vision.
Paul has been very fortunate to have complete creative freedom at Goodwood. Surrounded by some of world’s motorsport icons - drivers and their machinery both historic and contemporary, he’s always looking for that something different - finding a new angle or a different perspective to create the extraordinary.
Paul’s signature style draws on the many skills and techniques learnt in his early film days. One of the key elements of his images is motion, which is created in camera at the time of capture. To achieve the desired effect, he can often be seen leaping and running around after cars and bikes in the start line area at The Festival of Speed. All this, combined with Photoshop, which is integral to his image processing, and the occasional minimal retouching, creates visually exciting images of design classics that are dramatic, abstract, vibrant, stimulating and evocative.
It may only take a fraction of a second to fire the shutter, but it’s the 45 years experience that makes it possible to create a great image, from the initial concept all the way through to the finished artwork.
This collection of unique Fine Art Photographs, captured at these world renowned events, can now start to be seen for the very first time.
