About Our Photographers

David Blanch (1949-2021)

Along with his wife Cheryl they were the owners of Autopics until December 2019. He was lucky enough to photograph motor racing in the late 1960's, early 1970's. At the age of 18 he photographed his first meeting at Oran Park in 1967. His collection is small in comparison to Peter's and Lance's but the era was magical. He photographed the Touring Car battles between Pete Geoghegan, Norm Beechey, Allan Moffat and Bob Jane and the visits to Australia for the Tasman Series by Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart, Denny Hulme, Piers Courage and Chris Amon for the Tasman Series.

Peter D'Abbs (1921 -2006)

Born in England in 1921 Peter moved to Australia in 1947 and commenced motor racing photography in 1956. His first meeting was the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Grand Prix and continued until the mid 1990's. Peter's collection consists of approximately 180,000 negatives and slides from most circuits and hill climbs throughout Victoria. His archives consist of photos of the first Armstrong 500 at Phillip Island, the first Calder and Sandown meetings in 1962, Templestowe Hill Climb back as far as 1957, Geelong Sprints, Ballarat Airstrip, Hume Weir International 1961 and the Mobil Economy runs of the '60's. A truly great collection of motor racing history captured on film. In January 2002 Autopics purchased the Peter D'Abbs collection

Lance J Ruting (1942-1997)

At the age of 21 years, encouraged by Warwick Farm's Geoff Sykes and Max Stahl from Racing Car News, Lance turned full-time professional in 1964. Almost without making a conscious decision, he had discovered his career, photographing motor racing. He captured every Bathurst 500 from 1964 to 1996, Oran Park Catalina and Warwick Farm from 1964, Amaroo from the first meeting in 1967 and rally, trials and hill climbs all over NSW. His legacy is a 35 year archive of over 260,000 negatives and slides of cars and characters, moments and details, a motor sport treasure.

Marshall Cass

Marshall commenced motor racing photography in 1992 and continued through to 2010. The Marshall Cass' collection has almost 300,000 negatives and digital images covering all forms of motor sport, Drag Racing, Historics Racing, Formula 1, Bikes, Club Meetings, Konica V8's and V8 Supercars to mention a few.

John Stanley

John grew up in Brisbane before moving to Sydney in his 20's...Always had an interest in photography and spent the first ten years of his working life with Kodak then Hanimex in Brisbane and London as a photographic equipment technician. Attended his first road racing meeting at the Lakeside opening day in 1961 with a box Brownie and my Dad's wartime bellows camera. His motor sport photography was mainly just a very satisfying hobby and has just a small collection compared to our other photographers but what great memories of that wonderful motor racing era of the 60's....... John's collection consists of around 300 colour transparencies.

Bruce Blakley (1934 - 1999)

Always having a keen interest in motor sports, and a great love of photography, it seemed only natural that the two should be combined. Bruce photographed motor racing from the early 1960's to the mid to late 1970's. He photographed at Amaroo, Bathurst, Catalina, Oran Park and Warwick Farm and was a regular contributor to Racing Car News and other magazines of that time.

Jeremy Braithwaite

Born in Britain, Jeremy’s first exposure to the sport was at Jim Clark’s home track Charterhall in the early 1960’s watching his uncle race an early Lola. He became a flag marshal – mainly at Brands Hatch. In Australia he raced Touring cars in the mid 70’s, mainly Escorts with lots of help from Bob Holden. In the 1980s he spent more time on this side of the fence with the camera before, in the 90’s, becoming one of the early starters in Historic Formula Ford with a Lotus 61. Now retired he has more time to indulge his photography – another lifetime passion.

Ray Simpson

Born in Kent, England in 1937, studied photo-journalism in the UK and moved to Australia in 1960. Ray photographed Australian motor racing through to 1996. Autopics purchased from Ray around 20,000 colour slides from the mid 1980's through to 1996. Unfortunately all of Rays black & white negatives and colour slides up to the mid 1980's had been destroyed in a fire. Ray photographed most rounds of the ATCC up until 1996.

Darren House

Darren took his first motor racing photograph in 1974 at the age of 13 after being introduced to the medium by master lensman, Ian Smith. Five years later he was working professionally, supplying photographs for specialist publications Auto Action, Chequered Flag and Motorsport News and continued until the early '90s. His work covers most Calder, Sandown, Winton and Phillip Island meetings during this period, as well as many Bathurst 1000s and Australian Grands Prix in Adelaide

James Smith (1997 - Current Day)

Introduced to stills photographer by my father in the early 90’s, I was taken to Lakeside Raceway by my neighbours and caught the bug. I photographed a spectacular accident by a driver still competing today and thought this would be a good idea for a business.

I have photographed all categories from State Level to Formula 1, Historics to Commercial through all series including V8 Supercars, Shannons, Konica, Nations Cup and all Club Historics to name a few.

After moving to Melbourne, I worked with Motorsport News Magazine, Chevron and Velocity.

I travelled around Australia with the Supercars Series and Shannons, shooting in every State and almost every circuit.

Ian Reynolds

I am amateur photographer. My first visit to a meeting was at Warwick Farm at the Tasman series in 1966 and through to the early 70’s.

 I attended Bathurst 500/1000 from 1972 to 1994.

My interest over the last 25 years and still now, is Historic / Classic races, including attending some at Winton, Mount Panorama and Phillip Island events.

Richard Austin

Started his photographic career with the Telegraph's Everybody Magazine in the early 60's then after going to a Warwick Farm meeting in the early 60's and bitten by the motor racing bug. He moved to Modern Motor Magazine soon after and continued motor racing photography until the mid 70's. Richard's collection consists of around 800 colour transparencies.