F1 folk: The artist with a camera whose photographs became iconic

I loved going to Monaco. Ever since I went there for the 1963 Grand Prix and for the next 60 years I never missed a race. Monaco is a place like no other. Nowhere else do you get so close to the cars, with their rear wings flying inches from the lens. You literally can't get any closer.

And I've always loved playing with zooms. From 1969, when I bought my first zoom lens from Japan - it was a 50-300, you could use it with a tripod - I started experimenting. First at Targa Florio, shooting at slow shutter speeds and playing with the zoom, using the crowd as a background - I made it look like an explosion. I loved the result. So I kept doing it, especially in the corners where the cars pass relatively slowly. Just like Rascasse.

That shot of Stefan Johansson driving away in his Ferrari was like hitting the jackpot on one of those slot machines where you have to get three sevens in a row. I managed to get his helmet almost perfectly sharp, but the background was completely blurred, so there was this incredible sense of speed... And then I got lucky with the last "seven" - that the Ferrari turbo spewed flames at just the right moment.

When I got the developed film from my lab and printed the picture, I thought it was a great shot! I entered it in a competition, but the main prize went to the other photographer, who was lucky to capture a motorcycle flying in the air, totally sharp. My shot ended up being the second-best.

But I think the biggest prize is seeing how much it has been admired over the years. I've got a lot of great shots of Ayrton Senna, more than 15,000, I've done more than 30,000 shots of Michael Schumacher, and I'm really proud of some of them. That was 'only' Stefan Johansson, but I have never sold more prints of any other image.

Schlegelmilch's shot of Johansson's Ferrari in action at Monaco is his most famous image

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

It all started as a hobby. A guy I knew - he was the wine seller, so even though he was 28 he already had a Porsche - took me to the Nurburgring, the 1,000-kilometre race. He knew a lot of drivers and he told me, "Rainer, you do nice portraits, so you could take pictures for me and then I could ask the drivers for autographs". So I went and immediately fell in love with motorsport - so then, just a few weeks later, we went to a Formula 1 race in Spa, too.

I loved photography, but very soon after graduating from art school I realised that it's impossible to make good money doing press photography, so in all my years in F1 I hardly ever worked for magazines or agencies. I did it for myself. When magazines wanted to buy my pictures, I sold them. But mostly I did books, calendars and things like that.

It was only possible because I never needed to make money from motorsport photography. After art school I went to work for a big company, but a year later I realised I wasn't getting anywhere and wasn't learning anything - so I decided to open my own studio and soon had big clients like Mercedes, Shell, Opel - and I still managed to find time to go to the races.

You would lie down on the ground, set the focus and listen - and before you could even see the car, you would release the shutter. Because by the time you saw the car, it was too late

In 1963, when I went to Monza for the first time, I had my little Zundapp Janus, a very small car with 13 bhp - so I drove like a madman through the Alps. The next year, when I went to Monaco, I already had a ten-year-old 24.5 bhp-Volkswagen. And by '67 I bought my first own Porsche Targa.

I did advertising, I did record covers, I did car photography - and that allowed me to work for myself. I paid for my own travel, but I never had a boss telling me what to shoot. And I never worried about quantity. Only quality. I never used flash, for example. If the natural light wasn't good enough, I just didn't take the picture. Simple!

Of course everything was different. We didn't have any trouble getting passes. The first time we went to Monaco with the same guy, he just brought chocolates and a couple of bottles of rosé, handed them to the blonde girl who was dealing with the press, and she asked: "So, how many passes do you want?" "My friend here needs a photo armband, and I'd like one too, so I can follow him around the track".

Schlegelmilch began his career shooting in the 1960s, and says there was a different understanding of what was safe

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

There was also a different understanding of what was safe. In the very early years, we were pretty much on our own. Yes, sometimes marshals would come up and say something, but we could be right next to the edge of the track, sometimes practically on that edge. And of course, it was dangerous. But you'd signed something when you got your pass - "motor racing is dangerous" and all that - and it was entirely at your own risk.

What was considered cool was to take a picture of a car with four wheels off the tarmac. The cars had no wings, they basically had no downforce - and on many of the tracks they jumped. Jackie Stewart told me there were 14 places on the 22-kilometre Nordschleife where the car had all four wheels off the tarmac. Can you imagine? 14 jumps a lap!

Of course, some places looked more spectacular than others. I loved shooting at Brunnchen, at Flugplatz - and that was a real challenge. Nowadays you can press and hold the button and then choose the best shot. Back then you only had one chance.

You would lie down on the ground, set the focus and listen - and before you could even see the car, you would release the shutter. Because by the time you saw the car, it was too late. I once took my assistant to a race and he tried to get shots like that. When we developed his film, there wasn't a single car on it. Just asphalt, trees and sky.

It was dangerous. I took pictures in some places, then left, and a few dozen minutes later found out that one of the cars had crashed and caught fire right there. Vic Elford's car almost ran over me at Nurburgring. There were two left-handers and I had taken a spot on the outside - and only at the last moment did I see that the car wasn't coming at the right angle, and jumped out in the bushes - and he landed right next to me.

We could have both died that day - and we didn't talk about it for the next 30 years. Because he thought he had almost killed me, and I wondered if he had crashed because I had distracted him.

One of the most telling pictures of that time I took in Jarama in 1970. It was just after the start when I saw smoke coming from about 200 metres away. Jackie Oliver and Jacky Ickx had crashed and both cars literally went up in flames. They were both lucky to get away.

Schlegelmilch has vivid memories of the fiery crash at Jarama in 1970

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

I ran over and as soon as I was close enough I started shooting. The marshals were fighting the fire and the spectators were taking pictures over the fence. But the race was still going on. The drivers just drove past it carefully and that's it. Nobody stopped it. Jacky's race suit got soaked with fuel and he got some minor burns, but he was back racing in Monaco in less than a month.

And the drivers were different too. I can't say that I was close to them, but everything was a lot easier. With Jacky we developed a good friendship over the years, Jackie Stewart always greets me when he sees me, he once invited me to his house for lunch and he always asked me where I was going to shoot. But at that time most of them were heroes to me.

Also, I was from Germany and my English wasn't that good, so I maintained a certain distance. But they were all charismatic personalities. Some of them were mechanics before they became drivers, and most of them came to F1 in their late 20s. And I loved shooting their portraits. The eyes of racing drivers always fascinated me.

I took my girlfriend with me once and she got some fantastic shots, but in all of them the drivers were smiling. Because they wanted to be friendly with her. I didn't want that. I wanted to capture the drivers talking to their mechanics

I didn't want to get too close to them either, perhaps for two main reasons. I liked to observe them. I've done a lot of portraits where I've been very close to them, but at the same time almost invisible - and maybe it wouldn't be the same if they knew me too well. And of course there was the other side of F1 these days - almost every year one or two drivers were killed.

The first time it really hit me was when Jim Clark died at Hockenheim. He was such a simple guy. He was a farmer's son and you could just see it. He wasn't a star and if he hadn't been a brilliant racing driver he would probably have spent his life looking after sheep - he was so easy to get on with.

I had a friend, a British journalist, who was close to people like Jim and Graham Hill. And when I came to Brands Hatch he introduced me to them. And with Clark it was always easy. He'd stop when he saw you and even though my English wasn't very good, we'd have a chat sometimes.

I was at the Hockenheimring this weekend. I took some pictures on Saturday and when I developed them later it hit me: I had photographed Jim driving past the Total billboard, but only the first three letters were in the picture: "Tot" - "death" in German - and he also disappears from the image. I took some portraits of him on the Sunday before the start - and never saw him again.

Schlegelmilch was present at Hockenheim when Jim Clark lost his life in a Formula 2 race in 1968

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

That part of motorsport was really hard to deal with. But that's how it was. Death was the dark side of the sport I loved. Clark, Piers Courage, Jo Siffert... He was Swiss, so he spoke German, and I spent a bit more time with him off the track. We used to play cards with him and Swiss journalists in the evenings, but then he had this terrible accident.

I had a lot of great portraits of Jochen Rindt. He had such a charismatic face. That nose, those eyes, a cigarette in his hand... Although he also spoke German, I didn't get to know him personally - maybe because of what happened with Clark. But it was also good to have the distance.

I just wanted to take pictures, and I wanted them not to care about me. I took my girlfriend with me once and she got some fantastic shots, but in all of them the drivers were smiling. Because they wanted to be friendly with her.

I didn't want that. I wanted to capture the drivers talking to their mechanics, talking to their team bosses - and I loved catching those moments. I loved watching them. Of course, the access was different back then. I could get very close to them in the pitlane and shoot for as long as I could - and they didn't mind.

I took a lot of pictures of Rindt in Austria - the race before he died - in the pitlane, talking to Colin Chapman. And then in Monza I photographed his wife Nina - she was such a beautiful woman - in the pitlane. And I have portraits of her sitting on a high chair, barefoot, with her stopwatch, looking towards the last corner, waiting for her husband to arrive. Not knowing he'd never come back.

I am glad that the sport has changed - and that F1 has made such a big step forward in terms of safety.

Schlegelmilch captured Nina Rindt waiting for her husband Jochen to come past

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

One of the scariest things I ever saw through a camera lens was Martin Donnelly's crash at Jerez in 1990. I was right behind that barrier, but because it was a bit high, I was sitting about five metres away from it - and that might have saved me.

I didn't see him coming. I was taking pictures and suddenly someone crashed into the barrier directly in front of me. All I saw was the dirt flying up, like an explosion.

He was thrown out of the car - and maybe that's what saved him - but as soon as the dirt settled, I saw him lying on the tarmac, still strapped into his seat. I grabbed my camera, changed the lens and took some pictures.

They told me I was out. And that's when Bernie Ecclestone helped me

Of course you want to help. But as a photographer, there's nothing else you can do. So you just do your job and let the marshals and medical staff do theirs - and they were there very quickly. If I'm not mistaken, he had 28 broken bones, but he survived - and if something like that had happened 10 years earlier, that might not have been the case.

PLUS: The crash that stopped 'the next Mansell'

In 1991 they almost threw me out of F1. The FIA took control of photographers' passes, taking them away from Bernard Cahier and his International Racing Press Association, and tightened the rules. They said no one would get an accreditation unless they had published over two hundred pictures in the magazines and newspapers during the previous season - and I had nowhere near that number. I never had that many pictures published in the media.

I was freelance, but I worked mainly for myself, and if I sold three or four pictures to magazines after a race, I was happy. But I did books, I did calendars. So they told me I was out. And that's when Bernie Ecclestone helped me.

It was Katja Heim - she used to work with the media in F1 - who told him: "We can't let this happen. Rainer does beautiful things, he prints books about F1, he takes great pictures" - and he said: "Fine, then he'll be my photographer". So I became the official photographer for F1 for the next 20 years - and I loved it. Of course, there were parts of it that I enjoyed less - like dealing with Ecclestone's assistant Pasquale - but mostly I did what I wanted to do.

Donnelly's accident at Jerez in 1990 is the moment Schlegelmilch regards as his most frightening

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

In 1993 I published the book that became one of my favourites. "Grand Prix. Fascination Formula 1". It contained my best colour photographs from my first 25 years in F1. I divided it into several sections: faces, technology, fans, women and so on. Ayrton Senna wrote a foreword for the book. And then Agnes Carlier, who worked for the Marlboro communications team, saw it and ordered 500 copies - to give away to journalists as Christmas presents. Next year a lot of them came up to me and said: "At last we understand now who you are and what you do!"

I admired Ayrton. I think I spoke to him maybe four or five times, no more, but I spent countless hours taking portraits of him. Sometimes I'd be two metres away from him, taking pictures of him getting ready to jump in the car, but I had the feeling he didn't even know I was standing next to him. He had this aura, almost spiritual appearance and such a deep look.

When I asked him to write the preface for my book, he agreed very easily. I had shown him some pages and said: "It shall become the best book about F1 and I want the best driver to do the preface!" - and he just said: "OK, I'll do it for you, Rainer." And then we agreed the text with his press officer, Betise Assumpcao - it was as easy as could be. Ayrton's death was one of the worst things I've ever experienced.

I also wanted Michael Schumacher to write another foreword for the book. I introduced myself to him before his first race in 1991. I just came up to him and said it's nice to see a young German driver coming into Formula 1. "You'll probably see me a lot," I told him. And then I took some photos and before Monza I went to Villa d'Este to take some photos for his interview with Die Welt newspaper - and I even saw him there with Flavio Briatore.

So Michael knew who I was, we had a good relationship. And I remember once I was taking some pictures of him from inside the garage with some other guys and he asked his mechanic to send the photographers away - and that was Jonathan Wheatley, who now works for Red Bull, who went out and told the photographers to leave. Only I was wilfully ignored, and I continued shooting...

But in the end he didn't write a foreword for my book. I came up to him at Spa in 1992, the weekend he won his first race, told him about the book, showed him the layout, but he sent me to talk to Willi Webber, his manager. And I went and asked, and Willy just said he wanted 10,000 Deutschmarks!

"Willi, are you crazy?" I asked. "That means people would have to pay a lot more for the book, and I do it for the fans. I'm not going to pay a driver who hasn't even won a single race". But he wasn't going to negotiate! And so I did it without Michael. So F1 has changed, for the better and in some ways for the worse, too.

Schlegelmilch admired Senna and enjoyed shooting the Brazilian until his untimely death in 1994

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

I'm not one to lament the good old days. I loved the atmosphere of those early years when I started shooting F1. The access we had. We could go into the garage and shoot whatever we saw, at some circuits the teams were working right in the pitlane and we could get very close to cars - no secrecy at all back then. But the world changes, and it's a good thing.

Some photographers like to say they miss film - but that's just silly. Of course it's much more convenient with digital cameras. Having to reload film at a crucial moment was a nightmare! And all the hassle of developing in a darkroom - I don't think anyone who did it as a job and not as a hobby really misses it.

I was one of the last to switch to digital, but for me it was always about quality. As soon as I realised that digital cameras were no longer inferior to film in terms of picture quality, I immediately changed all my equipment. I remember going to the Valencia test in 2004 with two cameras to compare - and after being convinced that digital had caught up with film, I went and bought new equipment. The cheque was for a very impressive sum.

I feel very fortunate to have been able to turn my passion into a career. I have enjoyed every bit of it, from travelling to experiencing different cultures and the opportunity to make friends in all parts of the world

But digital photography has also changed the way people work. The poor guys from the photo agencies now barely have time to grab a sandwich between sessions, and their evenings are so long that by the time they get back to their hotels most of the restaurants are closed - and back in the day, as soon as qualifying was over, everyone, including the drivers, would rush to the beach, if there was one in the vicinity.

My last full season in Formula 1 was in 2012. I thought it would be a good way to end it after 50 years in the sport - and to celebrate, I've published another book, "Schlegelmilch - 50 Years of Formula 1 Photography", with my best images and comparisons over the years. And since then I just go to the races I like.

I continued to take pictures for myself for a few years. But there are more and more restrictions. I understand that it's about safety, but sometimes it gets really ridiculous when people who know nothing about racing and photography decide to close down more and more opportunities.

For a few years now, for example, it hasn't been possible to shoot from the inside of Rascasse, because someone decided to put up a chain-link fence for security reasons, which was totally needless. So now I just go to a few races a year to see old friends and enjoy the atmosphere of F1, which is still unique.

I feel very fortunate to have been able to turn my passion into a career. I have enjoyed every bit of it, from travelling to experiencing different cultures and the opportunity to make friends in all parts of the world. And if someone has enjoyed the pictures I have taken and the books I published, that makes me even happier.

Schlegelmilch called time on his life in the paddock in 2012 after 50 years of shooting F1, but still makes occasional trips to races

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images