Photographic Memories

Looking for an obscure motorsport print?  You’ll need to talk to the ferret.
So, you’re an editor of a classic car magazine and you need a photograph of Alec Poole piloting his Sprit at 110 per cent round the ‘Ring in 1963.  Trouble is; you don’t have a drawer in the filing cabinet labelled photo’s of 60’s races who might become famous one day if they’re lucky so who don you call?  If you’ve got any sense you call Ted walker – or Herr veasel as one German customer refers to him, that playful Teutonic humour based on the fact that Ted operates under the name of Ferret Fotographics.

“I took my first photograph in 1960”, admits Ted when we asked him how long he’s been in the Motorsport photography game, but when we asked him how many images he has in his archive and the answer is a casual, “Oh, 5 million or so”, even though the Retro cars mental arithmetic can work out that there’s something wrong here.  By our reckoning that over 300 shots a day, seven days a week for 44 years.  The answer, of course, is that the bulk of Ted’s collection has been amassed by careful purchase of entire negative collection over the years. 
Not that Ted isn’t handy behind the lens himself of course.   In fact it was his own interest in photography as a school boy which ultimately led to the creation of Ferret Fotogrpahics.

Having grown up around racing cars thanks to a father who was involved in tuning, Ted encountered ES Thompson’s 1946 book Speed Camera: The Amateur Photography of Motor Racing. And was hooked on motorsport photography.  “The book showed you how to take shots at various motorsport venues” remembers Ted.  “So I used to go to local venues and try and copy the shots from the book”.  This fledgling interest soon led to involvement in a school camera club and before he knew it, he was supplying motorsport reports for the local paper, cycling to the events together with a school friend who has since become a prominent newspaper photographer.

Why then, did he take a job as an engineering draftsman after leaving school instead of earning a living behind the lens?  Simple: “I’d always been warned to not let my hobby become a job or I’d grow to hate it,” he laughs, surrounded by the hundreds of negative files which bear witness to a hobby which has become a very serious job indeed, but clearly hasn’t lost its appeal.

With a regular pay packet behind him though, Ted was free to pursue his hobby far beyond the reach of his push bike and started photographing at more and more meetings, as well as buying up entire collections of negatives.

Fast forward a few years and Ted found himself working in management for a chain of car spares, but when the group was swallowed up by a larger chain he took the plunge, quitting the world of retail to turn Ferret Fotographics from an increasingly demanding hobby into a full-time business.
“That was 11 years ago,” he reminisces.  “I’d already sold a couple of prints at a couple of shows and when I realised I was the only one doing it, I printed off a load of negatives and off I went.”

Since those early days Ted’s found himself trading up through a succession of ever larger vans to the point where the Ferret stand at an average show these days contains about 15,000 10 x 8 photos each lovingly printed by hand in the time honoured way and yours for £6 each.  He’ll also print a 16 x 12 enlargement by special order.

If you’ve had a good rummage through the Ferret collection at shows in the past, you’d be wise to take another look next time you see Ted’s stand.
That’s because the selection on offer isn’t driven by cold commercial refusal to print anything that doesn’t sell, but a love of the rare and obscure, plus of course the sheer challenge of finding new material in such a vast collection.

“In the early days I used to keep a careful record of every print I sold and made sure I printed more of the popular ones,” admits Ted.  “But one day I thought ‘God this is boring’ and printed up a few different shots,” They sold well too, so now he regularly browses through the collection and prints off a new selection.

And browsing is something he could probably carry on doing forever without getting bored.  When Ted shows us into the room where he keeps the bulk of his negatives, photographer Whitestone and I are bowled over.  Ring binders are full of negative files line the walls, boxes of old car magazines and event programmes from around the world are stacked up and in one corner there’s even an incongruous pile of tasselled leather-bound photo albums, as if someone’s wedding photos have been mixed up among the faded prints of hill climbing TVRs and Tyrell F1 racers.  “Ah yes,” says Ted, seeing us puzzling.  “Those go with this,” and hands us a Sainsbury’s carrier bag literally bursting with negative boxes and packets, the dated logos all witness to a high street photographic industry killed off long ago by the compact camera:  ‘Paragon, the 35mm specialist’, Kodachrome’, a negative wallet bearing the 60’s Boots logo.

It turns out that the albums contain prints taken from the negatives in the carrier bag, except that none of the prints are labelled and only some of the negative packets.  It looks like a mammoth job, but it’s all in days work for the Ferret, who laughed openly when we timidly suggested using a computer to catalogue the collection.  After all, when he managed to produce three images of Alec Poole for this month’s Retro Bloke feature with just a few days’ notice we can’t really argue.
And the old racing programmes? Well, when you’ve got a print that just says ‘Mallory, May 1962’ on the back then the programme for that event can often be key to the identity of car and driver.  And as you’ll know if you’ve ever bought one of Ted’s prints, he does like to provide a caption for you.
As the best sellers, Ted discovered long ago that there’s just no point trying to find a pattern to it.  British car shows always see the staple Escort, Mini and MG prints selling strongly, while events like the Goodwood Festival of Speed will see a demand of autograph hunters for photos of the drivers competing that day which they’ll be getting signed later.
Foreign shows are more unpredictable though, as Ted’s first Italian experience shows.  “Since it was an Italian show I took loads of prints of British sports cars,” he explains, “I thought ‘they won’t be interested in Ferraris over there’, but luckily I took a few Lancia and Lamborghini prints.  In the end they were the only ones which sold!”

So, where do you acquire this many images, we ask?  Detective work and a deep knowledge of the world of motorsport photography in the ‘60s and ‘70s is the answer.  The bulk of Ted’s collection has been acquired through careful purchases of entire negative collections from retired professional and semi-professional photographers, although by the time he manages to turn a faded copyright stamp on the back of a 40-year-old photograph into a real life phone number he’s sometimes too late.  “I wish you’d called me last week,” sighed one elderly gent when Ted finally tracked him down to make an offer for his massive collection.  “I’ve just taken the whole lot to the tip.”

As Ted points out though, buying up 40-year-old negative collections is fraught with danger.  “You’ll look through a roll of negatives from somewhere like Prescott and of 36 shots on a roll, 30 might be of Minis,” he points out.  “But the other six shots might be something really rare.”
On another occasion, he found himself with a box of negatives which had been stored in conditions so damp the film was firmly stuck to the paper sleeves.  Such a disappointment ranks alongside the complete collection of classic Nikon professional cameras which the photographer’s widow had lovingly stored in, er, the greenhouse.  “The lenses were full of mildew,” remembers Ted.  “And the bodies were so gummed up the shutters were stuck.”

Just as well then that Ted is still on a mission to collect and save more rare collections, with an estimated 60 photographers still on his list of people to be traced before it’s,  ahem, too late.  Just don’t mention digital photography when you call him.

The Race photo ferreter
Collector

Collecting old motor racing photographs has become fashionable for wealthy enthusiasts.  Sadly, the term ‘art’ is too regularly used to label the photographic  talents of such famous lensmen  as Klemantaski, Alexander and Zagari, and the price of original prints has escalated as dealers hype the market.

Thankfully there is an enthusiast –one is Ted Walker of Ferret Fotographics – who lives in the real world.  Walker’s stall at race meetings is a mobile archive of racing history.  He charges just £5 a print and his amazing range, all presented in marquee boxes, and comes from a massive stock of more than a million negatives.  Unlike other photographic specialists, Walker prints his own pictures:  “Half the fun of old photographs is the processing,” he says.  “I’ve been printing pictures since I was a kid and I still get a buzz watching the image come in the darkroom. “
Walker’s passion for motor racing started with his father who ran a garage in Bristol.  “During the 1930’s he built several Austin Seven specials and after the war he got involved with Joe Fry and the 500cc movement.  My father used to drive around in pre-war sports cars – Indianapolis Bentley and an Alfa 1750.  We’d get laughed at then.  At an early age I started to collect programmes and, when aged 10, was given a book called Speed Camera, a guide to motor racing photography.  By 1962 I had a camera and, on trips with dad to Prescott, started taking pictures.  I started writing for press passes and regularly cycled the 15 miles to our local circuit, Castle Coomb.”

Walker trained as an engineering draftsman and motor racing remained only a hobby until five years ago when pictures became a business.  Now he has the largest private collection of negatives.  “Over the years at circuits I got to know most of the photographers and the first big collection I bought was Harold Barker’s who covered club events from 1948-’90.  Then came the negatives of Michael Cooper Evans, who travelled extensively with Rob Walker, and later Evan Selwyn-Smith.  He was the BRSCC’s photographer since the ‘50s and had portraits of all the drivers.  The day after the Great Train Robbery, the police were onto him asking for pictures of Roy James, which later appeared on the front pages of the Daily Mirror.”

Walker’s pre-war negatives were taken by James Brymer, a wealthy amateur who regularly travelled with Bill Boddy:  “His transport was a Riley tourer and even on winter rallies he never put the hood up.  Very few of his negatives were ever printed.”

Ferret’s impressive collection also features rallying and American events.  Recently Ted acquired the work of Richard Pelatowsky who covered east coast racing in the late ‘50s:  “Auctions are a good source but now people come to me.  I’ve discovered negatives in the strangest places.  At a car boot sale near Gloucester I found a box of glass plate negatives of Brooklands on holidays I always scour antique shops.

“I really enjoy researching the picture subject and try not to sell a print without a caption.  Many of my customers are restorers who use them for reference.”

Walker is still pinching himself that his hobby has turned into a full-time business.  He now travels the world selling pictures and soon heads to San Diego for the Coronado Classic Speed Festival:  “The best part of all is the people I meet.  Tony Brooks and Phil Hill are just two drivers who have come to me o find pictures.  It doesn’t get any better than hearing their stories first-hand.”