Interview with Kym Illman, the complete interview

Becoming an F1 photographer, a good idea?

If you have a lot of money and want to become poor, it’s the best way to achieve it. It’s very difficult, there are no jobs. If you are one of the best photographers in the world, maybe you can manage to get into Getty and you might make enough to live, but there are very few positions available. There’s also LAT with a few photographers. But in all the time I’ve been in F1, I’ve never seen any new photographers [Editor’s note: with these agencies].

There are either highly experienced individuals, or people who are racing for a magazine and in this case you will be traveling to the lowest-end hotels, taking the cheapest flights, and if you’re lucky, you might find a spot. It’s very tough.

Otherwise, you have to do what I’ve been doing for 5 years, which is very expensive and you’re not sure to get a return on your investment, so it’s definitely not a job you do to get rich.

You have to pay for insurance, visas, accommodations, flights… it’s not that expensive if you’re based in Europe but I couldn’t find the answer for you. It’s very tough and I don’t know what Formula 1 is currently looking for.

On the other hand, if you manage to do it, it’s crazy. There’s a lot of waiting, it’s not very comfortable, but for some, it’s worth it. When you spend time in the paddock, you realize that all the people are really nice, they’re just regular people.

How to stay creative and inspired while taking so many photos?

I often watch everything that others do.

I often stop on the track and look at my photos, wondering if they’re good after a few minutes. I am very critical. I also ask other photographers for their ideas. I put a lot of pressure on myself to do better year after year. I now use an ND filter to shoot at 1/6th of a second, which is really challenging because it’s like putting sunglasses in front of the lens. This way, I can achieve a motion blur effect, and I’m starting to do it well. But in a one-hour session, you don’t have much time to be creative, you have to capture the cars with a bit of background blur, and that’s the priority.

If you could only bring one camera lens on a trip, which one would it be?

70-200mm. I could photograph all weekend like this. It wouldn’t be ideal, but most people wouldn’t notice the difference.

The biggest lens I have is a 600mm, so I can be very far from the action but still capture a beautiful image. I also have a 15-35mm that I use in the Pit area to get closer to the drivers. So from 15mm to 600mm, there’s a wide range of things I can do. But with the 70-200mm, I can pretty much do anything I want too. If you’re one meter away from me with the 70mm, it might be a bit tight but I just need to step back a bit. If the car is far, it might appear slightly smaller than with a 600mm, but I can still enlarge the image.

It also allows to have a landscape behind the cars and it gives context. I want to show where we are. In Australia, I zoom out a bit and show the forest. In Baku, I zoom out a bit and show the old town. In Monaco, it allows me to shoot between the rails and see the sponsors behind.

I regularly use a 15-35, 50mm, 135mm, 70-200, 500, and possibly, if I can, an additional 85mm lens. Generally, I always have a camera with the 70-200 lens, and then on the other camera, I switch lenses to either a longer or shorter focal length.

We often see you in the paddock, in front of the entrance gates. How long do you wait for the drivers?

The drivers can come to the circuit anytime from 1 hour before to 7 hours before. So if I don’t want to miss them, I have to wait for them at the entrance. Sometimes I wait for a very long time, sometimes there’s no one for an hour, and sometimes all of a sudden there are two at two different entrances, so you miss one. That’s part of the game.

Lewis [Hamilton] is worth the wait because he is a guarantee of having a strong presence on social media as he excels at it, and people want to see how he dresses.

Clearly, for the past 2 years, he has been more inclined to be photographed, perhaps because he has contracts with brands. It wasn’t as easy a few years ago.

Is being alone enough to cover an entire Grand Prix?

No, I prefer to be alone. Sometimes I make an agreement with another photographer to exchange photos when there are two different entrances, but clearly I am a bit selfish and not a good teammate, so I stay alone.

What is your best memory of a Grand Prix?

I often talk about the 2021 Baku Grand Prix.

I was able to photograph Max Verstappen’s accident, I was also there at the first turn when Lewis Hamilton missed the braking point. It was so unexpected and spectacular. It’s one of my favorite races. But of course, there are events like Zhou’s big accident; I was not far from where the F1 car crashed, and it’s really, really impressive.

You mentioned an AI, can you tell us more about it?

I won’t say what it is, but you will be truly amazed. Very intelligent people have worked on it, I don’t think it will be in place for the first Grand Prix but you will see something after Australia that you have never seen before.