Where to take photos at the Harewood Speed Hillclimb.

The Classic and Vintage Hill climb event is run by the Yorkshire British Automobile Racing Club. The vehicles on display are truly stunning and not something you get to see every week. 

The Harewood Hillclimb centre is located in the picturesque Wharfe Valley between Harewood village and Collingham on the A659 - LS17 9LA will get you close.

Credit Hardyphotographic

The course is signposted from the main road taking you up a track where you will be directed to the Hill top car park. If you stay on the road there is a second car park half way down the course - the Farmhouse carpark.

Credit Hardyphotographic

From the hill top car park you can see most of the 1440m long track and the path to the esses and Chippy's corner the furthest part of the track from the car park. Be warned, you will need decent footwear as there is a clue in the title, it’s a hill and a reasonably steep one. 

Credit Hardyphotographic

At the top of the hill is a large paddock, toilets and a catering marquee selling hot food. The paddock is open, enabling you to get up close to the cars to capture those detail shots.

For this track a you will need no more than a 300mm lens to get great pictures and for most of the track, a short kit lens will do nicely. 

On this occasion as it was a vintage hill climb I went for old school lens. The Nikon 35-70mm f2.8 and the 80-200mm f2.8 Both lenses can be picked upon the second hand market cheap and both are sharp and fast. 

The 35-70mm f2.8 can be used on most of the course as you are right next to the action. The area around the farm house and the esses you will need a zoom.

Credit Hardyphotographic

One advantage of photographing vintage cars is they don’t go very fast and as it was raining all day the drivers were taking it steady. When I say steady, one did launch its self into an adjoining field; on a good day the top cars can complete the course in less than a minute.

Shutter speeds on this event can go down below 50th of a second with good results.

As a rule the shutter speed should not be longer than the focal length you are using. However, if you are using a short lens you can get away with going lower. Zoom lenses are another matter unless you have VR enabled and even then you will have a lot of blurred pictures.

Credit Hardyphotographic

There is one main path down to the bottom of the course with good views of the track, just follow it and shoot as required. I would recommend the farmhouse and the access road for something a little different.

Just past the farm house is the start - some nice static shots can be captured here.

Credit Hardyphotographic

From Clark's to the esses, the grass on the trackside is a bit overgrown but can make a nice shot.

I would spend the morning walking down the track returning to the Paddock for lunch then moving round to Quarry.   

The following pictures were taken with the 35-70mm f2.8 around Quarry from the paddock side with shutters speeds from 1/50 to 1/25 of a second. 

One tip is always look at the background, getting a nice crisp picture can be ruined by a distracting background. Look for gaps in the trees that will streak when panning emphasizing the speed you are trying to express. 

I hope you have enjoyed this write up and photographs of the Classic and Vintage Hill climb meeting at the Harewood Hillclimb Centre. As always I don’t claim to be an expert on this subject, it's just my observations of a day out carrying a camera. Many thanks to Hardyphotographic for showing me round - you can see more of his work here. Hopefully I will inspire some of you to get out there and take some great images.