Zoom Photographic Charity Auction Success

All of the big names in Formula One are zooming into supporting Great Ormond Street in their own way. Headed up by Formula One’s head Bernie Ecclestone, racing drivers and celebrities alike drove in to the Intercontinental Hotel on Park Lane on Friday 16 January 2015. The main attraction of the evening was an auction of photographs taken and signed by F1 drivers and those around them. Stuart Fawcett went along for ePHOTOzine to record some of the images and events.

(Bernie Ecclestone, F1 driver Christian Horner with Geri Halliwell, Fashion Presenter Lizzie Cundy, Adrian & Marigold Newey - Adrian is an OBE British Formula One Engineer and actress Stefanie Powers.)

The paparazzi outside were crammed into the smallest of spaces between two crowd control barriers; we were all looking for our shots, some up on portable steps and others crouching below them. One chap was even tagging each shot he took straight on his laptop and uploading them to the news desk in real time - perhaps to a site like startraksphoto.com.

Once we had got past the red carpet, security and some super friendly meters and greeters we got inside to a large open floor filled with very grandly dressed guests and a prince and princess.

The Coys Auction area setting up for the main formal part of the evening.

With over 20 signed photographs and 4 signed Nikon cameras to auction there was plenty to bid on but with the cheapest item going for £100 you’d better have deep pockets – the main auction raised almost £19,000. On top of this, there was also a silent auction and they were hoping to get close to £100,000 in total for this. Large sponsors included Auction house Coys, Nikon, The Intercontinental  Hotel, Lifestyle brand Neuschwansteiner, Grand Prix facility Circuit of America, John Lewis, Food group 28-50degrees, JMI, Arena Imaging, Sutton Motorsport and Kingfisher.

The photographs themselves were exceptionally varied with some being interesting works of art and others just snapshots as the driver saw them. The four below are from F1 driver Eric Boullier which went for £600, presenter Will Buxton (£400), deputy team principal of the Williams team - Claire Williams (£600) and finally, Bernie, who shot a picture in his house apparently, which went for £2400.

Other photos were from Felipe Massa, Kimi Raikkonen, Sebastian Vettel and our own Lewis Hamilton who had captured a river running into the light to represent his route to success. Also of particular note was Graham Lowdon with his own sketch of Ayrton Senna in his memory. Another 'out there' image was captured by Suzi Perry of her cat and it was bought by her number one fan Rachel for £500.

Of course all of this was in aid of the children’s charity Great Ormond Street Hospital and one of those children now grown is Tarun Sundersingh, he is a massive F1 fan and himself a keen charity fundraiser who himself has helped raise over a million pounds for charity. He is pictured above with his father Jay. Tarun gave a super talk about how F1 and Great Ormond Street have been partners for a long while now and how this gives hope and excitement to lots of children.

There were many other varied people at the event from top right: Richard and Holly from Coys who did the auction for free, Deniz Kaya - girlfriend of Konstantin prinz von Bayern (top middle), son of Princess Ursula von Bayern who actually gave me some rather fabulous Bavarian beer.  Also, top right Rachel and Lisa – Rachel bought Suzi Perry’s auctioned picture both this year and last so I guess she is a true fan of both Suzi and F1.

On the Bottom row we have artist and musician Nicole and Ash who are related to the F1 Zoom Auction organiser Christian Silk who brought the whole event together. In the middle are self-confessed F1 fans Sarah and Eleanor and bottom right is a super couple who write F1 software games and teach art.

The auction itself had a number of drivers and presenters explaining their images. The people above explaining images are Geri Halliwell, Chris the Auctioneer, Game of Thrones actor Liam Cunningham and F1 businessman Graeme Lowdon with his hand drawn sketch of Ayrton Senna.

This is the third year now of this event and it's growing bigger every year. I look forward to the charity event being even bigger and better next year and to see the F1 drivers continuing to raise their game in the photography stakes.

Words and pictures by Stuart Fawcett (JackAllTog).

Visit the Zoom Auction website for more information.