LIFE THROUGH A LENS: JAMES LIPMAN

Having established himself as one of the UK’S top automotive photographers, James Lipman is now enjoying similar success in the US. Here he shares his story and chooses some of his favourite images

He’s taken both the UK and the US car photography scenes by storm. Here James Lipman shares the secrets of his success and picks his favourite pics

INTERVIEWING JAMIE LIPMAN IS LIKE throwing yourself into a whirlwind. Which is appropriate, because that’s pretty much how he arrived on the automotive photography scene 15 years ago. Now 36, Lipman was born and raised in the south-east of England but has been domiciled in the US since 2017.

His portfolio is evidence of an exceptional talent and a dynamic career trajectory, one which has seen his work published everywhere from single-make UK tuner magazines to US billboard campaigns for mega marques such as Toyota and Tesla. But ask him where the impulse to take photos came from and he’s lost for an explanation: ‘I couldn’t tell you. My mum wanted to be a BBC camera operator at one point, but got told she couldn’t do it as she wasn’t a man. That aside, family-wise there was nothing that led me into photography. The main factor was my school had a darkroom, but nobody seemed to use it. It had all the kit, so I just made the most of it. That’s how I learned. This was in early 1998, so I suppose I’d have been 13.’

Those early days in the darkroom clearly made an impression. ‘Once I’d learned the basics I got into shooting reportage stuff and really thought I wanted to be a newspaper photographer. I pursued that pretty seriously, deciding not to go to university – which went down really well with my parents – and instead getting myself onto the NCTJ Photojournalism course in Sheffield.

‘While I was there I reached the final of the student category for The Picture Editors’ Guild Awards, which were held at the Guildhall in London. We were in the pub afterwards and the picture editor of Metro came up to me – a bloke by the name of Alan Sparrow – and said he really liked the stuff I’d shot. He went to shake my hand, and there was his business card. He said, “Give me a call sometime. I have a job for you.” It wasn’t quite the job I had in mind – a desk job at Metro – but I got to shoot a fair bit. Mostly portraits,

Backyard racer (previous pages) ‘The guy driving the lead car – a 1916 National – is its owner, and he’s deeply into it. He understands the body language of driving that car, slightly tucked down. He’s a nut farmer in the Central Valley. He and his buddies used to race those things around in the orchards, just because they could. Crazy!’ Warbirds (above) ‘This is from the trip when I decided I wanted to move to the States. It just struck me that this kind of thing was possible – normal, even – if you live there. Sounds corny, but that whole American Dream thing. Can you imagine a bunch of mates jumping in old warplanes and doing this over London?’ Bugatti and parrot (right) ‘This was a shoot for Octane. We were in Oxnard, California. The guy who owned the Bugatti has this parrot, which I thought was just fantastic, as parrots are totally art deco birds. It kind of fitted with the ’20s/’30s vibe of the car. The parrot was so well behaved. I think it enjoyed it.’ Chevrolet Greenbrier (far right) ‘The car is owned Larry Webster at Hagerty ,and those are his kids. They were driving back from Arizona to Detroit on Route 66. I love the informality of the shot. It got me a big job for Saatchi because they liked the vibe, which is ironic as those gigs don’t have the freedom to get this kind of image.’