One sport, multiple perspectives: how to shoot creative motorsport images

Motorsports photographers face many challenges, not least that cars are travelling at an average of 200mph during races and vantage points to shoot them are limited. Even the repetitive nature of the sport itself, with cars completing dozens of laps of the same circuit, make it difficult to take a variety of images that are creative and original.

For French Formula 1 specialist Florent Gooden, overcoming those challenges to produce exciting images that capture the pinnacle of motorsport is part of his daily work. Now aged 34, he’s been a full-time professional motor racing photographer since 2012 and has lead specialised sports photography agency DPPI Media’s on-site Formula 1 operations for a decade.

His job combines his two main passions, motorsports and photography. His enthusiasm and dedication has brought him a job he loves and awards including prizes in the World Sports Photography Awards 2026. He says, “You really need to be passionate to do this job, because it involves a lot of travel, a lot of effort and it requires a lot of different skills.”

Florent has a very precise schedule to cover over four days of a Grand Prix, and he does far more than covering the race. “There are press conferences to shoot, marketing shots, portraits of the drivers, and there’s also F2 and F3 series to cover and more,” he says. “When you’re not shooting you have to edit your work on the computer, and by the end of each day you need to send all your content from that day. It’s quite intense and stressful, but for me it’s good stress, it’s motivating, and when you manage to accomplish all the tasks you have to do, it’s really rewarding.”

For Florent, the most fulfilling part of the job is shooting creative images of the cars in action. Over the years he has got to know the best vantage points at specific racetracks, which helps him plan where he wants to be at specific times during the race.

Florent doesn’t stay in the same place during a race and walks around the track during a session. “You can maybe take the whole hour of one session to do two corners and sometimes four corners, sometimes just one,” he says. “You cannot plan where you're going to be, because you decide on a good location usually depending on the sun and what kind of angles you need to provide.”

If he is going to a racetrack that’s new to him, he decides on the locations he wants to shoot by researching where the sun is going to be at different times of the day, using both apps and maps.

“You can’t just arrive somewhere and start taking pictures,” he says. “To me it's both preparation and spontaneity and a mixture of the two enables me to get those different shots. For sure, some days you feel more creative than others, we're all human. Some days you’re a little disappointed with what you get and other days you're very happy.”

Florent has always taken two camera bodies to races. In recent years he used the Canon EOS R3, but this year he switched to the EOS R1, which offers Dual Pixel Intelligent AF with Cross-type AF points for greater sensitivity in low light and a 40fps maximum shooting speed. “The EOS R3 was already a crazy good camera in terms of autofocus and frames per second, but both of those features are even better on the EOS R1,” he says.

“This camera definitely helps me to be more productive in F1. Working faster and being able to gain time shooting increases the possibilities for creativity because I have more time to try different things.” Florent is under great pressure to send the pictures to his agency as quickly as possible and using the EOS R1 he’s able to immediately send the pictures he takes to an editor at his agency by using the FTP transfer feature via Wi-Fi.

Florent adds that combining the subject-tracking with the efficient autofocus and the vari-angle touchscreen LCD enables him to capture shots from different angles more easily. “Until these innovations came along, for example to get shots from ground level, you had to lie down on the floor and look into the viewfinder, whereas now you put the camera on the ground and activate the subject tracking.

“In the past, a ground-level shot like this would have taken me several laps to get done, but now I may only need a few attempts to achieve it. So, with these kinds of features, I’m able to look even more into different types of images. I also adapt my vision, knowing I have these features to use, because they open up new possibilities I wouldn’t have thought about before.”

To cover every possible shot, the lenses he takes to a F1 race range from the Canon RF 15-35mm F2.8L IS USM to the Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM. He also takes 1.4x and 2x extenders. “Depending on the location, I sometimes use focal lengths up to 800mm even where the car is really near, like street tracks,” he says.

“We use a good variety of racetracks throughout the year – some races are on during the day, some at sunset and some at night. This allows me to use plenty of different lenses and a wide range of camera settings. Even in night races there’s room for creativity; for different effects I can vary the settings from ISO 10,000 all the way down to ISO 50.”

Motorsports photographers are often shooting on racetracks that have been used for many years, so it’s inevitable that most of the shooting angles have been frequently covered in the past. “There are some classic shots, such as the Casino at Monaco where you can’t be original, because everybody has been shooting these pictures for a long time,” says Florent.

His advice for others who would like to shoot creative F1 pictures is to keep looking for something different by combining original viewpoints with creative techniques and the capabilities of the equipment.

“Don't hesitate to try, because it's by trying different angles and different settings that you will manage to discover plenty of different styles of pictures,” he says. “They can be pan shots, or different angles, or involve playing with foregrounds and backgrounds. Don't only think about only getting the subject sharp and the rest blurry, there are plenty of other possibilities.

“You can really play around with the subject a lot but don't hesitate to also use different or unusual elements as a foreground. Sometimes there are things you'd usually avoid putting in the frame, but they can also be useful. Just don't go only to the old classic places to shoot and don't hesitate to walk around and try different angles and techniques. By experimenting, you’ll sometimes take a lucky shot that will open up a new world of creativity for you.”