Photographers Bob Callway and Stewart Atkins were also on hand capturing all the action at Goodwood Revival. Click here to see the festival through their lenses.

The great thing about English summers are the large amounts of festivals and events around the country. It must be an English tradition that as soon as the sun warms the summer countryside, there are no end of get-togethers that you can fill your diary with.

Over many years I have had the opportunity to be at and experience some of the best events in the country, but I have to say that Goodwood Revival for me takes the biscuit for mixing both style and speed. These days, I rarely get excited about things like this, but I do about the Revival. I am absolutely sure that the main reason for my excitement was that I am now a Leica user and have been for about six months. I knew that just being there and shooting with my Leica M-E, I couldn’t fail to come away with some great images.

You can’t help but hear the sound of vintage motor racing and, if you like old racing cars with great history, there are hundreds to shoot. There’s also a field of the most beautiful vintage airplanes from Spitfires to bombers.

But the thing I love best about the Goodwood Revival is the spectacular outfits that almost everyone wears to the festival. From thirties styles through to the sixties, people make enormous effort to get into the swing of things. You just have to look around and you truly feel like you have stepped back in time. It’s quite an amazing feeling.

What’s lovely about being a photographer at the festival is that people are happy to pose and have their pictures made as if they were at a massive party and all their inhibitions had faded away, which I guess is what it’s all about. I saw several Leica users and chatted for a long time to a couple of them, one with a Leica S and the other with an M8. I think we were all pretty excited by the photo bounty that was on show.

Goodwood Revival is a very unique event and a must for Leica wielders, be it street, fashion, cars or airplane photography, you really can’t miss and you’ll have a lot of fun while shooting it.
– Will Wilkinson
Learn more about Will on his website and Twitter.