These photos shot by Jim Miner at the 1960 running of the Nuburgring 1000km caused quite a sensation when his daughter, Kat Miner, uploaded them to her Flickr. There was a tremendous outpouring of interest from the vintage racing community, and it’s easy to see why.
Even in today’s Hipstamatic and Instagram faux-vintage photo effects, there’s something noticeably otherworldly and atmospheric about these shots captured by the young serviceman stationed in Frankfurt. The colors are somehow both vivid and lush, but also cold and chillingly dramatic. The blue tones are amplified, making the greens so vibrant, but also giving everything a foreboding mood. They are haunting.
Even though there’s only these few photos from the day, they hint at a wonderful story. Partly, I think that the fact that there’s so few is what captures my imagination about the event. There’s no shortage of photos from any modern event. Everyone has a camera in their pocket and many spectators spend the bulk of the race looking at the action through their phone’s screen while they snap away hundreds or thousands of images.
These photos though—and I readily acknowledge I’m reading more into this than I should—seem considered and carefully shot. After all, film and processing was never cheap enough to click away with the fury of a digital photographer.
Whatever the case, let’s at least sit back and appreciate how marvelous these photos are… And keep scanning those old slides and negatives, people!
0 replies on “Jim Miner’s 1960 Nurburgring 1000km”
The Green Hell.
Never totally understood that until that shot of the straight between the hedges.
Awesome pics, thanks for passing along. I’ve now got some new Flickr favorites…
A comics tribute to the RING soon in librarys : http://vrooaart.blogspot.com/2012/01/spa-pau-charade-angouleme-nurburgring.html
Nice find! I must say though I keep coming across dozens of photos from these period racing events in Germany. It seems the Germans (and apparently american servicemen) were all up-to-date very soon after the war and snapping away their expensive rolls of film at racing events. I say this because I almost never ever come across amateur photos from other European countries, were they really lagging behind in this respect?
So fun to find these here and so appreciated!
Two of these images have been featured in the awesome book “1000 Kilometer Rennen” by Jan Hettler and Udo Klinkel – published by Delius Klassing. If you’re a Nurburgring fan, you may want to look into adding it to your collection. It’s beautifully done.