Shooting Stars

We go behind the scenes with truck photographer Tom Cunningham to get the story behind the shoots

- Tom Cunningham

When T&D’s editor Dougie asked if I might be interested in doing a feature on my photography for the mag, my initial reaction was to laugh! “I could talk about the day we nearly killed one of the Commercial Motor staff or the blow-up doll I was sent to photograph sitting behind the wheel of a Scania. Or what about the test track fuel consumption shoot where the aerodynamic trailer lost to the conventional one?

Then there was the day I managed to lock the car keys in the boot in the middle of Liverpool. In the first of two parts, I will try to explain what a truck photographer’s stock in trade images are and how they’re captured. Next month I will showcase a few of my favorite photos, explain how they were done and with what type of equipment.

Backstory

I don’t come from a transport background, so I can’t accurately explain what it was I saw in trucks. I bought magazines with my pocket money from a very early age. I left school with nothing other than painful memories about what a monumental waste of time the whole thing was.

My life kicked into gear when I met Richard Simpson. I was a driver and he was the then editor of what was at the time, Trucking International. With no writing experience whatsoever, I managed to convince Richard to hire me as a freelance journalist. Looking back, it was laughable. I owe him a huge debt of gratitude. My journey into the visual world didn’t come until a few years later. My first camera, a second hand Pentax P30, still sits in my office.