My missus and I went to the opening last night. A few notes I took might give a bit more insight into her work on this series:
Lara Platman comes from a photojournalist and theatre photographer background, shooting as an in-house back-stage theatre and ballet photographer and for Country Life, etc - rather than sports photographer. She got into motor racing by accident and made some great connections with Alfa Romeo and Aston Martin racing teams via events like the Goodwood revival, etc.
If you look at her "Through the Night" photos, what may become obvious is that, apart from one or two which show the cars whilst racing, the vast majority are captured moments of the "theatre" that goes on behind the scenes. Her cameras don't led themselves to recording the on-track action, for the most part, and that's not really what she was trying to record. Shooting with Leica M6 + 50mm Noctilux (f1.0 version shot almost wide open / no flashguns allowed) and 3200 ISO enables her to operate silently around the pit lanes.
Although some of the events contained in the series were 24 hour races, she chose not to shoot in the daytime because shooting at night creates more dramatic images, forces her to shoot with the lens at widest apertures and also because the majority of photographers tend to shoot in the daytime and tend not to zone in on the back-stage / pit lane area - which gives her much more freedom to create a more unique storyboard.
She is now looking to shoot other motor racing related projects and also compete in Monte Carlo Rally and/or Princess Rally.
If anyone is interested in seeing this exhibition, it's excellent and it is at the Leica City store just by the Bank of England (not the Leica Mayfair store on Bruton Square). Be warned, though, it's on the upper floor which can only be accessed by a very steep and narrow spiral staircase.
