About me

Rainer W. Schlegelmilch ‘RWS’ saw his first race in 1962, when he photographed a series of portraits at the ‘1000 kilometers’ at the Nürburgring for his final examination at the Bavarian State School of Photography in Munich. Eighteen months later, he opened his studio of photo design in Frankfurt, but racing has always remained a major aspect of his work. Right from the very beginning, initially in monochrome only, he photographed for numerous prestigious motor sport publications and in motor racing involved companies.

Since 1974, 5 years already in color, RWS has focused exclusively on Formula 1 championship races. Between the 1990s and today, he has published over 40 works of photography, which have brought him worldwide acclaim. RWS edited books about cars, and did more than 500 shootings on location with cars of Ferrari, Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Aston Martin and some other British Sports Car factories. Changing to digital photography 2004, his archive became with 15,000 monochrome photographs and nearly 600,000 color slides and digital images the most perfect organized motor sport archive out of one hand.

In Monza 2011 Bernie Ecclestone honored Rainer with a lifetime permanent photographer’s pass.

With the publication of coffee table books like ‚THE GOLDEN AGE OF FORMULA‘‚ ‚THE ROARING 70s‘, FORMULA 1 WORLD CHAMPIONS‘,‚70s CONCEPT CARS‘ with teNeues and the monumental works ‚SCHLEGELMILCH – 50 YEARS OF FORMULA 1 PHOTOGRAPHY’ and ‚SCHLEGELMILCH SPORTS CAR RACING 1962 -1973‘ with Könemann, Rainer ended 2012 his active career at the race tracks and started to organize worldwide exhibitions, especially of his early black & white photography.

His Motorsport- and Automobile homepage in low-res became an unique work of reference for fans and all kind of motorsport people.
To receive the hi-res files, go to the world’s biggest motorsport picture archive‚ Motorsport Images‘(motorsportimages.com), there you will find all Schlegelmilch pictures and much more.
Today Rainer Schlegelmilch is still visiting some Formula-1-races every year, enjoys all kind of Motorsport on TV and supports with his long-time experience new photo- and business projects of our sport.