Sutton Images is the World's largest independent motorsport photographic agency, with over four million images in its archive. With the creation of the Sutton Picture Desk online archive in 1997 (www.sutton-images.com), the agency began the task of transferring these images into digital format, a process that continues to this day. Combined with continually growing coverage of contemporary motorsport, the Sutton online archive now boasts over half a million images.

To celebrate this milestone, three-time Formula 1 World Champion Sir Jackie Stewart paid a visit to Sutton's head office in Towcester, near Silverstone, England, to congratulate the company and its founder and CEO Keith Sutton. Sir Jackie played an important role in the story of the company, for it was his skill behind the wheels of the Ecurie Ecosse Tojeiro and Cooper Monaco which, at Oulton Park in 1963, first ignited the motorsport passion of the then four year-old Sutton.

With the inspiration of Sir Jackie Stewart's racing exploits, Keith Sutton embarked on a career as a motorsport photographer and in 1980 went on to establish Sutton Images, a global motorsport photographic agency which today employs some of the world's best racing photographers. The company has always maintained strong links to the Stewart name, becoming the official photographic supplier to Paul Stewart Racing and latterly to Stewart Grand Prix.

Although Sutton himself was too young to capture Stewart's own F1 career on film, the success of Sutton Images allowed the company to purchase the photographic archive of the late David Phipps, which documents the years from 1960-1987, including all three of Sir Jackie Stewart's F1 World Championship successes. These stunning images form an important part of the ever-expanding Sutton archive.

Keith Sutton: "Today's milestone is a tremendous achievement for Sutton Images. I am delighted to welcome Sir Jackie to our offices, and to show him the work that we, as a company, have spent our lives creating. In many ways, the inspiration for it all lies with him, and so I am naturally honoured that he has chosen to be a part of our celebrations.

When we first launched www.sutton-images.com, we were one of the first agencies to utilise the internet to aid our clients with their image searching needs. Today, as we pass the milestone of half a million searchable images online, I would like to thank everyone who has worked for this company, and the talented group of photographers, both past and present, whose work is contained within our archive.

We never stop uploading images to our digital archive, and I look forward to the day we pass the one million mark."

Sir Jackie Stewart: "I am delighted and honoured to be considered such an inspiration to the Sutton brothers and Sutton Images and also to be asked here to mark their 500,000th online image. Who would have thought that that young boy of four years of age would have achieved such heights and made such a success story in the very competitive field that he went into.

Sutton Images are real professionals in the sport that I have spent most of my life involved in. I congratulate everyone in what is obviously a successful team in achieving so much and those that have rapidly developed the technology that has allowed the Suttons to create such an extensive archive.

I wish Keith and Mark Sutton and all at Sutton Images every success for a long and prosperous future."

For images of Jackie Stewart's visit to Sutton Images, or to browse our 500,000 image motorsport archive, please visit www.sutton-images.com


by Sutton