In near darkness the scoreboard on Centre Court shows 9.26pm. As Rafael Nadal holds aloft the championship trophy, he is illuminated by a flash from a photographer on court for the presentation ceremony. In one fleeting moment a man in white holding a golden cup above his head is lifted from the gloom as if bathed in a spiritual light.

From my vantage point on “Platform B” - a tiny photographers’ stand in one corner of Centre Court - past which Nadal had clambered en route to hugging his family and friends, I turned off my Canon flashgun, slowed the shutter speed on my Canon EOS 1D Mark III digital camera and hoped to catch just one of the hundreds of popping flashes going off around me, all trying to capture this piece of history. With the Centre Court roof ready to roll next year, this is, in every sense, a scene that we will never see again.

These images have been converted from digital colour into black and white and then framed to produce a picture reminiscent of those taken by courtside photographers attending the All England Championships using 5in by 4in large format glass-plate cameras (in the 1950s), or medium format 2¼in square cameras (1960s) using black and white film.

The Times was granted a privileged view from “the crow’s nest”, above No 2 and No 3 Courts, as well as vantage points from the roof of the Broadcast Centre and positions high above No 1 and Centre Courts, which offered a timeless perspective.

Cameras may have changed dramatically but, since the Championships began in 1877, serves and volleys, backhands and forehand shots are still much the same, so I wanted to present the vintage championship of 2008 as a nostalgic view from another age.