Changes

Something happened over the summer - I had my hand in all of it, except for the too-fast passage of time. I can't believe in just over 2 weeks it will be officially autumn and the car show / racing season will draw to a close. I've had some faithful followers email me from time to time asking why the blog posts have been less frequent. I must now admit - mostly to myself - that publishing a blog post once a month is about as good as it's going to get at this juncture. Between my full time job, my photography (which exploded in volume this summer), as well as other tugs on my schedule, I just can't find the time to sit in front of the laptop like I used to. As time and my trips around the sun go forward, I'll have more time to write, but that won't be for a number of years. I'll probably write between 10-14 blog posts a year - and I'm okay with that. I hope you are too.

One aspect of my life that has truly revealed itself in the past 10 years is my photography. If you told me back in 2005 that I'd be writing a bunch of malarkey, cleverly disguised as blog posts, magazine articles, and other online diatribes, in addition to taking, displaying, and selling photographs less than a decade from that date, I would've laughed at you. But life is like that... and that's okay. One of my most popular and controversial photographs came about by accident via a sculptor who deals with metal, welding and rust. For a brief time, he had on display at the entrance to his property and studio, an old rusty and gutted early 50's Ford truck that had a red, white, and blue enamel paint job. He was gracious enough to let me photograph it and for payment of his time and generosity, he has three of my prints - one of this truck as well as two other trucks on his property.

The photograph is popular because it's of an old American truck with some resemblance of mag wheels. One can almost vision an old hot rod or drag truck that is now decaying into the Earth. Other people have seen it as a symbol of our American culture, how it's deteriorating, and the fact that we are no longer the greatest country in the world statistically. As far as other aspects, the rest is up for debate which I'm not getting into here. When I first photographed this truck, I thought it was a vintage piece of pure cool. Now that others have voiced their opinion and in a few cases outrage, I can also see the other side of the coin. The outrage problem however, is still their problem.

The same can be said for the diverse styles of vehicles I saw and photographed over the summer. I saw everything from beautifully rusted 1934 Ford roadsters that were active race cars back in the 1950's and still are today. One even competes in The Race Of Gentlemen every year down in Wildwood New Jersey. Others included a stunning '55 Chevy that had been modified within an inch of it's life into a circle track car, but still kept it's original sheet metal flanks, as well as a nasty twin-turbo 1967 Olds 442 street / strip car, with the emphasis on strip. Those two vehicles received quite a bit of admiration, but also pissed a few people off. Why? Because the owners "ruined" a perfectly good classic automobile, or they could have restored it back to stock, or some other reason that tickled their grey matter at that point. The owner of the Olds handled one critic beautifully; "I'll tell you what - the next antique I purchase, I'll let you dictate the restoration as long as you pay for all of it. And I'll guarantee you don't know shit about how much that process costs." Being a critic is cheap - in fact it's free. Being an owner requires time, talent, blood, sweat, and yes money.

There's that old saying about hot rodding an old vehicle - if one has to ask, especially a great number of questions, they won't understand. That's still true.

Until next time, most likely next month, peace out.
Dave