january 18, 2023
I'm light on artistic photography for my exhibition when it comes to modern vehicles. Classic, beat-up Americana? Yeah, I have that in spades, it comes with living in rural communities or impoverished neighborhoods. New cars photographed in ways that illustrate a point? Much harder to do, especially when I never own or drive new cars, and I usually have maybe an hour or two for unique shots at a press event.
But I was in Sedona - a rich asshole's playground with more gated neighborhoods than public roads - with a brand-new $50,000 SUV. I wanted to get one shot that might fit my series. And I found this abandoned strip-mall-motel-thing with a perfect vista of the red rocks behind it and I had to hurry up and line everything up to take the shot.
so I swerved in, adjusted a few times to try and get the shadows to all line up right, and took the shot in the ten minutes I had left to return the car. and I think it's honestly quite an interesting breed of photo to take such traditional Americana - worn-out building blocking a stunning vista - with something so perfectly shiny, new, expensive. the SUV feels like a window straight through the abandoned plaza.
it may or may not end up in the exhibition, I don't know, but something about it feels like it illustrates the strange dichotomies of the rich and poor, the beaten and fresh, the decay and the stunning insistence of no such thing, all in one image.
