Jalopies, New York NY, 2010. I’ve had a very busy life—moving constantly between a town out West, a house in the Hamptons, and buildings in New York City. On weekends I’d head out East to exercise my cars—I had 30 of them at one point. I know…crazy. But as a kid, I collected toy cars. As I got older, I did the same thing, just bigger. The hunt, the buy ,the drive, and then—inevitably sell and move on to the next.Being a photographer, I couldn’t help myself but be creative with my hobby. I started shooting portraits of my cars. No people, no distractions—just dusty jalopies parked in fields, with these beautifully composed landscapes. The cars each had personalities, and I tried to capture their essence, the same way I captured it when I shoot people.Unlike glossy, pristine car photos, my cars were ratty, dusty, and funky. I’d buy ones that were beat-up and fix them up just enough to drive around. The way I shot them was also different. I only used Polaroid positive-negative film, with this vintage camera I loved. I’d peel the film, see what I was getting, toss it in a water bath to clear the junk from the Polaroid, and end up with this gorgeous negative. It had a little vignette that framed everything perfectly. It gave the photos a vintage, nostalgic feel that matched the cars and my love for black-and-white movies—film noir from the ’30s and ’40s.Every weekend I’d get stoned, take one car out for a drive, come back, switch cars, shoot a little. I’d get lost on adventures, then I’d switch again, drive to lunch, and repeat. It wasn’t my day job, but in a way, it was. I wasn’t photographing people, but I was still capturing personalities—just a little dustier than usual.
