Most of the cars I photograph were not planned.
Cars and Coffee is fun. Rows of perfect machines parked neatly in a lot. People walking around slowly with coffee cups in their hands. I go sometimes.
But the cars I remember usually show up when I'm not looking.
You hear them first.
Old engines have a sound modern cars don't. A little looser. A little louder. Something mechanical happening that hasn't been quieted down yet. If I hear one go by while I'm walking or driving, there's a good chance I'm already turning my head.
And if it's parked somewhere interesting, it's over.
I'm stopping the car.
There is a one hundred percent chance I'm taking a picture regardless of how late I might be to wherever it is that I'm going.
San Francisco
One thing I miss about San Francisco is the number of old cars people still drive every day.
Not restored show cars. Just cars.
Because they don't deal with winter the way we do here, things last longer. The salt never gets to them. Frames don't dissolve after ten years. Cars just keep running.
You'll see old Mercedes sedans, Volvos, pickup trucks from the seventies moving through the city like it's completely normal.
I'm fairly certain the police department was still running Crown Victorias from the eighties the last time I was there. But that's a different story.
What I liked most was how ordinary it felt. A thirty-year-old car at a stoplight next to something brand new and nobody paying attention.
Marblehead
The Mustang was at the Marblehead Cruise-In.
That one was not exactly a surprise. The whole point of the night is cars. People bring them down to the harbor and line them up along the water. Families walk around. Kids climb into cars. Everyone spends a lot of time leaning into engine bays and talking about things most people stopped thinking about twenty years ago.
It started small but has turned into a good local gathering.
Even there, with cars everywhere, I still find myself looking for the ones that feel right in the setting.
A Mustang parked near the harbor in Marblehead feels like it belongs.
London
The Defender was in Mayfair.
My wife Emily had studied abroad in London years ago, so the trip was partly her showing me the places she used to walk every day. It was my first time there.
We saw a lot of incredible cars while we were walking around the city. Old ones, new ones, things you almost never see in the United States.
The Defender stopped me immediately.
That truck has always been a favorite of mine. I don't know many guys my age who wouldn't want one. If it is good enough for James Bond it is good enough for me.
If I actually owned one I would probably photograph it and talk about it far too much. That would get annoying quickly.
But seeing one sitting there in Mayfair felt perfect. Mud still on the sides of it, parked between buildings older than the truck itself.
Gloucester
The Thunderbird was parked across from where I used to keep my boat in Rocky Neck.
It was sitting right across the street from The Last Stop, the little cafe before you turn into Rocky Neck itself.
That part of Gloucester always feels like a small world inside a bigger one. Rocky Neck is one of the oldest art colonies in the country. Artists like Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper spent time working there. The whole area still carries that feeling.
Gloucester has a lot of places like that. Small slices of heaven scattered around the harbor.
I usually think of the city as a pie and those places are the slices.
That Thunderbird sitting quietly on the street felt like it belonged there.
Ipswich
The FJ at Russell Orchards almost got away.
I had stopped there to grab cider donuts before heading over to my friend's house on Argilla Road. As I was pulling out of the lot I heard something pull in behind me.
That low rumble older trucks have.
I turned the car around immediately and pulled back in.
Sure enough an FJ had just parked. The cleanest one I have ever seen in the wild. Not even close.
I waited for the driver to get out so I didn't have one of those awkward middle school crush interactions where you are clearly staring at something you love.
Then I grabbed a few photos.
It's funny how there are only a few vehicles where certain colors really work. That tan looks perfect on an FJ.
Imagine seeing a Toyota Camry in the same color. It would not hit the same.
Rockport
The Ford truck showed up during a storm.
I had already spent the morning photographing waves on the Back Shore in Gloucester and at Long Beach. The wind was strong and the surf was building, so I assumed Pigeon Cove Wharf in Rockport would be worth checking.
There were good waves there too, but the truck is what caught my eye.
It was parked near the harbor in that gray storm light that makes the whole coast feel quiet.
The best part was that I kept seeing it afterwards. Around town. Driving locally.
One time a friend was driving and I leaned out of the passenger side of the truck just long enough to grab a photo of it on the highway.
I don't know if it's the color, the lines, or the people behind the wheel.
But seeing cars like that out in the world and catching them when you can will always be one of my favorite things to photograph.
