Roads, Rails and Trails

Art of the Automobile

The automobile is, sadly, today often maligned as the Satan of urban sprawl, air pollution and global warming. All that it may be, but motor vehicles have also been the engine of personal expression, adventure and commerce.

Cars are the collective soul of our Sunday drives and summer vacations. They are the long-awaited ticket to independence for generations of teenagers across the land. Without them, there would be no Mother Road, no Blue Highways, no Travels with Charley, no Kerouac. Germany may have invented the automobile, but America gave it heart.

Strangely, for a kid who grew up in New York City and whose family didn't even own a car, they've been a central feature of my life. I devoured car magazines as a child and watched the very few races that made it to television in those days. My first job after college was selling BMWs and Alfa Romeos at a new-car dealership in the Bronx. I was an automotive journalist for a number of years and have had many car companies as clients during my career in corporate communications and multimedia production.

My earliest memories of cars include my Uncle Tom's blue 1958 Plymouth Fury, of the big tailfins. That car took me and my parents to a Florida vacation when it was brand new. He replaced that in 1967 with a deep red Mercury Cougar, and that branded him to my teenage sense of values as my coolest relative. My dad's brother, Uncle Peter, was a Chevy man through and through. He had a '59 Impala followed by a '68, which would be his last car. My cousin Bob had a succession of Volkswagens, starting with a Beetle. There were other nameplates in the family at one time or another: Mercury Comet, Rambler, Lark, an early Toyota, Honda 600. Their engines have all long since gone cold.

To recover those memories and to celebrate the heart and soul of the automobile, I've recently begun a photographic series looking at the art form of the motor vehicle. From the Model T to the Prius, automotive design has reflected popular culture, economic mood swings and world events.

The early days were all about the bling: the beautifully crafted brass hardware, sparkling over-sized headlamps, polished wood steering wheels, elegantly spoked wheels. In the 1930s, streamlining became the rage, showcased in steamships, passenger trains, architecture and consumer products. Cars adopted swooping hoods and trunks along with sumptuous curves around cavernous wheel wells. The influences of Dreyfuss and Loewy were evident.

Vehicles of the 1940s became utilitarian, influenced by the hardships of World War 2. The hardware was more integrated into the body of the vehicle: less pronounced, less bling. But the roaring economic boom of the 1950s let loose the exuberance of style, creating classics such as the '57 Chevy while ultimately leading to the inevitable excesses of tailfins and the unfortunate Edsel.

The 1960s was a decade of upheaval, assassinations and social revolution. In response, cars became the squares of the time: boxy, uninspired, threatened by Ralph Nader and deadly smog. Yet, a bifurcation develops in the market. Cool is defined by Corvette and Porsche. The Camaro and Mustang come onto the scene. The quirky VW Bug becomes the counter-culture car.

The 1970s saw two oil shortages, economic malaise and inroads by small, fuel-efficient import cars. There were great American muscle cars and European roadsters, but they were in some ways a last attempt to stave off the styling doldrums of 1980s cloned Oldsmobiles and boxy Japanese imports. The '80s was just the Ugly Era.

More interesting styling returned in the 1990s as a new economic boom took hold late in the decade, and continued into the 2000s. But if history is any guide, the upcoming era in automobile design will be dominated by functionality and bland styling, driven by economic concerns and environmental correctness.

But for my photography, I'm not interested in the vehicle as a whole. I'm interested in its lines, shape, pattern, color and texture. How the surfaces play with light and dark. How reflections play off the surface. How the details act as focal points. How elements frame features. And what these designs say about their time and place in history.

The first images in what I hope to be a continuing series appear at my online Automobila gallery. Enjoy and remember.

Ken Burns National Park Doc Does Justice to "America's Best Idea"

The monumental Ken Burns documentary airing this week on PBS, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," brings the glory of our landscape home with stunning photography and an engaging story.

I've enjoyed spotting parks and places I've visited, including the Grand Canyon, Mt. Rainier, Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon and, most recently, Olympic National Park. Today's National Park Service includes 391 national parks along with 2,461 national historic landmarks and 40 national heritage areas. The Park Service also manages 75 national monuments. I haven't counted how many I've been to, but whatever the number is, it's not enough.

Photo Introduction to the Olympic Peninsula

The first morning on Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park should have been a tip-off to the weather-dominated weekend that was to come. It was supposed to be sunrise, but dense cloud cover obscured the dawn and dimmed the emerging daylight. A cold wind raged across the ridge, while bursts of rain dampened cameras and lenses.

It would be the first of several cold, wet sessions over three days on the Olympic Peninsula as part of a photo workshop led by Art Wolfe, of "Travels to the Edge" fame. We would be shooting from early morning to post-sunset, eating on the run, wolfing down sandwiches and nutrition bars, and mostly trying to stay dry.

Classroom sessions and critiques filled mid-days. Art and his team, which included photographers John Greengo and Jay Goodrich, provided valuable lessons and insights. Art was funny, personable and approachable. He seemed to enjoy the give and take with the students.

The second night of the workshop, which would be our last evening in the field, found us on Second Beach along the Strait of Juan de Fuca near the town of Neah Bay. After a mile and a half downhill hike from the trailhead, we set out our gear. The skies opened almost immediately, and drenched us for nearly two hours in a torrential downpour. I first tried sheltering by a large log. When the wind changed and that no longer worked, I found a large rock to huddle against. None of it helped; in short order I was thoroughly soaked through to my skin. However, with minimal wind and a relatively comfortable temperature, I managed to stave off abject hypothermia.

The rain finally ended about an hour before sunset. The golden sun blazed through the storm clouds, punctuating the day with a brilliant glow over the craggy sea stacks.

Breakfast at the end of the Trail

It was surprisingly fog-shrouded below Griffith Observatory this morning as I began an early morning hike up to Mt. Hollywood. Late September is more commonly clear, with perhaps a promise of hot temperatures brought in on the Santa Ana winds. Today was calm.

I hadn't had a real plan for the day, or even for breakfast other than the cereal bar in my pocket. But there is a pleasant place near the Fern Dell parking lot that I knew would open at 9:00. If I could stretch out my hike, that might be a good choice. With a bit of detouring around the Observatory itself on my way up, I made it back to my car at 8:55 and headed immediately to the Trails Cafe.

Although tempted by a satanic selection of overstuffed pies, I played the part of the good boy and ordered the multigrain waffle. It was just enough to replace the carbs I'd expended on the 5.5 mile hike, hot and tasty with maple syrup. The coffee was served in a compostable paper cup and the utensils were labeled as biodegradable. Wow, I was really being a good boy.

Sometimes I wish the Trails Cafe would open earlier, as I prefer sunrise hikes, but at any time the food is good and the service pleasant. The seating is all outdoors under the oak trees, on picnic style tables, accompanied by scampering squirrels.

One of these days I have to get back there for a piece of that monumental cherry pie.

Rolling by Night

There are only a few things more enjoyable than a dark, empty night highway. I'm talking about those great long stretches of Interstate out among the wide open, far beyond the urban glow and the suburban spread. The roads that only vaguely connect distant cities but are really ribbon communities apart, always changing and ever changeless.

There is a romance associated with the old, two-lane rural roads, the Route 66's and Ocean Highways of memory. Those were the highways of my youth, of motels named Vacancy and diners named Eat. Of those that remain, they exist mainly for the scenery that displays itself by day. After sundown, they are hazards of unknown curves and unseen wildlife. You never know where the next gas station or restaurant will be, and let's face it, no one uses these routes to go from Point A to Point B anymore.

The Interstate is, yes, merely functional by day. Even the most scenic stretches of I-number highways disrupts the landscape with its multi-lane, medianed intrusion. At night, however, it becomes a landscape unto itself.

First, of course, the amount of traffic diminishes after dark, and what remains is purposeful and often professional: truckers, mainly, road warriors, wanderers. Take I-10 through the Arizona desert or I-70 through the Colorado Rockies or I-80 east from Reno and it's possible, even probable, especially after the midnight hour, to go long stretches without passing or being passed by another vehicle. It's likely you'll know of other life only by the faint and distant trailer lights way up ahead or the infrequent headlights of a car moving silently toward the hills from which you just came.

There are oases: the truck stops and inevitable junctions, populated everywhere by dead-same gas stations and fast food disappointments. This is, sadly, where the individualism of the two-laners has disappeared; but for better or worse, it is where the community of the Interstate gathers.

The lights of the oasis are often visible for miles at night. No signs are needed to know that relief is approaching when my gas gauge drops to dangerous levels or my brain begins to ache for caffeine. I watch the lights grow as the miles to the stadium-lit interchange decrease and the form of the towering Chevron sign becomes clear. I'll power up the exit ramp, trying to brake my brain down from 75 to a local speed. I'll pull up to the nearest gas pump and step out of the car. After so many miles, the cool night air instantly refreshes.

Maybe it's early enough and the burger joint is still open; if not, the convenience store will have hot coffee and some plastic-wrapped sandwiches. It's less about the content, more about the ritual: fuel, food, restroom. And for me, always a brief walk to de-pool the blood.

The oasis is where the community of the highway night comes together, briefly and anonymously. That's just fine with me. Soon, I'll turn the ignition key, check the mirrors and head back out to the solitude of the starlight and the dashlight, rolling toward, or away from, home.