With photography becoming an ever expanding field, there are more and more photographers with more and more subjects to shoot. This is why I find “who is your favorite photographer” a hard question. Just like with literature it’s hard to say who your favorite author is based on that premise. Like the old saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words, but they could be two completely different sets of words. And as such are only similar in the fact that they are both photographs with everything else different. Kind of like a Ferrari vs. a Bentley, both extremely nice cars, but you just can’t compare them to each other.
For me I am torn between an undeniable master, and my passion for cars. And so I would have to say my favorites are Ansel Adams, and Peter Vincent. Ever since I was a kid we always had a big Ansel Adams book on our coffee table. I remember looking through the perfectly contrasted photos and being in awe of the feats of strength and determination Adams had to carry such ridiculously primitive camera equipment through mountains, valleys and plains. In fact for my 15th birthday when my parents remade and painted my room, they asked me what kind of pictures I wanted hanging on my wall, I wanted a couple of Ansel Adams pictures. So we scanned some pictures from the book, enlarged and printed them, and then got them framed. All three are still hanging above my bed back home.
However for my passion for cars you can not deny the unbelievable elegance in which Peter Vincent photographs classic cars. From shooting old Mooney 32 deuce coupes on the salt flats to multimillion dollar European coachwork like Delahayes and Talbot Lagos at Pebble beach. I have always loved cars and hot rods and it’s also a known fact that most photographs don’t ever do a beautiful car justice, but Vincent seems to know the perfect angles, lighting and framing to make the car pop out of its page. He has actually admitted that his biggest influence was surprisingly Ansel Adams, and his car photography has made it into almost every big car magazine including Hot Rodders Journal, Street Rod Magazine, Hop Up and more. His photographs have been displayed in museums and galleries from New York to San Francisco and he even published a Hot Rod photography book called “Hot Rod, An American Original” in 2001 which became a best seller.