The Occasional Odd Crop

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Where: Fashion Valley mall, Mission Valley, San Diego

When: June 2011

Today's cars are boring. Yes, they get better gas mileage than their predecessors, and they're safer than they used to be, but just to look at, they're boring.

The modern car is why I almost didn't shoot this photo. The sun was setting on the other side of the mall, so all of the light came from the parking garage. That was moody enough, and concrete walls have great textures. Finally, I liked the composition, the lone car demurely peeking out from behind the pillar.

But that car? It's a white Honda sedan. Bland. So the first time I walked past this scene, I didn't even slow down.

Then I thought about a photo book I'd seen a few days before, "Uncommon Places" by Stephen Shore. Here's a larger version of the cover photo (source).

The photos in that book are very much of the '70s, and that's partly because of the cars. You look at the pictures, you see the cars, you know when Shore shot them.

The same is true of today's photos. For better or worse, in decades to come, people will look at the pictures we're shooting now, see the cars in them, and accurately place them in the first few years of the 21st century. There's something to be said for that.

So I shot the photo. Would it have been better with a gold 1970 Ford Torino? Maybe. But today's cars are our cars, and it's time I embraced that.