Trusted With a Special Race Car in a Remarkable Setting
I was excited to get contacted by Bonhams again to photograph another local car here in the Monterey Peninsula area that will be listed at the upcoming Laguna Seca Auction during Monterey Car Week 2026. And, it was not just a car this time, it was an actual race car! Then the location was not just any location, it was outside a private hanger at Monterey Regional Airport! This combined to allow me to make car auction photos unlike any others I had done before. It was great working with Jim, who took care of this race car for the owner for 20 years. The race car is so light, we never started it up to move it. Jim and I were able to easily push it to turn it around as needed. Thank you to the team at Bonhams for continuing to choose me as a local Monterey car auction photographer and to Jim for his help during the shoot.
Yet another week started out with time in the high desert of central New Mexico out on a rural land photography assignment for Hemingway Land Company in remote, northwest Rio Rancho. This area off of Northern Blvd was a little more to the southeast than I had been to before. It was sandier with less brush covering everything. It's rare to see sandy desert in this area of New Mexico. It caught my eye to make a photograph featuring the sand itself, as seen above.
Porsche 911 Series 993 racing on the track at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix 2013 - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1250thI entered the 2013 St. Petersburg Grand Prix raceway area around noon not know what type of cars I may see on the track at that time. To my delight the classic racers were out and I got to see my favorite car, the Porsche 911 in several forms roaring around the course. It took me awhile to find a suitable spot to photograph the cars because the double fence around most of the course just could not be shot through with any success.
A Mustang takes the corner ahead of a Jaguar at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix 2013 - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1250th
I ended up using a spot where a TV camera guy was. There was a hole cut out of the fence that his huge camera was pointing through so I then only had one fence to shoot through and I could put my lens right up against essentially making it invisible to my camera's sensor. This spot is where most of these shots are from.
Another classic Porsche 911 with huge rear wing taking a turn at the 2013 St. Petersburg Grand Prix - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1000thI had some idea it would be very loud because as I sit here at home now with the windows open some 4 miles away I can hear the faint sound of engines even. I actually liked the intense sound and did not use the promotional air plugs handed to me by some social media guy. I was there less than an hour, so perhaps longer exposure to the engine sounds would have been headache inducing, but for me it was a rush to shoot and feel the subject so viscerally.
Going down a long straightaway at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix 2013 - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 200 1/1000thI always wonder what the people do who live in the condos right on the race course. Do they eventually block it out, love it, or just spend the weekend out of town?
