[Leica] IMG: Oldtimer

[Gerry Walden]

It was in 1997 when my wife and I first visited New England. I wanted to attend the annual Star Island ‘escape’ of the New Hampshire Society of Photographic Artists, and it was to celebrate our 28th wedding anniversary. Both of us had always wanted to visit the area for the fall colours, so we scraped the money together and did the trip.

One of our days was spent travelling the road which was the route of i95 before it became a multi-lane highway, to discover a little of rural America north of Boston. It tuned out to be a fascinating drive with abandoned wood-built hotels, and large empty barns, both of which had died when the traffic deserted the road. We came across a car lot selling rusty old heaps of autos which I did not understand, but enjoyed photographing. Now there is a programme here on cable TV called “American Pickers” and I understand the American restoration market more, and therefore the old-time autos sat by the roadside. As it was, I was just fascinated to see them and photograph some of them.

I was new to Leica having bought my M3 double-stroke about 6 months earlier, and was using Kodak 400BN film so I could get it processed as I went to avoid x-ray problems at the airport. I have just been going through the archives, and I particularly like this image. I may be wrong but I reckon the price would now be about 4 times what is shown here:

https://gerrywalden.photoshelter.com/index/I0000iNEVenTTEWQ

If anybody knows the make and model of the auto, or the location of the car lot I would like to know.

Hope you like the image!

Gerry

Gerry Walden
www.gwpics.com
+44 (0)23 8046 3076 or
+44 (0)797 287 7932