Car Photograph of the Day: Valet Ballet by Phil Waters
The Denver MCA boasts something that most museums don’t have: a 1968 Chevrolet Chevelle parked on its nose outside the building. I’ve been trying to shoot a worthwhile photograph of this fine sculpture by Gonzalo Lebrija, entitled Entre La Vida y La Muerte, but I just don’t have the boss camera skilz to do it justice. Fortunately, I know a guy who does.
The Chevelle still has the engine, transmission, interior, the works, and appears to be in pretty good condition. Was it worth removing a solid classic Detroit car from street duty in the name of art? I say it was worth it; 425,300 Chevelles were built for the 1968 model year, so it’s not exactly rare, and Lebrija’s sculpture has thousands of non-car-freaks contemplating one of Detroit’s best designs.
Top photo credit/copyright, © 2011 Phil Waters Design
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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I am slowly building a great collection of black & white automobile photos and this is the style of photography I admire and display. Murilee, will Phil Waters sell autographed prints? I'd love to purchase one. Thanks.
this fine sculpture
Cool idea but I'm not sure that taking a stock car and mounting it on its nose constitutes sculpting. Sorry to be a curmudgeon but there's more artistic effort and skill in one of my granddaughter's refrigerator drawings. Somehow I think there's more to art than taking something someone else made and putting it in an unusual situation. But then I'm a stuck-in-the-mud who thinks that artists should be able to do representational drawing.