Vroom with a view: images from behind the wheel

The Guardian

07-04-2025

During a 50-year career as a global finance exec, Clark Winter travelled all over the world – and took his camera with him. His new book showcases his pictures of cars from throughout the decades and his travels. They revel in nostalgia and reveal the subtleties of our relationship with automobiles, drivers and the things we see along the way. Here to There: Photographs from the Road Ahead by Clark Winter is published by Damiani Books
In 1974, buildings in smaller towns were still as they'd been for decades – unfixed, unsophisticated. This car from the 1940s fits right in, and the message painted on the hood – 'Jesus is the Way' – fits perfectly with 'Garden Chop', 'Filans' and 'For Rent'
Winter's photographs, made in both colour and black-and-white, are not simply focused on the vehicles but rather on the way people physically relate to cars, turning each image into a stage on which a drama quietly (and sometimes comically) unfolds between owner, passenger and passerby
While hitchhiking from Ohio to Washington, DC, Winter and a schoolmate caught a ride with a man driving a flatbed truck. 'It's been 50 years, but I still remember how curious and inquisitive the driver was,' says Winter. 'I leaned back and took this picture while we were barrelling down the highway, deep in conversation'
While in college in Ohio in the early 1970s, Winter frequently explored the small, rural roads near his campus. 'This photo is about the quiet moment when you're weighing your options, before you make a decision,' he says. In the past, he'd come to this fork and had always turned to the right. 'This time, I took the road less travelled'
Winter's pictures often find a careful balance of geometry and colour. The black edge of the building on the left plays against the white building on the right; the telephone pole standing tall echoes the dark shadow cutting across the bottom; the centre is empty except for the lone car
Winter was driving back from a rodeo near Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1986, when he saw this stationary horse standing, he says, 'with great dignity. As I got closer, I realised it was plastic, probably a model for testing saddles. It couldn't stand on its own'
It was 2004 and Winter was in Beijing on business. 'Visually, there was so much going on,' he says. 'It was like an operatic scenario with the blue square, the yellow circle, the clock, the window, the mirror, the driver, my reflection.' Read more about this image in the Big Picture feature
In the early morning hours after a long night of flamenco, the residents of this town celebrated the coming dawn by firing off rocket after rocket. This man had his rocket ready to go
Dozens of cars were jammed every which way into this parking lot in Spain. What intrigued Winter was not just the chaos of colours and angles, but that everyone left their keys in their vehicle. A stranger could move any car he needed to in order to get out. It was all on the honour system
Winter describes this picture as 'an eminently practical picnic. They didn't even take it out of the car.' The two half-cars stretch your eye across the frame, while the man, focused on swallowing his food, doesn't realise the open trunk is swallowing him
Winter frequently shot through his own window, using it to frame his subjects. Here he uses the subjects' window to focus our attention on the cool cats – sunglasses, sideburns, cigarette –cruising up and back old Route 23 in Ohio in 1972, as they headed nowhere in particular … and then back again
There was a small parade along the main street of Delaware, Ohio, says Winter. 'It was supposed to be celebratory, but these Shriners – six of them crammed into the convertible – just seemed confused. Sitting on the bucket seats, they looked obedient and baffled'
While on a lonely two-lane road in the middle of the country, Winter, in the passenger seat, lifted his camera, shot across the dashboard and through the window to capture 'a car passing us, going nowhere fast'