On Roads & Cameras (OR&C) was an initiative we literally started on our road trip. As we drove west in our Challenger we asked ourselves the question, what will we do with all the photographs we’ll take along the way? OR&C was the answer to that question. Today OR&C is a website, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook page, and the desire for two Brits to share their love of cameras, cars, and the open road with other like-minded people. In the future, we see it as being more, but for now, we thought it would be good to briefly revisit the road trip that kicked it all off.
Peter and Gary outside Shiller’s Photographic on Old Route 66 in Saint Louis MO., (April 2015).
Day One: Leaving Saint Louis with a stop off at Schiller’s along the way
The road trip officially started outside Schiller’s; a local camera store in Saint Louis located on Old Route 66. We stocked up on film, camera gear, and even a new wide-angle lens to photograph the Grand Canyon and started out on our new adventure. The car we chose to use was a 2015 Dodge Challenger all-wheel drive, which we hired from Enterprise. Enterprise worked really hard with us, trying to find the exact car we wanted, and really made the trip a success from the car perspective.
The Challenger on the side of the road on one of our stop off moments. Taken using a Hasselblad 500CM.
We left Schiller’s and headed west along Route 66 until we had to pick up highway 70 west toward Kansas City. Along the way, we stopped off at a Western store and for some unknown reason I decided to buy a pair of cowboy boots and Peter bought some Western shirts and a John Deer baseball cap. We wore those for most of the trip, Peter’s cap was bright green and my boots were surprisingly comfortable.
Larry’s Boots
Peter in his new John Deere baseball cap, (2015).
The drive after that was a baron and not much to see. Due to setting off late in the afternoon we only made it to Kansas City, where we booked into a roadside hotel and got some rest. There were some big storms rolling through and it had rained for most of the day. We hoped that the next day would provide some better experiences and things to photograph.
Day Two: Kansas City to Boulder, CO
We headed out early after grabbing some breakfast and a cup of tea. We started out again on a major highway leaving Kansas City and heading toward Boulder CO. We quickly got bored of the highway and decided to take some of the back roads. Taking the back roads is always more fun and always provides better content and things to photograph, this time was no exception as we stumbled across a small town called Park. In Park, we refuelled at an old service station called Park Oil Co., where we met Shirley.
Shirley invited us in and let us look around and take photos, she also loved photography and shared some of her work with us. She loved capturing a lot of the nature that surrounded her and had a lot of it up in the gas station for people to see. We spent almost two hours there talking with Shirley and photographing the inside and outside of the Park Oil Co gas station and store.
Park Oil Co. Just west of Kansas. Photograph taken using a Hasselblad 500 CM on Portra 400
Shirley, the owner of Park Oil.
Meeting the people who live along these highways and make a living from them was the most memorable and special part of the trip. It really lets you see the real America and meet the great people along the way. Meeting these people really made the trip memorable and in many ways, they were more memorable than some of the sights along the way, they became the red thread that stitched the sights together and gave them meaning. We left Park and Shirley and headed toward Boulder, CO.
Inside Park Oil Co.
Our Challenger parked outside of Park Oil. Taken using a Canon 6D with 50mm f1.2 L Series lens.
Leaving Park, Kansas and heading west toward Boulder CO.
Many of the highways and countryside so far were very baron with not much to see apart from grassland and long stretches of highway accented with telegraph poles. However, to a photographer, there is a certain kind of beauty to that baroness. We drove through this landscape for the best part of eight hours and finally arrived late in Boulder, CO., which was our next portion of the trip. Boulder seemed to be a little bit of a bubble; there were a lot of rich people there that looked like they had been transplanted from New York or California and did not seem to belong. Many of them were young entrepreneurs looking to get rich by starting up small businesses and trying to escape the hum and the drum of their previous big cities. The contrast between Boulder and other parts along the way such as Park was strong and it felt odd, making you question what a “Real America” is today. We found a great B&B called the Bradley Boulder Inn, and dropped off our gear, and headed out to grab some dinner. By the time we got to eat it was late, driving for eight hours takes its toll and we were both tired. We sat, ate our dinner and discussed the things we had seen along the way, and shared a few of our photographs too. This is where we started talking about building the website for OR&C and when we got back to the B&B we started exploring how to build it via Squarespace.
The next morning at breakfast we sat at one of the large wooden tables, and laid out one of our maps to look at the route we’d take. Much of our road trip was “on-the-fly” and we’d make up the route in the morning, head out in the Challenger and drive it, and photograph the people and places along the way. We’d also book hotels as we go and look them up online and book on the road. There was a lovely feeling about not knowing really where you were heading and just being able to drive off into the horizon. While you are on the road driving like this it’s like time stands still and you are cheating time. The mental freedom it provided was tremendous and the ability to let go of the day-to-day work burden and just be free for a while was wonderful. If you have never taken a road trip I highly recommend it, it’s food for the soul and really allows you to think about the important things and leave the trivial stuff in your rearview mirror.
South Park Highway heading into CO., (2015).
Watch out for the next post where we will write more about days three and four, Boulder to Santa Fe and Santa Fe to Flagstaff. Thanks for reading and following OR&C, hopefully, Peter and I will get to take another road trip once all the COVID-19 restrictions lift and things open up again. Watch out for other posts too as we share other guest blogs and posts on the new cameras we are trying and cars we are renovating.
Gary