Journal: Help Kickstart This Award-Winning Automotive Photographer's Coffee Table Book

Help Kickstart This Award-Winning Automotive Photographer’s Coffee Table Book

By Alex Sobran
October 25, 2017
11 comments

A certain degree of talent is required to make inherently artistic objects look more intriguing in photographs than in real life, and on both technical and emotional levels, the work of Communication Arts award-winning photographer Bill Pack achieves the difficult feat. Formally educated as a commercial photographer at the Brooks Institute, Pack has since spent decades performing and perfecting his craft, creating a body of work that reaches across an expansive spread of consumer and industrial design; products you’d find in your kitchen drawer to the megalithic architectural staples of the world’s hub cities.

His work with cars is the focus today though, seeing as he’s gathered a collection of his best work on the subject in a beautifully bound coffee table book of some 348 striking pages, called V – 12 – 1. You can be an accomplished photographer and create some nice automotive images, but you can tell Pack loves cars beyond their use as something to shoot. You get a sense from just a few frames that this is somebody who might be browsing classifieds like the rest of us. It’s art in every sense of the word and not un-abstract  but it doesn’t feel like it’s been created from a place of aloofness—not at all.

Highlighting marques and models from a slew of time periods and provenances, he connects it all through technique more so than any one type of car. You’ll see lithe, liveried racing machines from the late 20th century and pre-war behemoths from the early end of it inside the sewn-bound hardcover, but regardless of their shapes and functions each is given the same treatment; that is, a high-contrast exploration of their design.By perfecting the use of light to “paint” the bodies, he literally highlights the definitive curves and lines of these cars in both his detail shots and full-car perspectives, offering at once the cars’ best-known elements and presenting entirely new views of established icons.

The book will be laid out with full-page photographs that will include a few two-page spreads as well. The sewn binding makes it such that the open book lays flat on the coffee table of your choosing, and the pages are printed with four-color process inks. Point being, the presentation suits the quality of the work itself.

To support this book and to find out how to obtain a copy, including limited editions, please visit its Kickstarter page, linked here.

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Moore Ben
Moore Ben
1 year ago

Amazing post. In the eventuality that you are unable to open your website, then I will refer you to one article about run 3 read this site and get this information.

impossible game
impossible game
2 years ago

really nice cars! I find it both classic and a bit modern. It’s really hard on me! But they are really beautiful! impossible game

ywilkinson
ywilkinson
3 years ago

I think these cars are perfect. the author has chosen carefully for this article geometry dash

Matt
Matt
6 years ago

Not one Japanese car? So sad. Well, at least there are a couple “Rools-Royce”. I’ve backed the project because I think it’s beautiful – I just hope my pledge goes to an editor before this goes to print. =)

Azmi Afyouni
Azmi Afyouni
6 years ago

I am a follower of the author on instagram and love his work.
Happy to back the project.

Jack Brewer
Jack Brewer
6 years ago

Jesse Alexander did crowd funding for his Monaco book a few years ago. I much prefer his style of photography ( and his subject matter) over the highly stylized studio shoots, which sometimes seem more like an exercise in lighting design and technology. The images are quite beautiful in a sterile way, just not especially interesting.

Harv Falkenstine
Harv Falkenstine
6 years ago

I was just surveyed by Petrolicious – the we’ve been here five years, how are we doing…Petrolicious has done a great job by recreating that excitement for a product akin to being a kid and waiting for the magazine to hit the newsstand. The only fault I find is the constant self indulgent critique by one of your bloggers, who seems to find joy in slinging comments and consistently reminding us how his perspective comes from his personal sophistication. But, in this case the personal attacks on the photographer have no place. The space for comments should address the article or video. I encourage the continued endorsement of new publications and if he judges kickstarter as the best way to defray expenses, that is his choice. I can relate to the picture of the Jaguar wire wheel. I encourage future civil discourse on the subject rather than a personal attack. Thanks Alex.

Bill Meyer
Bill Meyer
6 years ago

Rather than a comments section I suggest Petrolicious set up a readers forum and make sure it’s well moderated.
Many online forums would have outright banned GS for a period until he cooled off. I recall a few months ago during the flap over Turtle Wax sponsorship GS made a couple of low-grade insulting comments at the boss of the site and those comments were promptly deleted.
Just because we all like classy cars does not mean we are all classy.

GuitarSlinger
GuitarSlinger
6 years ago

Kiskstarting ? Yeah … I’l kickstart him alright . Bring him within range of my right foot and I’ll kickstart some business sense and self respect right into his posterior region .. repeating when necessary ,

Kickstarter … when you’re either too lazy to work and save like a normal human being or the you have zero self respect and what you have to offer is so inane or irrelevant no one’s willing to invest in it ,..

Cause kickstarter aint investing … its … charity ! Period !

B Bop
B Bop
6 years ago
Reply to  GuitarSlinger

Hey GS, or should I call you Chicken Man, the coward that threatens others online while hiding behind his alias. If you were in range of my right foot I would kickstart some manners and a hefty dose of decency into your posterior region, and elsewhere if need be … repeating when necessary. Probably never going to happen but would certainly love the opportunity … Chicken Man

Vic
Vic
6 years ago
Reply to  GuitarSlinger

Wow, I actually don’t totally disagree with GuitarSlinger. Mark your calendars, folks.
Part of me thinks Kickstarter is a necessary evil in this day and age when art and artistry is devalued. The other part thinks artists should mooch off their family and friends like the rest of us! Just kidding!

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