With the weekend close enough to hand you a cold beer, it can be tough to concentrate on responsibilities, so why try? Why not spend the last few hours of the workweek shuffling around the internet browsing car content? If you’re watching the clock’s hands slog toward closing time or are simply looking for something to look at, there’s little better than Instagram to sate your hankerings for nice photography and a virtual plane ticket to the world’s automotive oases.
This week’s group of accounts to check out provides more than ample amounts of worthy distractions from work. Each one is baked full of the right stuff, and there’s a wide enough spread that every palate should find something appealing.
Leading off with Kurt Klingensmith’s page we have a portfolio full of vibrance and crispness. It’s a delicate game to play, bringing a photo’s color saturation above the human eye’s perception, as this often results in photos that look beyond real life in the wrong way; too much magenta, dead-TV blues that look wholly unnatural, and greens that resemble cartoon nuclear waste more so than grass. None of this is to be found here though, as all of these frames are rich with color that feels like you’re looking at the cars at the exact right moment in the day rather than being aware that the image has been processed. Also, he owns one of the cleanest third-gen Camaros out there.
You might remember a vintage F1 at Mosport story that Cole Janeteas wrote and shot for the site a few weeks ago, and if you were drawn to his style there’s a lot more to be found on his Instagram page. “Washed out” carries some negative connotations, so is probably not the best descriptor of the look he achieves, but there is a distinct lightness and desaturation present in a lot of his work that never actually looks like an overexposed image; the subjects are all crisply focused and aren’t bleeding into the bright whitish background, and it’s obviously a style that’s the result of cultivation and tweaking over time, because to pull off these tones and highlights in multiple situations and with different subjects is something you don’t accidentally get good at.
Speed Icons is a page where Petrolicious contributing artist Joel Clark posts his unique hand-cut vinyl artwork. The process and the resulting glossy and tactile finish is itself worth taking a gander at, but the fact that he uses his techniques to recreate the emotion and kinetics of vintage motor racing? Well that just compels the attention of any fan of both cars and artwork. The page highlights his finished pieces, some works in progress, and a few videos showing his even more 3-dimensional pieces (even when working on one plane, Joel’s vinyl layering inherently adds depth and a slight topography to his products), like those applied to helmets and recreated Porsche 917 doors.
The account lealovescars is another good one to add to your feed, because while some of the photos can be a bit too HDR-y, there is plenty of quality content here all the same, and the cars featured are in a blend of the classic favorites from Europe with a hearty dollop of jet-age American styling from the likes of Chrysler’s Alphabet cars and everything else adorned in fins and chrome. There are rusted pickup trucks meandering around middle America alongside adorable and gleaming Cinquecentos. It’s this kind of juxtaposition that’s so tough to find in reality that makes pages like this one such a great complement to it.
Paul Criton rounds out the five this week, and what a caboose it is! Shooting everything from modern GT series racing in motion to static displays at indoor convention hall arena-type vintage exhibitions, Criton’s camera is indiscriminate as long as it’s pointed at cars. And every shot is deftly done, with the kind of semi-intangible polish that separates nice photos from pro ones. There is never any rank order in these lists, but if there were, this week may have the best at the bottom.
Have you checked the Petrolicious Marketplace lately? Whether hunting for a new classic or just a fan of them, our Marketplace should keep your eyes and imagination busy for a bit.
If you’re looking for more Petrolicious content on the photographic side, you’ve arrived at the right place; our official page on Instagram is a torrent that we don’t plan to plug up any time soon.
