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Someone saw this photograph recently and said that it reminded him of his mother, “lead foot lilly”. I guess it looks like she’s got her foot on the gas pedal and she’s on a mission to get somewhere fast. I never saw the speed in this image, but rather the power; the power that is entrusted to anyone who is behind the gas pedal, the power of movement, the power of freedom. I am also not certain why I even took this photograph, but I know I was experimenting with a long lens taking pictures of people driving. I was curious about the state of moving fast, enclosed in a box large enough to contain six people but almost always only holding just one.
I guess cars like this one were made at a time when there seemed to be no end to American prosperity, when car makers never had the foresight that natural resources are limited, or even if they weren’t limited that the by-products of their consumption would eventually spell disaster. Rather shortsighted than foresighted. I just wish that progress would always take a look at its consequences, or that it is redefined so that it is not only looking at the beneficial aspect of the moment and of the bottom line. I wish that the bottom line wasn’t always only a numerical figure preceded by a currency sign, but rather a series of figures that have a wider vision of their context, and that only their sum total would dictate direction.
When Henry Ford looked at his marvelous invention, heard it and smelled it, why didn’t he say: “OMG, this thing is so loud and cacophonous, it stinks to high heaven, and it’s spewing black smoke in the air, I should just get rid of it immediately”? Well, if he didn’t produce it, maybe someone else would have, for invention is complicit with existing knowledge and existing technologies, which are born out of necessity to progress, to improve, to make things easier. Humanity on the move.
I don’t want to seem to be down on the whole thing, because I love riding in cars, I love flying in airplanes, I love my computers and my cameras, and without human ingenuity and human desire to explore our ever more complex existence, we would still be in the caves??? But on the other hand, unchecked, our desires may very well lead us back into the caves. We can no longer afford to barrel ahead while sticking our collective tongue out to reason, to sanity, and to a healthy and peaceful future. We have to redefine prosperity and its implications. Current paradigms are old and too sluggish or reluctant to adapt. We have to get out of the fast moving box.
:P
July 31, 1987 Annandale, Virginia
(text written November 15, 2006)
