Mindy
Pastrovich.

The long version

How I got here.

My path here has not been a straight line, and I am grateful for every turn. Each chapter handed me something I still use. Running a portrait studio taught me how to put people at ease in front of a lens. Weekends with my family at a Route 66 drive-in in Litchfield taught me what brings a crowd together, and what keeps them coming back. Time in the busy halls of the Illinois State Senate taught me to move quietly and still catch the moment. And long conversations with organizations working out what they really stand for taught me that a good photograph starts with a clear idea.

That idea is what ties it all together. A photograph is not the end of the job. It goes on to do real work, on a website, in a sponsor deck, on a poster in a shop window. When everyone knows what it is for before the first frame, the pictures come out stronger and the business gets something it can actually use.

It is also why strategy and photography live together here. Message Matters Co. helps shape the message, and Driven by Story brings it to life with photography and video. Both are based in Central Illinois for now, and both work from the same plan, so nothing gets lost between the idea and the image.

Route 66 has been part of my life from the start. We lived in a Route 66 community growing up, and behind the camera I fell for the road all over again. This is my fifth season photographing festivals on the Illinois stretch, and the people are the best part: the folks who restore the cars, run the diners and keep the small towns glowing for travelers. The centennial is a once in a lifetime chance to tell their story well, and I feel lucky to be part of it.

Along the way, I found the work I want to do most. Standing inside the Burn Out Pit at the Mother Road Festival, with thousands of fans cheering for every car, and in the circle outside the fire at Artica in St. Louis, I felt an energy I could not stop thinking about. That is what I want to photograph: places and events where you can feel the energy and see it move. Nature counts, too. A 100-foot waterfall or a whale coming up out of the water is as much a force of energy as any crowd.

Mother Nature is one of my favorite subjects. I love old growth woods and creek water, magnolias against the columns of the Illinois State Capitol, downtown streets at last light, cornfields in October, deer at dusk and storms rolling across open fields. My archive also holds the water and mountains of southeast Alaska, along with a stack of southwest photos still waiting for their spot on this site.

Looking ahead, I would love to take more of the work on the road. The truck and the RV are ready, and Route 66 is a natural place to start while the centennial has everyone out celebrating. Someday I would like to photograph the whale migration, too.

Before the camera was the whole job

Eight years at a Route 66 drive-in.

My family owned the Skyview Drive-In in Litchfield, Illinois for eight years. It opened in 1950 and it sits on the original alignment of Route 66. It is the last of the road's original drive-ins still running in Illinois. It went into the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame in 1998. That is the building we were handed the keys to.

Those eight years turned out to be the best training I could have asked for, and none of it was a one person show. It took the whole family, a crew who worked the gate, the booth and the concession stand, and a community that kept supporting us by showing up, weekend after weekend. Every one of them taught me something.

My corner of it was the calendar and getting the word out. Picking which films played which weekends, dreaming up events with the family to fill the rest of the lot, carnivals and all sorts of things, and writing the posts and ads that had to put cars on the gravel by Friday night. That is about as honest a test of a message as there is. Either the lot fills or it does not, and on Saturday morning you know which one you wrote.

Then 2020 came, and the schools around us had nowhere to send their seniors. So we held graduations on the lot, with families parked in rows, names read out and the screen behind the stage. We ran senior parades through so a class that had lost every other ceremony still got cheered for. We put movies of the graduates up on the screen, forty feet tall, and when the school plays could not be performed live, the schools recorded them and we showed them there instead. Nobody planned any of it as marketing. It was a field of gravel and a community that needed somewhere to be together.

Then, in October 2022, Mobil 1 reached out. Their Keep Route 66 Kickin' campaign wanted to go after a Guinness World Records title for the most dogs attending a film screening, and they wanted to do it at the Skyview. We said yes and threw ourselves into it. That night we played A Dog's Way Home, and an adjudicator came out to count. Close to four hundred dogs showed up with their people, some from as far as five states away. Registration had to stop near two hundred for safety, and when the count closed, 199 dogs were on the lot watching the movie. The old mark was 120. A veterinarian stood by all evening. I was blown away by the support, from our community and from the Mobil 1 team, who worked right alongside us to make it happen.

The record has since been broken in Los Angeles, but it was set first on Route 66, in a town of seven thousand people, and I will always treasure that night.

All of it comes with me to every festival I shoot. When an organizer tells me the parade steps off at ten and the crowd peaks at one, I have stood on their side of that, next to the people who sold the tickets, parked the cars and worked the gate. I know what an audience does with an evening because a lot of good people showed me. You cannot learn that from a shot list.

Illinois Route 66 on the record (opens in a new tab) Route 66 News coverage (opens in a new tab) The Skyview today (opens in a new tab)