A first look

Cars, travel, nature and stories
along the way.

We are opening the archives! Thousands of frames from the last 15 years, and what follows is just the start. New images will be added as we comb through them.

Click any frame to see it large. The viewer then steps through the rest of that collection, so you can sit in one set without coming back out to the page.

Want work like this for your place or event? I take commissions for events, destinations, nature and travel, and the images here are available as prints or to license. More Alaska and the southwest are on the way. Tell me about your project through the form at the bottom.

Route 66 and car culture

7 frames

This is where the energy lives for me. Five seasons of festival days on the Illinois stretch, the burnout pit, the chrome, and the people who pour their hearts into these cars and these towns. The 2026 Abe Lincoln Car Show Spectacular rained the whole way through, and the crowd showed up anyway. Rain on old paint is worth the wet shoes.

A red Ford Mustang convertible rolling down a downtown street past a brick building, with the chrome grille of a maroon 1956 Chevrolet filling the right side of the frame. — Mother Road Festival, downtown Springfield

A cream classic Cadillac lit up in a burnout at the center of a closed street, tire smoke towering over the roofline while a crowd watches from behind barricades and a drone hovers overhead. — Burnout, mid street, full crowd

The open hood of a red Mercury Cougar at a car show, blue plug wires and polished chrome under the lid, the Cougar script badge sharp on the front fender. — Cougar, hood up

Late day sun flaring through the trees of a downtown plaza, a white supercar parked along the brick walk and a tower rising behind the canopy. — Downtown plaza, late light

Black and white close view of a 1960s Plymouth head on in the rain, the hood covered in standing water beads, the chrome hood ornament centered above the PLYMOUTH letters and the full width of the bar grille below. — Plymouth, holding the rain

The front fender of a restored white Illinois State Police Plymouth beaded with rain, its stacked headlight and turn lamp at right and the State Police door lettering running down the left of the frame under a spotlight mirror. — State Police cruiser, out in it

Low three quarter view of a white muscle car with gold and black side stripes parked on soaked pavement, its rear wheel and dented quarter panel filling the left of the frame and the car mirrored in the water pooled along a painted parking line. — Rain day, parked on the line

Full Mother Road Festival and Abe Lincoln Car Show gallery (opens in a new tab)

The Skyview Drive-In

4 frames

My family owned this one for eight years. A 1950 screen tower on the original alignment of Route 66 in Litchfield, the last of the road's drive-ins still running in Illinois, and the place where I learned what an audience does with an evening. I have so many images from those seasons, and more will come as we comb the archives.

The screen tower of the Skyview Drive-In standing against a red and orange sunset, with the corrugated perimeter fence running back toward the setting sun and the gravel entrance drive alongside. — Skyview Drive-In, gates about to open

The lit Skyview Drive-In marquee at dusk, red neon spelling DRIVE IN down the pillar, bulbs around a yellow reader board and a panel reading VISIT OUR SNACK BAR, with the last of the sunset along the horizon behind. — The marquee, lit for the night

The Skyview Drive-In marquee in daylight reading OPENING CARNIVAL APR 28 29 and 30, with a Route 66 interpretive marker for the drive-in in the foreground and grain bins along the horizon. — Opening weekend, first event of the season

The Skyview Drive-In screen seen from the middle of the gravel lot at sunset, the sun going down at the left edge and broken clouds across the whole sky. — From the middle of the lot

The Route 66 Film Festival

6 frames

Three days at the Hoogland Center for the Arts in Springfield. Programs on the table, filmmakers taking questions from the stage, an audience that stays for the credits, and awards for the filmmakers to close it out.