THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE ... OF CHEVY5

I love shooting cars - with a camera, not a rifle. I've been doing so since I was 10 years old, and that was more than four decades ago. My first "real" camera was a Yashicamat 124G twin-lens reflex (I still have it), and my current weapon of choice is a Nikon D200 while I wait to get a good deal on the latest D700 full-frame D-SLR.

The short story of how Gary and Gayle Stephan's 1970 C10 went from being seen at a Chevy show to the cover of Chevy Enthusiast is an interesting one. At a regional Vintage Chevy Club of America show, I picked it as one of my two "Editor's Choice" selections. (The other was a 997-point original-owner 1964 Chevy Chevelle Malibu.) In addition to a plaque, the other half of each award was to be a six-page feature spread in a future issue of Chevy Enthusiast. Little did Gary know that that future issue would come up immediately and that, in addition to a feature story, I'd selected his truck for the cover of issue two.

Cover selections are usually planned months in advance, with numerous factors coming into play. But because we're just getting this magazine off the ground, things are a bit more... fluid. I can make such decisions without much filtering. I'll discuss things with Senior Managing Editor Eric Kaminsky, who is the one burdened with cleaning up the production messes created by my last-minute decisions, and with my Publisher John Nichols, who has entrusted me with almost complete autonomy for what goes in-between the covers of Chevy Enthusiast. Because we've made a strong commitment to truck coverage right from the start, after seeing Gary's C10, John was 100 percent behind my decision to put it on the cover.

We both wanted an action photo for the cover, which means what we call a "car-to-car" shot. This process involves me hanging out the back of one vehicle, in this case a minivan being driven at about 15 to 20 miles per hour. Here, I'm holding my camera blindly just inches above the pavement on a deserted street at dusk. When the shot works, the target vehicle is tack-sharp and the wheels and background are blurred,
 requiring a minimum of post-shoot Photoshopping.

After getting the tracking shots "in the can," I wanted to take advantage of the great light just as the sun set below the horizon. So I positioned Gary's C10 about 200 feet away and put my D200 on a tripod for some low-angle, long-lens (200mm) static shots. Because it was nearly dark, and I was kneeling in the middle of the street, my driver Francisco Villalpando positioned the minivan behind me with the flashers on.

The reason for this precaution is simple. About 18 months ago, I was kneeling behind my D200, getting one last shot of a vintage Corvette in fading light, when I was struck from behind by a Toyota Solara coupe traveling 15 or 20 miles per hour. (The shot here was 10 seconds prior to impact.) Luckily, I never knew what was coming, and so was fairly relaxed when the Solara's grille left an imprint on my backside. My most serious injury was a painfully separated right shoulder. I'm reminded of this incident whenever I reach for the two-three upshift on my Corvair. My shoulder stings.

As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus said in 77 episodes of the '80s TV classic Hill Street Blues, "Hey, let's be careful out there." I know I am whenever I'm shooting.