Doble Steam Cars

This is Stanley, Idaho and four extremely rare Doble steam cars from the 1920's. The picturesque Sawtooth Mountains made for a great backdrop for this photo shoot. At the time these were the last four operating Doble's in the United States. This was the first time all four were in the same place at the same time. The Doble steam engined car was a two seated coup that was built in the 1920 and went over 100mph on steam. The car sounds like a small train when the pressure is building, but when the pressure is up the car is almost silent. The Doble was the most expensive car in the world when it was manufactured. It was sold to royalty and the extremely wealthy. At the time of this photo shoot the cars were worth half a million each.

The original image was made on 4X5 transparency film.

Old Polaroids from McFalrane Toys

This is an original 4X5 Fuji chrome


This is an original 4X5 Fuji chrome


Test Polaroid


Test Polaroid


Test Polaroid


Test Polaroid

These are 4X5 Polaroids and chromes I took during may stint as a freelancer Photographer working with Todd McFarlane Productions.

Yes, Tod is a regular guy. As far as the work he was pretty hands off. He let me do what ever I wanted just as long as I communicated my intention and it was done on a zero budget (props). I used to build sets with fabrics, flagstone, tinfoil and black garbage bags. Actually it looked pretty cool. He almost always approved.

It was hard work because I had to shoot the prototypes. In most cases the plastic toys weren't made yet so I had to photograph the original lost wax figures. They were shipped to Arizona from New Jersey where the sculpting was done. In most cases the paint was still wet or almost dry and the figures would get damaged in the overnight shipping. This would piss everyone off which eventually lead to going in-house. Before each shoot I would have to glue the figures together (arms, legs and accessories) because they came to me in pieces.

I would stay up all night shooting the figures and then ship them back to N.J. the next day. Almost always it was overnight deadline. Once the figures were photographed the figures would go to China for manufacturing. The pro-type were scary to work with because they were extremely fragile and valuable. The R & D that goes into each toy went into the thousands before it's finally approved by Todd. He is a perfectionist and wanted to create something that has never been done before and he did.