Smoke and Mirrors: Cars, Photography and Dreams of the Open Road

Description

An iconoclastic book of car photography, revealing the car's unique role in our culture Car photography often evokes the same recycled tropes. Predictably slick, hi-spec images on the front pages of glossy magazines, or huge blow-ups on giant billboards which have one designed aim- to sell a lifestyle. But our relationship with cars is so much more meaningful than these images might suggest. Like the camera, the car has changed the way we explore the world. With cars came road trips, and with road trips came some of the most important photographic documentaries of our time. A car is a vehicle not just for transport but for our hopes, desires and dreams.In Smoke and Mirrors, a selection of world-renowned and up-and-coming photographers come together to pay tribute to the car. From Nick Turpin's images of 'donut' skid marks, Todd Hido's painterly landscapes taken through wet windscreens and William Green's shots of sleeping Tokyo taxi drivers, these photographs display cars at their most playful, introspective and meaningful, reminding us that there is more to them than just metal and machinery - for cars are emotionally intertwined with the lives we live.

Martin Usborne is a renowned photographer and co-founder, with Ann Waldvogel, of Hoxton Mini Press, a publisher dedicated to bringing beautiful photobooks to a wider audience. In 2017 Hoxton Mini Press teamed up with Penguin Books to create a series of books gathering the best photography on distinctive subjects, hoping to reach the widest audience with art that enriches the human experience. Smoke and Mirrors is the second title in the series.Adam Hay-Nicholls is a lifelong petrolhead who has driven eye-catching automobiles all over the world. Adam started his writing career with the car culture magazine Intersection before working in Formula One for over a decade, first with The Red Bulletin and, still to this day, as the F1 correspondent for Metro. He writes about cars - usually fast and expensive ones - for GQ and the Sunday Telegraph. Ironically, he doesn't own a car.