Cadillac Ranch delivers beautiful prints

Cadillac Ranch has a mystique among Route 66 travelers, The unique living art display features 10 classic Caddies buried in a field near Amarillo, Texas, and attracts hordes of visitors, who graffiti the old cars with spray paint.

For some reason, I never had much interest. I simply drove past the site on my way to and from parts farther west. I could see the colorful cars pointing to the skies, but I would barely look.

And then buddies James Eastham, Tim Stanley and I found ourselves pulling off I-40 as we drove through the Panhandle on the way home from a trip to Arizona and Utah.

Boy, and I glad we did.

We got really lucky, in that there were only a couple of cars there when we stopped. We hurried into the field with our camera gear and started shooting.

More people showed up by the minute, however, and it became more difficult to show the display without people around the cars.

I shot the image below, a standard photo of the line of Caddies framed by the surrounding cornfield, after standing and waiting very patiently for all the people to be hidden by the cars or be located far enough away that I could drop them out.

Once I was happy with that shot, I walked up and started considering how to create a unique Cadillac Ranch view.

I finally decided to pull out my Sigma 14mm Art lens and focus on one of the cars. So I set up just feet away from one of the cars, which made it appear to really stand out from the cars in the background. The sky above was perfect, with those gorgeous clouds.

And the field stretched behind the cars, accentuating the expansive feel of the American plains.

The result was the photo above.

Yeah, I should have stopped years ago!