For decades I've been in a constant battle trying to figure out the best way to organize the trunk of my car with all my extra photo gear. I've used cardboard boxes, plastic bins, and even built a wooden storage box. Leave it to Think Tank Photo to come up with the best solution, the Freeway Longhaul carryall duffel. It features a customizable divider system and numerous pockets to keep your gear organized, secure, and easy to access. For security reasons, the last thing I want to do is hang out behind my car, with the trunk open, looking for that one thingamajig buried in a box somewhere. Now I have a place for everything and everything in its place.
As a coronavirus-stricken United States struggled to shelter in place, celebrity photographer Brian Bowen Smith saddled up a vintage Ford pickup truck and grabbed his Leica M10 Monochrom to document Americans from the safe social distance of his front seat. With his 1958 Ford F100’s window as a frame adding another dimensional layer, Smith snapped a black-and-white photo series of famous and gritty people and places along his 11,000-mile, cross-country journey. Reese Witherspoon, Common and the blended family of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis made the cut, but so did a farm family in Wisconsin, a jazz singer in New Orleans and healthcare workers in Austin. The six-week “Drivebys” project, featured on “CBS This Morning” on July 16, visually conveys the diversity of Americans from sea to shining sea. Together, the photographs are a brief anecdote for our wanderlust – and a reminder of the frustration, isolation and resilience that unites us.
Patrick Farrell, the curator of The Sunday Still, is the 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winner for Breaking News Photography for The Miami Herald, where he worked from 1987 to 2019. He is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Media Management at the University of Miami School of Communication.
