I love this pastel blue Ford truck (and by the way, why are most cars I see these days either grey, black, grey, white, light grey, dark grey or medium grey?)! I’m fortunate to have a neighbor who has a passion for old cars and restores them to their former glory. I especially love their simplicity and design. I find the beauty in their lines and colors similar to the simplicity and lines and color I discovered when I first began photographing old wooden boats.

I recently purchased a newer used car that has an automatic door opener button, slick CD player, cup holders, and who knows what else that I haven’t even discovered yet. A friend also recently purchased a newer car that has built-in GPS embedded in the dashboard, automatic backup control mechanism, heated seats, sunroof etc. And now the dawn of self-driving cars has arrived. I am struck by how far away we have gotten from a simpler time, when you didn’t need all of these add-ons. It makes me wonder how much good all of these ‘improvements’ are doing for our lives, and the unintended consequences that happen when we move in a direction of ‘more’.

We can’t go back, but we can look fondly at what was, and appreciate the form and function and beauty of how things were designed during an earlier time and think about how the people who drove these vehicles lived, what their lives were like.