Take It Personally.

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To me, driving is a way of moving through time and space without trying to accomplish anything other than what it is.

Present in the hours that pass, in the weather, in the long stretches between towns where traditional radio stations fade and the mind gets quiet, and honest.

GT or Grand Touring, in the old European sense, was a kind of finishing school. Young people with soft hands and big money traveled throughout Europe to soak up paintings, churches, dead languages, and the manners of strangers on a quest to hold their own.

Call it education. Call it vanity. Call it "throwing the kids to the wolves." Either way, the point was taking time to learn a life outside of your own bubble. Enough time to let a place and its people get under your skin just enough so that you no longer moved around the world like a cave-person.

So yes, this means I'm the guy that takes the mountain pass that adds an hour. I will follow the coast until the light goes flat and the sea looks like a rippling sheet of steel. And when I come into a new place, I try to arrive like a guest, not a consumer, or worse; a "somebody."

And then there are the cars. Some of them are rolling museum pieces built by people who still knew what engineering could truly be. Some mismatched gaps, the noises, and their little flaws not only tell you who made them, but also what era and environment shaped the person behind it.

Think of driving something old or special as caretaking. Every mile let's the car and its builder know: you are still here old chap, and you still matter.

The real point is the people. I want to hear about the farmer whose family has been arguing with the same hillside for two hundred years to produce food for the locals. I want a metalworker in a bright shop, hammering and shaping like time itself is a material you can mold however you'd like.

I love a meal that doesn't come with a 300 word Michelin explanation, cooked by someone who wouldn't care to tell me even if it did. The food will talk, it always does. And hotels with a history, and the ones that make you feel comfortable enough to maneuver and settle in like you are in your own home. 

I pay attention to fine objects, too. Things made without a mass profiteers mindset. A knife with a handle worn smooth. A bowl that sits heavy in the hand and isn't quite level around the ridge. A painting with cracks like an old dry riverbed. They remind me that most of what’s worth having takes a while, and that a place, and many people, can be read in what they choose to keep, make, and own.

Every stop has a past baked into it. It’s in the chipped stone, the tired paint, the way a local tells a story for the thousandth time with the energy as if it just happened yesterday.

If you move too fast, you miss it. If you slow down, you start to hear the small truths: what people are proud of, what they lost, what they refuse to let go.

That’s Grand Touring for me, in this day and age. Cars and roads that pull me in. Cultures that intrigue me. Objects that last. Histories that still hum under the present day bustle and gray boxes we grossly call architecture. The cars are not really the point. It’s the excuse. They get me close enough to pay attention to all the other stuff.

To be clear, I am not a for-hire photographer. I don't, and won't, take money to land on a specific opinion. If something is worth showing, I show it because I like it.

I am happy to oblige an invitation to view significant automobiles, events, objects, or places, make photographs, and learn what makes them special. Drop me a line if you think there is something I should experience, especially if it's in California and I can drive there.

Another thing, and it's a simple standard. I don’t do public shaming. I don’t write bad reviews or complain to the public.

Life is short. I’d rather spend the time chasing what’s good and managing myself optimistically.

I hope you always find the peace to do the same.

- Charles | @gt1ca | Charles@gt1.org

Gear: Hasselblad, FujiFilm, Canon, PhaseOne, and DJI