Cars - New York City, 1974-1976

Cars were an indispensible aspect of twentieth-century culture, both for their utility and aesthetics. From 1974 to 1976, Langdon Clay photographed the cars he encountered while wandering the streets of New York City and nearby Hoboken, New Jersey at night. Shot in Kodachrome with a Leica and deftly lit with then new sodium vapor lights, the pictures feature a distinct array of makes and models set against the gritty details of their surrounding urban and architectural environments, and occasionally the ghostly presence of people.

Langdon Clay was born in New York City in 1949. He grew up in New Jersey and Vermont and attended school in New Hampshire and Boston. Clay moved to New York in 1971 and spent the next sixteen years photographing there, around the country and in Europe for various magazines and books. In 1987 he moved to Mississippi where he has since lived and worked with his wife photographer Maude Schuyler Clay. His work is held in many private and public collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris