Model photography

After a generation had passed, Allen and Carole were suddenly selling the old prints from 1955 to 1965. Photo by Lisa K. Kuhn

Read Part 1 Though my shooting days of sports car racing were over I would keep the negatives; no photographer would ever get rid of his work. I secured an empty Kodak 250 sheet 8×10 Polycontrast III RC F Glossy Paper Box to store the negatives in. I hermetically sealed the box and put it in a secure dry-walled cabinet in my garage for storage. They did not see the glare of an enlarger bulb for the next 35 years.

Story by Allen R. Kuhn

It was on September 20, 1998, that Carole and I went to a vintage sports car race in Tustin, California. This was the first time we had seen sports cars turn their wheels in earnest. I took some 8×10 prints along just in case we saw some of the same cars again. Sure enough, we saw some. I actually (cough, cough) gave a few guys prints. (I always get choked up when I use the “G” word, GAVE). Gave is a NO, NO, Dan Gurney once told me. Carole saw someone who had a booth about a sports car magazine, Vintage Race Car Journal . She wanted me to go and show him my photos. That’s where I met Casey Annis.

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Allen Kuhn with his trusty Canon 35 mm with a 135mm telephoto lens. He also used a 2 ¼ Rolleicord that was mostly for Ektachrome color film. “Color film made up just 5 % of my total images (about 300 images). I used it mostly for pit shots. The Canon was the work horse.”

West Coast photographer Allen R. Kuhn spent his youth photographing models, buzzing around Southern California in an Abarth Zagato, became a noted race photographer, found a career at Hughes Aircraft, married the girl of his dreams…and that was just the beginning.

Story and photos by Allen R. Kuhn

Unlike many car enthusiasts, my interest in sports cars was not influenced by my parents. Their style in cars was a 1928 Ford that they drove to Yosemite National Park for their honeymoon. They did, however, support my photo interests by naming me the ‘Official Family Photographer.’ In 1954, when I was 16, I found a copy of Argosy magazine (a men’s magazine of the day) with an article about Sebring. It had a fantastic two-page spread on Juan Manuel Fangio driving a Lancia D24, taken at dusk. It was an extreme pan shot. You could almost feel the sensation of speed with the blurred background and sharp looking car. That’s the style I wanted to achieve. [Read more…] about A Photographer’s Life: Cars and Dolls