{"id":11674,"date":"2026-08-30T05:02:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T03:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brokenmount.com\/bm\/2026\/08\/30\/how-visiting-a-car-show-made-me-feel-better-about-the-future-of-photography\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T05:02:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T03:02:58","slug":"how-visiting-a-car-show-made-me-feel-better-about-the-future-of-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brokenmount.com\/bm\/2026\/08\/30\/how-visiting-a-car-show-made-me-feel-better-about-the-future-of-photography\/","title":{"rendered":"How visiting a car show made me feel better about the future of photography"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

\n\tOn being surrounded by people with cameras who aren\u2019t necessarily part of the photography tribe.<\/p>\n

\"AMitchell Clark<\/span><\/figure>\n<\/section>\n
\n
\n

Last week, Canon was kind enough to give me the opportunity to attended a Formula Drift event, featuring a high-horsepower competition and a car show with a lot of really interesting vehicles. The shooting experience was highly informative for some upcoming reviews \u2013 stay tuned \u2013 and I came away with several pictures that I\u2019m really proud of. But I also got something I didn\u2019t expect: a renewed hope for the future of photography.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\n
\n\t<\/div>\n
\n

As a lifelong photographer and someone whose job is writing about cameras, it\u2019s been a bit easy to fret over the future of the artform. Sales of dedicated cameras are recovering<\/a>, sure, but they\u2019re still far from what they once were. And while phone photography is just as legitimate, the culture at large treats it as cheap and disposable. Even the most meaningful, carefully considered and composed image becomes another piece of content to look at for half a second while scrolling Instagram.<\/p>\n

But walking through the car show in the evening, I found myself surrounded by people with cameras, ranging from DSLR kits that could\u2019ve been purchased at Costco to serious pro photography and video rigs. And while the latter were typically used by professionals and content creators (or people hopeful to join those ranks), plenty of others were people who just really liked cars, and who wanted to take cool photos of them to share with their fellow enthusiasts. <\/p>\n

I asked one person walking around with a camera what they were taking photos for, and they said it was basically for their personal enjoyment adding with a laugh that they also post to their 200 followers on Instagram. That\u2019s righteous; as someone who\u2019s successfully turned their hobby into a job, I wish I could occasionally just shoot photos for the love of the game like they were.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
At Formula Drift, shutter drag was the name of the game. But I\u2019ll admit, as an elder Gen Z I might not have thought to try it myself had I not seen all the drift-first photographers doing it.
Canon EOS R1 | RF 70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM Z | 200mm | F18 | 1\/40 sec | ISO 100<\/figcaption>Mitchell Clark<\/span><\/figure>\n

Even photographing the Formula Drift event itself, the trend held. Several of the people I talked to in the official media pit had started with a love of drift racing, which eventually turned into using photography or video to tell the story of it. Folks there were just as excited about who was winning as they were about the amazing shots they got. That kind of passion is infectious, and they had a lot to teach me. When you start doing photography within a niche, you have a much deeper understanding of what that subculture values, and can push at the edges in a way that a generalist photographer won\u2019t know to.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\n
\n\t<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

Not everyone who gets into photography tangentially will think of themselves as a photographer<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

I suspect there\u2019s actually a pretty strong tie between camera and car culture, and I know that many hobbies have this effect. People will get into something entirely unrelated, want to share it, and discover that the mediums of photo and video are great ways to do it. There\u2019s a storied history of actors<\/a>, athletes<\/a> and musicians<\/a>\u00a0(yes, including Taylor Swift<\/a>) picking up photography, and my coworker Abby Ferguson has talked to several photographers with a similar journey in her Behind the Photo series<\/a>.\u00a0In it, she showcases people creating amazing work, some of whom started out as VFX artists<\/a>,\u00a0cellists<\/a> or divers<\/a>. Not everyone who gets into photography tangentially will think of themselves as a photographer, but if they\u2019re out there taking pictures, what else should we call them?<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
The photo pits at the race were filled with image-makers of all stripes. Professional photographers and videographers, drift experts capturing the race, and fans of the sport who had purchased the Photo Experience (and who later shared their very<\/em> impressive photos in the official media Discord channel). People were using everything from top-end pro cameras, to enthusiast APS-C models; I even saw one person with a Rolleiflex.
Canon EOS R1 | RF 70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM Z | 95mm | F2.8 | 1\/400 sec | ISO 8000<\/figcaption>Mitchell Clark<\/span><\/figure>\n

I\u2019ll admit that sometimes it\u2019s easy to get a bit high-and-mighty about photography as an artform, as someone who started doing it for its own sake. This person bought an EOS R5C to take photos? Don\u2019t they know there are so many better options? Those Gen Alpha kids are getting into compacts? Don\u2019t they know about all the downsides, and are they even learning the fundamentals?<\/p>\n

Whenever I catch myself thinking things like that, I try to take a step back because that attitude is deeply unhelpful. I should be glad whenever anyone picks up a camera and tries to learn it, and realize that shaming people for not knowing everything \u2013 even if they\u2019ve been doing it for decades \u2013 is going to hurt the medium, not help it. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\n
\n\t<\/div>\n
\n

So snap on. Whether you\u2019re the most dyed-in-the-wool, capital P Photographer, or whether you just picked up a camera to try and show your friends your latest skateboard trick, finished knitting project, favorite car, or anything else. We\u2019re all doing the same thing here: trying to capture the world as we see it, and share that vision with others.<\/p>\n

About the Author: <\/span>Mitchell started taking pictures at 10 and hasn\u2019t stopped since. It\u2019s been a wide-ranging adventure, spanning a wide variety of genres and locales, and occasionally dipping into fascinations with video and filmmaking. They honed their technical knowledge doing documentation, programing and QA, writing for The Verge, and just generally messing around on the computer to see what breaks.<\/div>\n
\n

Want to stay up to date on the latest product news and releases?\u00a0Add DPReview as a preferred source to ensure our independent journalism makes it to the top of your Google search results.<\/p>\n

\"add<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n\t