The Wiggle Wagon - Part II

The time had come to see what this Wiggle Wagon was all about. My new companions lead me out the back of Garth's Kitchen through a storage room stacked with odds and ends including a few appliances that might have belonged to the restaurant, though I guessed the shelves of milk crates filled with vinyl LPs probably belonged to the adjoining local radio station. Through the back door steps lead down into what would have been an alley way if there had been buildings on the other side but there was only trees on the other side of the crushed stone parking area that was empty except for the Wiggle Wagon, a sky blue Ford Falcon dating back to the early 60's.

Cousin Ken was explaining how he made some sort of deal for her but the details were pretty vague. He showed me where he had done a bit of body work he seemed rather proud of. You could see where he had patched up a spot between the door and the wheel well, but the rough surface and the paint that wasn't quite a perfect match wasn't nearly as obvious as the rusted hole I imagine had been there before the handiwork. Cars have never been a particular interest of mine, at least not since my teen years, but having been smitten with a camera that owes its classic styling to the same decade these past few months it was hard not to appreciate.

I started extending the tripod legs but realized there was no point. It was almost a perfect Sunny 16 afternoon, allowing me to use shutter speeds of 1/250th and higher even with the Acros 100 that was barely usable inside. I'm a landscape guy so I guess it was habit but the tripod would really just get in the way here, and having more freedom to go hand held was one of the reasons I got the Bronica in the first place. The whole idea was to branch out a little, to be open to the possibilities when the chance to work in a different way came along - and here it was. That's not to say I envision myself ever becoming a street photographer, my M.O. has followed the slow photography philosophy for too long now. Like anyone else though my photography is linked to my experience, one following the other, even becoming the other as my visit to Garth's Kitchen was now proving. 

I made a lot of other photographs during those few days in this part of the province, some of them pretty good I think. They, like the rest of the experience of being there, were the sort of thing I had expected. Cousin Ken, Des, and the Wiggle Wagon - who could have predicted those? That was the one part of trip that never could have been expected, the experience that will stay in memory long after the other details have faded. Maybe it's no coincidence then that these are the photos I most wanted to see, the ones I wanted to show you first.