Pavement Photography by Howard Stone ©

My name is Howard Stone. Briefly, some years ago I had a delivery job in Southampton, England (I won't say what I was delivering or for whom). It was very boring and badly paid but I soon found a way of livening it up. I discovered that the van I had to drive could very easily be persuaded to produce very loud, frightening backfires as and when I wanted it to (I'm not telling you how, find out for yourselves) and as I've always been keen on photography, I tried an experiment. I mounted a camera, pointing backwards, from the back window of the van and operated it with a cable-release long enough to be operated whilst driving. I would make the van backfire and photograph the frightened mayhem I'd created as I drove past. Out of (partial) consideration for my fellow man, I avoided pensioners, dentists' surgeries and gynaecologists. I had a lot of extra work to do. I had to damp down camera shake, I had to get the timing right and had to do a lot of work in the darkroom to get a good enlargement. Don't forget, as I couldn't point the camera (I was driving the van) I had to use a standard 50mm lens and enlarge the interesting bit. I never knew what I'd captured until I developed the film and I had a lot of failures. Here, however, are some of my successful results.....