Last week I went down to Martha's Vineyard for a couple of days after returning from North Carolina. I went to see Steinunn and Finur, my two hosts at the Baer Art Center in Iceland last summer, where I was an artist in residence. They had come to the Vineyard to experience it and were staying in a rental home not far from the airport. We had a couple of dinners together. It was wonderful to see them and to meet more of their family as well.

While waiting to board the ferry to the island in Woods Hole, I saw that that there were many antique cars waiting as well. They were from a MASS Antique Auto Club and were headed to an Oak Bluffs hotel  for the weekend. I didn't think much of it, except to say to myself, "might be good to go over there and check it out if you have time."

The weather was terrible the whole time I was on the island, gray and wet. This  turned out for the best as the day I was leaving I did drive over to Oak Bluffs in the early morning to see the cars. It was one of those summer mornings where the air isn't moving and everything is dripping wet. I got the camera out of the back of the car and it had the long lens on it, the same one I'd used for most of  the Monsters pictures. Switch to a shorter lens? Put the camera on a tripod? No and no. A fateful decision but a good one, as it turned out. In sunlight these immaculately restored automobiles would be the same old same old but wet from the night's rain... well, you tell me:

Pity you can't see the prints as they are freaking amazing! (modest aren't I?) But seriously: flat light, a very sharp long lens and these beautiful surfaces covered with a mosaic of water drops and painted these super rich colors...well, no hyperbole here but, really.

(These two, one above and one below, are with sincere apologies to my friend Elizabeth Ellenwood as she shoots wires and may believe that wires are her domain.)

Once again, if you look at these on your smart phone only you should be arrested by the "Image Quality Police" or, at least, fined.

I sense a little cynicism here, a little reticence to endorse these pictures and the second great coming that they truly are. Well, you can't really make an informed decision by just looking at them at 72dpi online, can you?

Want to see the real prints, the ones that I am saying are FREAKIN' AMAZING? If you're local, call up 555 Gallery (857-496-7234) and tell them you want Rantoul's new Car pictures there ASAP, please, and we will make that happen. I mean it. If you're not local to the Boston area, then plan a trip soon as you simply have to see these to believe them. If you don't get to see these prints it is simply your loss.

There. Done.