Cord L29 Chicago 1930

The Raceway collection has over 120,000 negatives and more than 40,000 photo prints. Most are aviation related. Many are original aircraft factory negatives and prints, and original negatives up to size 8 x 10. We also have a couple of thousand Original photos (mostly 8 x 10s) from the personal archives of Cliff Henderson, who ran the National Air Races from 1929-1939. Despite the Depression, these events, which required the services of some 7,000 people per year, to put on, they were a great success. Henderson and E.L Cord had a long-lasting relationship. Henderson used dozens of Cord and Auburn automobiles, extensively for his National Air Races parades, in Cleveland, Chicago and Los Angeles, and used them as V.I.P. cars for dignitaries and famous celebrities of the times.
Working with large Original photos is so satisfying because they can be enlarged to explore fine details. In beautiful original photos like these, one can not only read the license plates, but you can even read the white on white numbers stamped into the whitewall tires, on the originals. Playing, while I should have been working, I experimented with adding some color to the shot, just out of personal curiosity, to see what the result might be. Only spent a minute or two on the color, but enjoyed the novelty of the result.