The Charles W. Cushman Collection

Rich Remsburg runs a dark room at Indiana University. Not long ago, a friend of his and a professor at the school, decided to retire. And like any move, loads of trash was developed. Through circumstance, Rich found himself picking through some of his pal’s trash and stumbled across a number of boxes containing color slides and negatives. They were labeled with the name C.W. Cushman.

Charles W. Cushman was an amateur photographer and an early adopter. In 1938, practically no one was shooting color film… But Cushman, a native from San Francisco who later moved to Chicago, was absolutely obsessed with the intricacies of shooting his world in full color. He did so for the next 30 years. Those boxes that Remsburg found housed Cushman’s entire collection. (Editor’s Note: You can find more on this story on NPR)

Cool, right? But what’s cooler is that Cushman had another obsession as well. He absolutely loved cars. As you browse his collection, you will notice that he often shoots his cars in the foreground of very intricately planned landscape shots. And like any car guy, his cars were upgraded often… It’s starts with a ’38 Ford Deluxe in San Francisco. After college, he moves to Chicago, gets a real job, and real money… So, why not a Lincoln Zephyr? A few later, why not a Cadillac? And so on.

Now, I suppose I could post all of these photos here and just be done with it. But that’s too easy and not as fun. When you browse the Cushman collection picture by picture, you start to feel like you are getting to know the man. And as you get to know the man, you start to understand what he favors in a car and you can almost guess what his next one will be. It’s actually an incredible time suck doing this, but it’s also a whole lot of fun.

If you have some time to kill, start here. Essentially, these are all the Cushman photos that had cars in them. And by all means, if you find a photo you think is a “can’t miss” post it as a reply for us all to enjoy.

Special thanks to Draider for finding this story for me.