Last Christmas, 2024
Telluride, Colorado
The main street in Telluride looking west
towards the colossal mountain that will
bully it forever, is one of America’s great
visual overloads. That is why every year
hundreds of thousands of tourists stand
where I knelt to take a picture. Like the
Grand Canyon and Monument Valley, it
is a ground zero for selfies and maybe the
location deserves a little better. It should
elicit not just our phone’s attention, but a
deep respect for Americana and the Final
Frontier. The fact that a 150 years ago a
village was built up here at 9,000 feet in
Box Canyon is a telling insight into the
determination of the first settlers.
I have filmed on Main Street a few times,
but never with a car and I sensed that
there could be potential to tell a period
story. In my creative processing I built
in a few key components: a classic car;
an empty and snow caked street with no
signs of modernity and a model whose
styling played to the era of the car. If
that was not greedy enough, I needed my
wolf - Klondike. I wanted parody as well as
glamour.
Closing down that street is not easy and
I am hugely appreciative of the Mayor of
Telluride - Teddy Errico - and his staff for
their support on 14th December 2024.
Without the film permit, the road closure
and the parking restrictions, there was no
picture.
But the best photographs always
come down to the last 1% and on this
occasion the key 1% was just luck. The
early morning temperature, on that one
morning when we were permitted to close
the street and bring in my cast, led by the
beautiful Josie Canseco, turned out to be
the coldest of the winter so far and that
changed every visual dynamic. At dawn it
was only about 10 °F and the extreme cold
amplified the heavy exhaust fumes from
the 1955 Austin Healey. This offered an
opportunity to isolate the model from the
backdrop and elevate the photograph. It
was not something that I had considered
in my planning, but I will most certainly
take it.