Jesse Alexander shot this then-contemporary portrait of Gigi Villoresi
There I was, sitting at my desk, minding my own business, as usual. Jesse Alexander sends an email, asking if I’d like a sampling of pages from his new iPad app and eBook, Forty Years of Motorsport Photography. I agree, and a few weeks later, Drop Box links arrive. I met Jesse when I was a young magazine editor, mid-twenties, and I loved his photography at first glance. I wanted to have a black-and-white article every month, printed in four-color process. Jesse was among those who helped illustrate that section, along with Dave Friedman, Bob Tronolone, and The Klemantaski Collection. The rarest of treats? Having Jesse shoot portraits of the surviving drivers to illustrate these black-and-white features. Working with Joanne Marshall, then a journalist and now of Ferrari, Jesse shot portraits of Gigi Villoresi (see above).
Jesse’s iPad app emulates the pages of a book, just like the free copy of Winnie the Pooh we all get when buying an iPad. Taking advantage of this new media platform, Jesse has added his audio commentary on each photo, telling the back-story, and in most cases those stories are interesting.
In his soft, paced fashion, Jesse tells of the day German photographer Julius Weitmann took him to the Nurburgring’s Flugplatz. Jesse snapped an incredible photo of Graham Hill airborne in his car, front wheels just nibbling the tarmac on descent, rear wheels still in the air—and the German photographer’s camera and hands in the lower right corner of the frame. A brilliant bit of composition typical of Jesse, whose work is often more artistic and thoughtful than commercial. The commercial shot would have captured the car mid-flight, all four wheels dangling in the air, Graham Hill’s moustache in fine form, a perfect lead for a motorsports rag of the day, netting Jesse a few pennies for its use, and a photo that would be mostly forgotten over time. By placing Weitmann’s hands and camera in the lower right corner of the shot, Jesse achieves perspective, humor, and a sense of immediacy, as you realize how close the photographers are to the cars literally flying by.
In another shot, a factory Porsche 356 race car that had completed the Targa Florio a couple of days before sits at the side of the road, journalist Denis Jenkinson at the wheel, the valley unfolding in the distance. Jesse’s audio file unfurls the back-story, which makes this photo of a car stopped on the road far more interesting. Porsche PR had loaned the car to Jesse and Denis Jenkinson after the running of the Targa, and they took it into the hills for photos. Imagine that happening at an ALMS race or Le Mans. Much simpler times. When they happened upon the pair of Sicilian farmers and their pack mules, Jesse asked Jenks to stop the car, leapt out and snapped the shot. Perspective is gained, as we realize that this “race track” runs through a civilian population living much as it had in the 19th, 18th and even 17th centuries, a civilian population that is in most ways indifferent to the passage of high-powered sports cars competing in the Targa. One might expect to see Michael Corleone with his new bride, Apollonia.
Jesse’s app is an early and helpful step to bringing these images into the digital world, keeping them alive for future generations. Ford Motor Company years ago spent money on video crews to interview the greats of its racing heritage, capturing their comments and remembrances before they passed away. Most particularly, they taped an interview with Bill Stroppe, who raced flathead Ford V8-powered Kurtises, and built the Baja Broncos that helped create Ford’s off-roading legend. I remember because on my light table I reviewed photos of Stroppe’s restored Kurtis-Kraft, shot days after the car rolled out of the restoration shop.
Jesse is in his eighties, with four daughters and a successful son, who has made it in the entertainment business. I wonder if the son, Jess, will take steps to preserve and maintain these images in their original form on film, in prints, and in high-resolution digital form. Will Jess Alexander perform work like the leading preservationist, Peter Sachs of the Klemantaski Collection, to keep these images alive for decades, and with any luck indefinitely. I’m fairly certain The Klemantaski Collection will end up at a museum somewhere, with an endowment to cover a librarian and archivist, which will ensure historians of future centuries will have thorough documentation of a magnificent culture that only lasted a short while. Many of us would like to see Jesse’s work, and that of Friedman, Tronolone and others, preserved in the same location.
Jesse Alexander both lived through and documented the two most interesting decades of this racing culture, the Fifties and Sixties. I sincerely want great-grandchildren at the dawn of the 22nd century to be able to see these images, study and learn from them as I have studied daguerreotype images of the Civil War and Old West. They should live in a vibrant museum alongside cars of the period, so those great-grandchildren can marvel over Ferrari Squalos and Lancia D50s as I marveled decades ago at the Met’s collection of Medieval armor. There was once talk of creating a Brigg Cunningham Foundation that would be to historic cars what Mystic Seaport is to tall mast ships. Perhaps McPherson College has already filled that need, but these photos need to live, in print and digital form, someplace.
When compared with the price of other artistic iPad apps, like the TS Eliot “Wasteland” app I bought awhile back, $19.99 seems reasonable enough. Find it on iTunes.
