Elizabeth McMillan:

"I first took photos from my car while driving in the 1980’s, fascinated by what I called 'sharp blurs' which resulted from the combination of the car motion and panning on a street scene or landscape using a very slow shutter speed and broad range of focus. I moved on to other kinds of photography, but became increasingly limited by a progressive familial tremor so that I could no longer hold the camera steady enough to compose an image. Discouraged, I accepted that I had to abandon photography until a Spanish acquaintance came across my 1980’s city and orchard photos and organized a show for me in Seville in 2018. He encouraged me to resume photographing from a moving car.

My husband bought me a digital camera and started driving me around the Bay Area and beyond. I don’t try to look through the view finder. I just aim and shoot estimating the effect of the car speed and my panning. My motion photos now have the added complexity of my tremor, which adds a vertical component to the panning camera and car motion, sometimes creating swirls and crosshatched patterns. The results are unexpected, but anticipated.

When Covid limited other activities, I started photographing the forests and fields of Northern California. Then came the fires leaving parts of the forests transformed with white ash and blackened tree trunks. The reduced canopy admitted a harsh sunlight that turned the remaining brown leaves to gold. And then just enough rain arrived to restart the cycle of life and bring back the green."