This article was written by Stan Evans, a Los Angeles-based photographer and director. He shot Air|Water on 4×5 large format film.
Costa Mesa, California — April 2026
The sky over Costa Mesa was grey. Not the dramatic kind. Just a low, quiet overcast that softened everything — the chrome, the crowds, the noise. It should have killed the mood. It didn’t.
Air|Water arrived already carrying a reputation, but what struck me first wasn’t a car. It was the people.
Families. Kids. Gear-heads with camera bags and silver-haired collectors with their hands in their pockets. Couples pointing. Young guys crouching low for angles. Everyone engaged, everyone welcome. That’s rarer than it sounds at events like this.
Air|Water arrived already carrying a reputation, but what struck me first wasn’t a car. It was the people.
I came with a specific approach — less is more. Shooting 4×5 large format film means slowing completely down. One frame at a time. You stop. You look. You think before you squeeze. It’s the opposite of working a crowd. But that pace turned out to be the right lens for this particular event, because Air|Water rewards attention.
Curation As Philosophy
What they’ve built here isn’t just a car show. It’s an argument about space.
Most shows pack cars row by row. Confined, tight, metal sardines where perspective can never be achieved. Air|Water did the opposite. Cars were given room — between categories, between eras, between stories. Off-road machines didn’t compete with classics. Performance cars didn’t crowd out driver-submitted entries. Auction pieces had air around them. Architecture was part of the layout, not just background.
The result: you could actually step back and see a car. Far and close. In context. As an object worth contemplating rather than simply checking off a list.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. It’s the difference between a gallery and a warehouse.
The Machines And The People Who Drove Them
My 4×5 setup made me stop often. Every stop became a conversation. A couple that travels together that had their first date in a Porsche they’d sold but found at the show. A older woman who had driven down from San Jose and wasn’t sure what to expect, a car inherited, a car that cost more in repairs than the purchase price and they’d do it again tomorrow.
I had a brief moment with Jeff Zwart — one of the organizers, longtime photographer, motorsport filmmaker, Porsche factory driver. His eye is in this event’s DNA. The care in how cars are framed, how stories are given space — that’s not accidental. It comes from someone who has spent decades understanding what it means to see a machine and feel something.
The submitted cars placed throughout the grounds were a particular highlight — personal machines from real owners, set against the same backdrop as the dream cars. No hierarchy enforced by location. Just the work standing on its own.
And the photography. Everyone was trying to catch something. GoPros, DJIs, phones, film cameras, medium format rigs. The desire to preserve wasn’t just nostalgia — it was participation. Everyone processing the same moment through different tools.
Jeff Zwart And The Through-Line
I had a brief moment with Jeff Zwart — one of the organizers, longtime photographer, motorsport filmmaker, Porsche factory driver. His eye is in this event’s DNA. The care in how cars are framed, how stories are given space — that’s not accidental. It comes from someone who has spent decades understanding what it means to see a machine and feel something.
His appreciation for storytelling through photography and film isn’t incidental to Air|Water. It’s load-bearing. The fact that he recognized the nature of Large Format photography and gave the medium it respect by stopping for a portrait spoke volumes.
The Thing No Car Show Gets Right — Until Now
I’ve been to shows where the energy sorts people. Where the difference in tax brackets becomes visible in how people carry themselves, who gets acknowledged, who doesn’t. That quiet exclusion is real and it hollows the whole thing out.
Air|Water didn’t feel that way.
I’ve been to shows where the energy sorts people. Where the difference in tax brackets becomes visible in how people carry themselves, who gets acknowledged, who doesn’t. That quiet exclusion is real and it hollows the whole thing out. Air|Water didn’t feel that way.
I don’t know exactly how they managed it. Something in the curation, the openness of the layout, the mix of machines, the absence of velvet-rope energy. But walking those grounds, the playing field was level. Real people with real cars and real road stories, standing next to concours-quality hardware, and nobody was made to feel the gap.
That’s not nothing. That’s almost everything.
What It Points To
Something is building in Southern California. Lufgekulhlt cracked the door open. Air|Water widened it. The Motoring Club and The Vintage Motor Emporium are adding chapters — events where community is the architecture, not the afterthought. Where the goal isn’t to showcase who owns what, but to gather people around machines worth gathering around.
The Malibu Market parking lot energy has its place (or maybe it doesn’t) But this is different. This is people who love cars more than they love status, sharing that love publicly.
The grey sky never burned off. Didn’t matter. The light was right anyway.
All images copyright 2026© – Stan Evans
I’m a photographer that has a deep passion for portrait, lifestyle, athletic, and motorized imagery. More creatively, I’m a unique problem solver through imagery. Clients come to me with a story they want to tell, and on my own projects, I often have a narrative I’m trying to communicate. I see photography as a bit of a language, and I’m trying to get people to understand what I’m saying.
I’ve been doing more directing and video as it allows me to tell a more complete story, adding moving images and sound. Also, I just started a podcast called Social Studies Show that explores the relationship between advertising and activism. It has been enlightening crossing the country meeting with people at companies, various ad agencies, and engaging how they are going about marketing with accountability, multiculturalism, and environmentalism in mind.
I think being a minority, and raised as an army brat, gives me a unique perspective. As a kid, I quickly learned to view the world from a lot of different perspectives, not only to survive, but also thrive. Within that spectrum, a camera gives the ability to ask questions of personalities and observe culture instead of judging. Rather than just taking a picture of someone, I often try to put myself in that person’s shoes. How do they see themselves? How do they want to be portrayed? Am I seeing something about them that perhaps they don’t even see themselves? Bringing those aspects front and center is the beauty of photography.
Instagram – Stan Evans – Up For Adventures – Social Studies Show – I Can Shoot Anything – Freedom Explorers
