Time to Start Our Engines


Bill Wagenblatt Photography has been years in the making and after much discussion and prodding along by my business partner Elliot Wagenblatt, he doubles as my son, were open.

I’ve been photographing motor racing for close to 5 decades. For many years my focus has been the west coast historic racing scene. My archive numbers in the 100,000s of slides, black & white and color negative and most recently digital files. We also run Historic Motor Prints that focuses on the current historic races. There are 3 categories to the site, Contemporary Racing includes images from back-in-the day racing, From Watkins Glen to Monaco and much more. Historic Racing contains the images from the historic racing scene. Images will range from cars back at the turn of the 20th century to a detailed shot of a small bit noticed in the paddock. Travel will include images that have taken my fancy, but not at a race track.

Bill Wagenblatt Photography goal is to reach back into the archive for images that have a personal story or connection. We will offer two types on prints, a Fine Art paper and a dye sublimated Aluminum. All printing is completed by a professional lab in Portland, Oregon.

As called out in About the Prints we only use Hahnemühle Fine Art Baryta for all paper prints. Hahnemühle Fine Art Baryta paper is a bright white, cellulose-based Fine Art paper with a coating specially tailored for Fine Art use. The acid- and lignin-free paper has a lovely soft feel and tactile surface texture that produces prints with a stunning three-dimensional quality and depth.

Metal prints are unique and one of a kind. Images are dye sublimated into a coating on the surface of the metal. Dye sublimation is printed on glossy aluminum metal with a white base.

Prints will generally ship within 10-Businees Days from the receipt of an order. We’ll forward tracking information at that time.

We’ll use the Blog to provide updates and regal you with stories about the images.

I’ll start off with my thoughts on one of my favorite images, The Karussell. Ironically one of my favorite images barely contains any cars in it. If you’ve been fortunate to attend an event or better yet drive the Nürburgring Nordschleife "North loop" you’ll appreciate the scope of the original circuit. The Karussell was taken during the 1974 ADAC 6-Hour Touring Car Race. I was standing on a hill looking down at the turn and the image captures a couple cars climbing the hill to the Karussell, the concrete track that the cars use. The background contains the peaks and valleys of the Eifel mountains where the Ring is set. To appreciate the scope of the Nordschleife the start/finish straight is located over the ridge in the far background. The original image was shot on Kodak Ektachrome film and was drum-scanned to convert to a digital file.

The Karussell

Last, but not least, we’d like to hear from you either through our Contact page, sign up for our occasional Newsletter or comment on a Blog post.