Meet the photographer behind the Legends of Speed images

Last week’s story about Phoenix Art Museum’s virtual tour of its Legends of Speed exhibit prompted us to take a deeper dive into the photographer behind the stunning Ferrari image provided by the museum. That led us to Atlanta-based Bill Pack, who kindly shared his time to answer our questions about how he captured all 22 cars for the museum’s exhibit catalog.

VM: How were you selected to photograph the cars in the Legends of Speed exhibit?

BP: My story with the exhibit began at the 2019 Amelia Island Concours where I was signing copies of my book, V12 Automotive Art Volume One. A mutual friend introduced me to Carter Emerson (co-chair of the Phoenix Art Museum Board of Trustees), who’s an avid collector of automotive books. We started talking about my book, imagery and my lighting process for photographing cars.

In our conversation, Carter talked about the museum and a car exhibit project he was working on. He was interested to learn that I have traveled around the world to owner’s locations to create my imagery, yet when you view the images, it appears they were all created in the same location.

He was also drawn to the imagery because it was not typical car photography. It had more emotion and leaned towards an art point of view.

The Wednesday after Amelia Island I got a call from Peter Shikany of PS:Studios in Phoenix. He began the conversation telling me about the museum project. I thought Carter had sent him my information, but it turns out he found me on his own. Peter was also drawn to my style and that I created my imagery at owner’s locations while retaining a cohesive look and feel. As we were talking, Peter got an email from Carter to check out my work. It was serendipitous and within a month I was on the road to begin photographing 22 legendary and iconic race cars.

Read the full interview and see more of Bill Pack's images at VintageMotorsport.com.