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Learning To Fly — Description
In a darkened Crawford City historical building, below inches of dust, under several over-sized books you find a yellowed envelope. Carefully you pick up the fragile piece of paper, probably not touched for 40 years or more, open up the flap and out slides a stiffened cracked photo dated 1920.

You gaze thoughtfully at the people in the photo, 1920 seems so long ago you can't even imagine it. You wonder what it would have been like to be there, if you could somehow jump into the photo and travel back in time..

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Yeah, that's the whole idea I had for this, trying to capture that feeling when you find an ancient photograph with people you don't know in them who most likely have sense passed away.. I always thought that was a really neat feeling, I felt that my next picture with the Indy racer would be perfect.. to really give you a feeling of just how old that character is, what kind of world he came from, you know?

Oh and before you look up Crawford Raceway, please don't. lol I just made it up and I didn't even bother to look up if there is one or where it is. So just do yourself the favor of loosing the immersion and just don't! DX

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Yeah, I'm going to try categorizing my descriptions better.. so people don't just see a wall of intimidating text.. hopefully that helps.

I probably tried way too hard to make this look old, but I think it payed off don't you? I wish there was a way I could make the text look old and crumbly too but I'm not sure how.

Firstly, where the first picture is moment's before Andy's fatal crash, this photo is from years before back when he and Anton were just promising rookies on the fast-track to success. Hense the title if you remember the song I used with that picture. In fiction, Crawford Raceway was just one of many local small-time raceways Andy raced on 'when it started out' slowly gaining wins and notoriety.

I kinda took a different approach with this picture, because I really focused more on the human characters then on Andy here.. though he's still in here and has just as much emotion and presence. This is where I finally reveal Anton Toupin's face and kinda show him more in his normal element. We've also got Anton's riding mechanic and partner Stanley Hughes who you only saw the very top of his HEAD in the first picture.

The other goal I had, besides making the old photo look, was to make a scene that looks very natural.. you know, not all posed and 'presented-like. I went for very open ended poses where you could look at it and see a few different possible ideas of what's going on.. kinda inspiring that 'wondering while looking at old photo's feeling. You can see the old time camera off to the left, so you know they've either just taken their winning photo or are just about to.

Anton has his goggles in one hand and a cloth rag in the other and is a little exhausted looking, so you get the idea he just hopped out and onto his feet not long ago. As with the rag he could have just wiped his brow, or maybe he was running along Andy's hood getting some dirt and grit off of him. See what I mean? In fact I'd love to hear what scenarios you guys think up.

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Duesenberg Racer #8 (Andy): Having just come off the assembly line of the Duesenberg US factory, Andy has the exciting if not intimidating job, along with a handful of others, of representing his model year of cars on the race-track. He's been paired with Anton and Stanley by the Duensenberg US branch and at this point has only been racing for a year and a half. They're his first Masters and teammates he's ever had and he's determined not to let them down.

Anton Toupin: Anton is a 23 year old rookie driver out of Pennsylvania, a first generation French immigrant, he and his family lived on a small farm in a small town. When he was a boy his father would to take him to horse races every season, from this he developed a love for racing, the competition, the speed and excitement. As a teenager he competed in several cycling races and while not winning more then 2 or 3 he almost always came in on the high end.

The year Henry Ford began his mass production of automobiles began, in 1914, early automobiles began appearing on the roads of Anton's town. Being a futurist and open-minded towards new technology he was fascinated by automobiles and wanted very much to try racing in one. With help from Stanley Hughes, a long time friend of the family) who worked in the production line of the a Duesenberg manufacturing plant, he was able to get his hands on a car or two to drive around in the field behind the factory.

His family was too poor to afford a car of their own, but at the age of 20, after saving up money on the side for years, Anton was able to afford a cheap base-model Ford car from the factory Stanley worked at. For about a year he raced around on private tracks and after a lot of pushing and luck, he managed to be picked up by the Duesenberg company as a rookie driver. Here is when he was presented with Andy, gleaming new, right off the line. It was one of the greatest moments in his young live.

Ultimately he wishes to become a national and then international racer, eventually maybe getting to race on the European/French circuit, and finally getting to see his home country in person.

Stanley Hughes: Stanley is a 43 year old farmer, or at least was before Duesenberg bought a half his land for their manufacturing plant. Forced with having to live on producing half the crops he used to sell he took a part-time job at the very plant, mostly because it was a new hiring company and was employing most of the people in the town. He'd met Anton's family the first day they moved in down the street from him and often traded fruits and vegetables to Anton's mother in exchange for some of her good French cooking and baked goods.

Having a good friendship with Anton, knowing him since he was a small boy they almost have a grandpa-nephew connection, he was well aware of Anton's love for the new automobiles. At closing he'd roll a performance-test car out after the boss had left and let Anton cruise it around his pasture next to the factory.

Having worked on cars for years, Stanley was Anton's first pick for riding mechanic. He's been there trough all the races and can't help but feel proud of Anton victory after victory, he definitely see's a national racer in the making!