An exhibition of creative photography takes viewers on a time-travel trip to Florida’s “golden age of roadside attractions” 1960-1970. Framed images are 30″ X 40″ or 24″ X 30″. The show includes (6) original 24″ Dioramas including vintage scale model die-cast cars that illustrate how the images were shot on location at the actual Florida locations. Framed production images explain the photographic technique called “Forced Perspective”. A high-quality table top book includes the images together with Bob Gibson’s entertaining memoir.
The Photography Show
Excerpts from the book
U.S. Highway One was packed with cars like ours: chrome and winged land yachts. Family wagons boasted rocket shaped fins reflecting our optimism of the New Frontier and coming Space Age.
Our favorite TV show, Bonanza began with a singing commercial,
“See the U.S.A. in a Chevrolet.” School was out and it and time to see Florida during the hottest time of the year, from a car without air conditioning!
I was in charge of spotting scenic attractions. What we saw instead were an awful lot of cows.
“Everybody simmer down,” Dad warned. He found a Howard Johnson’s and we piled into a booth with an orange mica table, orange vinyl bench seats and a Wall-O-Matic Jukebox for Pete and I to abuse. We punched in the numbers for Elvis Presley and then a joke song by an Australian who sang,
“Tie Me Kangaroo Down Mate” a hilarious ditty about surviving the dangerous Australian outback. How hard could that be after Florida?
Mr. Howard Johnson was a genius. The hot dog buns were grilled with tons of butter. The placemats had the mapof Florida we needed most: roads and every major attraction colorfully illustrated so families could plan their holiday. Glass Bottom Boats. Leaping Porpoises. A pyramid of women in bathing suits riding water skis, A mermaid swimming in a spring?
Florida was a state of amazing options! This was going to turn out like “Hoss Cartwright” said on TV, “The Best Vacation Ever”!
Six Gun Territory
The billboard read, “Ride The Train or Sky Ride!”
The Sky Ride was our unanimous favorite.
We squeezed into a gondola attached to a precariously frayed cable . My younger brother and I slid under the rusted safety bar that would keep us from falling hundreds of feet below into the Ocala National Forest.
The truth is, the ride was boring…until we approached the elevated wood tower that would be our point of departure.
“Welcome Partners!”
A fully dressed cowboy grabbed the coach and flipped up the safety bar so we could climb down to a real cowboy town.
But then, an angry face-painted warrior jumped onto the platform to
kill us and take our crew-cut scalps.
The cowboy spun , pulled a long handled six shooter and
blasted the red devil with a deafening blast.
His target staggered and flipped off the platform into a pile of hay.
Hoss Cartwright was right, we had come to the right place for fun!
At the concession stand, Pete and I each got a Mini Spy Camera. This amazing device, made in Japan, disappeared into the palm of your hand and came with tiny canisters of film nearly impossible to load. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was looking at my future. Not a spy. A travel photographer!
At Six Gun Territory, I recorded it all: Can Can Dancers flirting with Dad. The Sheriff who came into the saloon and
asked Pete if he was old enough to drink that Root Beer. A lot of dead Indians that were shot and fell from the balconies into the dusty street.
I wasn’t fooled by the well -placed hay piles that softened their fall so they could repeat the feat every hour on the hour. I believed that I was no average tourist.