# The photographer who shot through his windshield

> Henry Wessel rigged a camera for one hand so he could photograph other drivers without ever stopping the car.
- Title: The photographer who shot through his windshield | Shortify
- Summary: Henry Wessel rigged a camera for one hand so he could photograph other drivers without ever stopping the car. Wessel built his photography around a commute…
- Keywords: photography, henry wessel, street photography, black and white, exhibitions, photographer, shot, through, windshield, Digital Camera World
- Source: Digital Camera World — https://digitalcameraworld.com/photography/galleries-and-exhibitions/photographer-henry-wessel-modified-his-camera-so-he-could-shoot-one-handed-through-the-windshield-while-driving-on-his-daily-commute-and-according-to-him-a-glance-was-enough
- Published: 2026-09-13T06:15:00+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: photography, henry wessel, street photography, black and white, exhibitions
## A New Jersey kid at MoMA
Henry Wessel (1942-2018) broke through in 1972 with a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art. Two Guggenheim Fellowships and museum collections across three continents followed.
## The commute that became work
In the early Eighties, Wessel drove from the East Bay to a teaching job in San Francisco. He noticed the morning and evening light was worth stopping for, then never stopped.
## One hand on the camera
He modified his camera for one-handed use and kept it ready on the seat, shooting other drivers through his own windshield while still steering.
## Not exactly road safe
Writer Tom May puts it bluntly: composing a frame while piloting a one-ton machine at speed is not a technique most photographers will want to copy.

> I'm no driving expert, but that doesn't strike me as a particularly safe thing to do
## Thirty years in a drawer
Those black-and-white frames became two portfolios, Incidents (2012) and Traffic (2017), covering roughly three decades of pictures that sat unfinished or simply unshown.
## Szarkowski picked him young
Untitled (1968), a deserted road split by a telephone pole, closed John Szarkowski's 1973 book Looking at Photographs. Wessel was the youngest photographer in it.
## Houses, in color, parked
Real Estate was his first sustained color project, returning to houses shot from a car window. A subject from his very first roll of film, only now the car stayed still.
## Streetlights as stage lighting
Night Walk began in 1995 when Wessel saw how streetlights rebuilt his own neighborhood during dog walks after dark.

> stage-like, full of implied drama
## I simply take pictures
He never set out to shoot. Open eyes and available light were the whole method, which is why he called photography indulgent as much as vital.

> If there's light out and my eyes are open, it's usually reason enough to be able to work.
## Key takeaway

Wessel built his photography around a commute he was already making, proving the best subject is often the one you pass every day.