During the late 1960s I took pictures of Can-Am and USRRC races for a magazine called Competition Press and Autoweek. I had lots of images of famous drivers like Dan Gurney, Bruce McLaren, Dennis Hulme, Jim Hall, Parnelli Jones, Mark Donohue, etc. During one of my moves in the 1970s almost all the negatives got tossed. I do have about 4 36-exposure rolls left from one race in 1968.
When I first realized the negs were missing, it didn’t bother me much. What would I do with them? But things changed in the late 1990s when the Internet became popular outside of academic circles. There were lots of people who wanted to see images like that, many venues for posting them, and we all realized what a unique moment in autosports the Can-Am series was. I would really like to have them now.
My experience may be far from universal, but I think that probably there are images that most serious photographers have made that couldn’t be made anymore and capture a period that in retrospect is of interest to many.
So hold on to those images!
Great shots!