Life at Shutter Speed
Two Decades of Larry Chen Photography
Life at Shutter Speed is a photographer’s retrospective that captures the glamour and danger of motor vehicle culture.
A retrospective focused on custom cars, races, and international race culture, Larry Chen’s Life at Shutter Speed gathers two decades of motor sport photography.
Divvying up over 2,500 photographs and twenty years of work into four sections that move in reverse chronology from the newest to the oldest work, the book does an able job of memorializing the development and accomplishments of a visionary car photographer. It includes Chen’s first Instagram post from 2012—a rough image of an orange McLaren—as well as images of Travis Pastrana’s bridge-jumping stunts and countless shots of competition and international car shows. Throughout, it glances into the glamour and danger of motor vehicle culture, taking an anthropological look at the ways cars are appreciated in countries including Malaysia, Poland, and Japan.
Full-color, high-resolution photographs dominate, arranged in dizzying patterns on the page. Some images are blown up to the size of a full page or double-page spread, while other pages contain up to fifteen photographs in various sizes and configurations. Though the grouped picture effect pays dividends when it is used to document single races or events, the density of the images is sometimes overwhelming.
Still, the result feels comprehensive. Blurred-background high-speed races are presented alongside the vibrant red of a Ferrari and the saturated color of a car with neon lights at night. Documenting the Drift Appalachia race, nine images of cars with smoking tires, drifting through the leafy green of the Kentucky mountain racetrack, create an immersive experience.
The four sections, each accounting for about five years, are broken into smaller subsections that track Chen’s professional growth over the course of each year. These subsections begin with brief descriptions of Chen’s accomplishments and career developments during the period—or, in the case of 2020, major world events. Legendary events, including Gridlife, are represented, as are changes in camera technology and experiments with new photographic techniques like panoramic photograph stitching.
Small sections of text appear throughout to give context regarding where and how the images were taken. These are informative, providing helpful context for engaging with the images and learning about significant figures and events in motorsports. However, there is also a repetitive quality to their tones that smooths over the nuances of the experiences behind each photograph.
Life at Shutter Speed is an engrossing photography book that celebrates international car culture over the last two decades.
Reviewed by
Willem Marx
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
