Route 66 Arizona Photography | DeSoto's Salon Americana
Vintage Cars and Roadside Color Along Arizona's Mother Road
The car on the roof is impossible to miss.
I photographed DeSoto's Salon along Route 66 in Arizona in 2010, where the building immediately caught my attention as one of those wonderfully eccentric roadside scenes that seem completely at home on the Mother Road. A vintage car sits above the salon, Route 66 shields appear across the facade, and an old Route 66 Grill sign still stands beside the neighbouring building.
Colour is a huge part of the photograph. The salon is painted in soft pink, cream and yellow, with bright magenta and green stripes running across the front. Next door, turquoise trim and faded peach walls add another layer of Southwestern character. All of it sits beneath an enormous, intensely blue Arizona sky.
I wanted to keep the wider street scene rather than isolate a single sign or detail. The empty road, chain-link fence, old vehicles, weathered signage and trees behind the buildings help place the salon within the slightly improvised visual language of historic Route 66.
That is what has always interested me about this highway. The attraction is not one particular landmark. It is the accumulation of diners, garages, motels, old cars, handmade signs and businesses that developed their own personalities to catch the attention of passing travellers.
DeSoto's Salon had that personality in abundance. For me, the photograph became a piece of roadside Americana—bright, unconventional and unmistakably tied to the character of Route 66.
© Dan Kosmayer, 2010
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About My Fine Art Photography
Every photograph in my collection comes from my own travels, explorations, and years behind the camera.
I create my work as photographic art rather than mass-produced decoration. From street portraits and abandoned places to landscapes, architecture, and the unusual subjects I discover along the way, each image begins with something that made me stop and look.
My photographs are available in multiple sizes so the same image can work in anything from an intimate wall space to a large statement installation.
