Behind the Print #2: The Story of Our Best-Selling Photograph

Our best-selling photograph was never meant to be a bestseller. I shot it on a grey, rain-threatened morning at a Porsche rally in Belgium, pointed my camera at two classic 911s parked nose to nose, and converted it to black and white almost by instinct. Here is the real story behind the print more of you have hung than any other.

A Porsche rally in Belgium, under a moody sky

I shot this one at a classic Porsche rally in Belgium — the kind of gathering where owners drive their cars hundreds of kilometers just to park them next to other people’s cars for a weekend. The morning I took this photograph, the sky was doing everything but cooperating: low clouds, a steady threat of rain, that flat grey light that most photographers try to avoid. I didn’t avoid it. I leaned into it.

Why black and white, and not the original color

The color version exists, and it’s fine. But it doesn’t say what I wanted to say. The day was moody, cloudy, borderline dramatic — and converting the image to black and white let the atmosphere do the talking instead of fighting it. Black and white also does something specific for classic cars: it strips away the distraction of modern color grading and lets the shapes, the chrome, and the proportions carry the image the way they would have in period photographs. For two vintage Porsches photographed in weather like that, color would have softened the drama. Black and white sharpened it.

The car that makes this photograph: an early Targa, the “soft window” generation

Look closely and you’ll spot it: one of the two 911s in the frame is an early Targa, from the generation collectors call the “soft window” — before Porsche switched to the fixed glass rear window that later Targas are known for. It’s one of the first Targa models ever built, and seeing one at a rally, let alone photographing it next to a sibling 911 in exactly that light, isn’t something that happens twice. That rarity is part of why this image resonates: it’s not a generic “Porsche in a field” shot, it’s a specific, dateable moment in the model’s own history.

Why this became our best-seller

I can’t point to one single reason, but a few things line up. The composition is simple enough to work at almost any size — it holds up as a small desk print and as a large aluminium panel over a sofa. The black and white treatment means it sits comfortably in almost any room, next to almost any color palette, which isn’t true of every photograph in the catalogue. And the Targa itself draws collectors who know exactly what they’re looking at, while the composition reads as simply “two beautiful old cars” to everyone else. It works on both levels at once, and that’s rare.

What a Porsche rally actually looks like, behind the scenes

People picture a car rally as rows of perfectly parked machines under clean blue sky, but the reality is messier and more interesting. Owners arrive early, in convoy, often before the organizers have finished setting up the field. Cars get parked wherever there’s space, not in a curated lineup, and the light you get is whatever the day decides to give you — which that morning in Belgium meant low clouds and the smell of rain in the air. I spent most of the morning walking the rows before the rally properly started, looking for pairings like this one: two cars that happened to end up next to each other, at an angle, in light that worked. You can’t stage that. You can only be there early enough and patient enough to notice it when it happens.

From that morning to the print on your wall

The process this photograph went through to become a print is the same one every image in the catalogue follows: the file is graded, a limited edition is set, and each size is printed and numbered individually, whether that’s a 78€ desk-size aluminium print or a much larger piece built for a feature wall. If you want the fuller version of how a Cars and Roses photograph goes from a rally field to your wall, from scouting to the final aluminium, I wrote about that process in detail in an earlier piece.

Frequently asked questions

Is this the color or black and white version that sells best?

Black and white, by a clear margin. The color original exists but the black and white treatment is what most people respond to — it’s the version that made this our best-selling photograph.

What size do most people choose for this print?

It spans the full range, from a 78€ desk-size aluminium print to large feature-wall formats. Because the composition is simple and high-contrast, it holds up well at nearly every size we offer.

What makes an early “soft window” Targa different from a later one?

The soft window Targas, built in the earliest years of the model, used a flexible plastic rear window instead of the fixed glass window Porsche introduced later. It’s one of the details collectors look for first when dating an early Targa.

Was this photograph taken on a commission or for the catalogue directly?

For the catalogue. I photograph rallies and gatherings like this one specifically to find moments like this — it wasn’t planned as a “best-seller,” it just turned out to be one.