Warren, T. Taylor (Thomas Taylor), 1925-2008

Wright, Christina

Charlotte, North Carolina

J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

2005-12-07

1 audio file (2:42:00) : digital, MP3 + 1 transcript (49 pages : PDF)

sound recording-nonmusical

spoken word

eng

T. Taylor Warren was an 80-year-old man at the time of interview, which took place in J. Murrey Atkins Library (University of North Carolina at Charlotte). He was born in Delaware, Wyoming, on July 4, 1925. He was educated at Rochester Institute of Technology, and was employed as a motorsports photographer.

T. Taylor Warren reflects on his life, his photography career, and the early days of photographing NASCAR racing. He recalls his budding interest in photography as a boy and describes his education at Rochester Institute of Technology and the teachers he met there. Mr. Warren explains how he began photographing stock car races and describes how his career developed over the years alongside the sport of stock car racing. He discusses in detail the craft of stock car photography from the techniques and procedures he developed to the different kinds of cameras he used in his work, most notably a Hasselblad medium format camera. He also speaks at length about the differences between sports photography and photography for advertising and publicity. From 1957 to 1971, Mr. Warren was the official photographer for Bill France Racing and he recounts his experiences working for the founder of NASCAR. Throughout the interview Mr. Warren also talks of the various companies he has worked for, including DuPont, Kodak, Alderman Studios, NASCAR; and his own photography business, Pictures Incorporated. Mr. Warren concludes by discussing how photography and the business of stock car racing photography in particular, has changed due to the Internet, digital cameras, and improvements in technology. He shares his opinions on how today's photographers can capture higher-resolution images but may not create particularly compelling photographs due in part to the negligible cost of creating many images at a time with digital photography.

MP3 access copy created on ingest from WAV optimized production master file. Interview originally recorded on two minidiscs and digitized using a Digidesign 003 rack.

Sports photographers
Photographers

Warren, T. Taylor (Thomas Taylor), 1925-2008
France, Bill, 1909-1992

NASCAR (Association)

Daytona 500 (Automobile race)

Stock car racing
Motorsports
Racetracks (Automobile racing)
Sports photographers
Photography of sports
Photojournalism
Photography--Equipment and supplies
Hasselblad camera
Photography--Techniques

North Carolina--Charlotte
North Carolina--High Point
Virginia--Martinsville
Florida--Daytona Beach

Interviews
Oral histories

1940-2010

Motorsports

Living Charlotte : the postwar development of a New South city

T. Taylor Warren collection, 1959-2008. J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

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Digitization made possible by funding from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the State Library of North Carolina, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources.

audio/mpeg

T. Taylor Warren oral history interview 2, 2006 January 12, J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections and University Archives, University of North Carolina at Charlotte (https://goldmine.uncc.edu/islandora/object/uncc%3A73)

T. Taylor Warren papers concerning NASCAR, 1959-2009, J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections and University Archives, University of North Carolina at Charlotte (https://findingaids.uncc.edu/repositories/4/resources/30)

OH-WA0414