Alain Briot Fine Art Photography

Full Circle: A Ferrari at the El Tovar
2016 Portfolio

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.
Walt Disney

Alain and Natalie with their Ferrari California
in front of the El Tovar Hotel at Grand Canyon National Park in 2015.

1 - Introduction
This is a story of two Ferraris at the El Tovar. The only thing is they were there 15 years apart.

2 - The story
There is a story behind the photograph of Natalie and me featured at the top of this page. This photograph was taken in front of the El Tovar hotel at grand canyon. This is where I sold my work for 5 years from 1997 to 2002. Around 2000 I made one of my biggest sales to a customer. After placing his order he asked me ‘Do you want to take a photo of me, my girlfriend and my Ferrari?' I said yes and I photographed them and their Ferrari in front of the hotel.

At the time I had no idea that I would own a Ferrari one day. However, this story stuck in my mind because I love Ferraris and dreamed of having one. When I bought the Lotus I drove it to Grand Canyon and took a photo in front of the El Tovar hotel. However it was not satisfying because I wanted to take a photo of a Ferrari in front of the hotel, not a Lotus. This year, after I bought my first Ferrari I told Natalie that we would finally take the photo. This is what we just did. The two photos are below.

Vin Gupta and his girfriend with their Ferrari 360 Spider
in front of the El Tovar Hotel at Grand Canyon National Park in 1998.

These two photographs were taken 15 years apart. Dreams do come true if you do not quit, if you don't give up.

His Ferrari was a 360 spider. Mine is a California. The California comes in two different versions: normally aspirated and turbo compressed. I did not want the turbo version. The normally aspirated version is what I think a Ferrari should be. The sounds, the response, the feel is what I expected. The turbo version, while more powerful, did not feel as responsive even though the turbo lag, the delay between the time you press on the gas pedal and power is transferred to the wheels, is hardly noticeable.

The California is a front engine car. The 360 is a rear engine car. I like the front engine because it is more quiet inside the car. I don't have rear seats so I can put luggage behind the front seats. I also have a good size rear trunk. And of course the car is a convertible with the roof folding into the trunk.

Interestingly, the first Ferrari I ever drove was a 360. A 360 Modena to be exact, which is a coupe. It was a manual transmission. When I drove it I found that the response time between shifting and power was incredibly quick. Faster than I could handle at the time. This took place near Las Vegas.

Ferrari 360 Modena

Natalie and I with the 360 Modena

Back to my story. The customer was Vinod Gupta, the CEO of info USA at the time (now InfoGROUP).

I mean for this story to be inspiring. While it is the result of hard work and discipline, it is also the result of not giving up on your dreams, regardless of what happens to you along the way. We all encounter hardships and difficulties and while this is unpleasant it is definitely something we have to expect. It comes with the territory so to speak, with setting goals that are challenging to achieve and with wanting to excel and fulfill our full potential instead of being satisfied with whatever we get. Rather than live a life of quiet desperation as Thoreau puts it we seek to live a life of excitement and satisfaction, and if along this path we meet with resistance and adversity, it is best to consider those the price of admission rather than a sign that our dreams are not to be achieved.

You may not have a passion for cars and this is ok. However, the same holds true whatever your own passion is. Don’t give up and don’t listen to the naysayers, to those who say it can’t be done, or it is unimportant, or meaningless, or ostentatious, or whatever it is that they say which is negative and discouraging. Remember that it is not their dream, it is your dream. Whatever this dream is it matters greatly to you, it is your goal, and you should not give up on it no matter what. All you need to do is follow your dream, believe in it and it will happen.

Selling fine art photographs is not easy. There are challenges and getting discouraged is bound to happen. But what matters is not only what happens to you, it is also how you react to it. We all have the option to quit, but if we take it we put a big fat line through our dreams. We cross them out and they become secondary things that we can take care of ‘later on.’ We might as well say never because quitting will become a habit. While there is nothing wrong quitting a venture that is absolutely hopeless, there is something wrong quitting because we are encountering some difficulties along the way. Dreams come true because we stick with them through thick and thin. I did. Don’t think I did not have adversity along the way. I had my share and another helping plus another one and another one and more. Why didn’t I quit? Because I was doing what I love and so doing this, no matter how hard or how discouraging at times, was what I really wanted to do. I wanted to do it more than anything else and I wanted to continue doing it more than quitting.

3 - Ostentatiousness
I get remarks every so often about the fact that fulfilling dreams is not a matter of owning things but rather a matter of living the life you want. I agree. However what do you do if living the life you want involves owning specific things, such as a Ferrari in this instance? Granted, an object won’t bring your happiness and, from what I was told, you can’t take it with you. This may be so but the fact is that a lifestyle by definition involves doing certain things a certain way. For me cars and photography are passions that I indulge in. One is a business and the other is a hobby but they are both passions. So what should I do? Avoid showing my cameras because they too are expensive and ostentatious? After all isn’t a Leica, a Hasselblad, a digital back and so on just as uncommon as a Ferrari? Granted they are smaller, and less people know about them and can recognize them, but they are just as ‘ostentatious’ for those who can recognize them if you want to call it that. Or not, it all depends how you look at it. If you look at it in terms of quality, perfection, style, passion or dream, yes, dream because that is what we are talking about, then they are comparable being not about the desire for ostentatiousness but about the desire to make a dream come true, to own something that you have always dreamed of and to enjoy it not because it is rare and expensive but because it is a dream, not because few have it but because you have dreamed of owning one all your life, not because it is rare but because it is good, great, superlative, because it transports you to another place, a place that is yours.

Ferrari California

4 - Taking the photo
Taking the photo was not easy because we both Natalie and I had to be in it and, unlike my customer, we did not have an artist whose work we just purchased to help us. I wouldn’t have minded purchasing art work on my visit, in fact I would have loved to because it would have made the full circle even more complete, but there artists are no longer allowed to sell their work on the porch of the El Tovar because of National Park regulations changed in 2003. In fact it is because of these regulation changes that I had to stop selling my work there. Otherwise I may still be there, not because I wanted to spend the rest of my life selling at the El Tovar but because it is difficult to turn your back on such as financially successful operation.

In any case we needed to find someone to take our photo. I stopped the fist guest coming out of the hotel and asked him if he could oblige us, which he willfully accepted. As he was trying to cope with the controls on my camera, two other guests came out and, saw the photo-op for what it was: ‘ a Ferrari in front of the El Tovar, what a shot!’ and they proceeded to take turns posing in front of the car, nearly pushing us aside. I had to tell them that it was my car because by then the person I had asked to take our photo was ready and did not want to wait. Eventually the crowd cleared, we got out photo, and we continued by ourselves taking turns photographing Natalie and me, alone, in front of the hotel and the car.

5 - Conclusion
Love your dreams. Your success begins in your heart.

Alain Briot,
Arizona