All images ©Michael Itkoff
Apologies to Michael Itkoff for taking way too long in putting up these images he kindly sent me. They are from his brilliant series called Wrecked. Here is his introduction to the project:
"The Bad Boys, Derby Boys, and All Banged Up are demolition derby teams from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. During the summer months members of the group work on junked cars with the intention of entering them into competition.
Derbys consist of one or more 'heats' where cars or trucks ram into each other until only one is able to move. An ambulance and fire truck is always on hand to evacuate injured participants and control any fires that may break out.
The demolition derby combines the love of cars with the love of destruction. This tradition may become threatened by dwindling oil supplies, but in the mean time, the sound of revving engines and crunching metal will continue to emanate from rural America."
Born 1981 in Philadelphia, Michael Itkoff is a photographer and a Founding Editor of Daylight Magazine. Itkoff has been a recipient of the Howard Chapnick Grant for the Advancement of Photojournalism (2006), a Creative Artists Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Arts Council (2007), and a Puffin Foundation Grant (2008). Itkoff's monograph, Street Portraits, will be published in January 2009 by Charta Books. He earned a BA in Photography from Sarah Lawrence College and will earn an MFA from the ICP-Bard program in 2010
