Photobook Review: Kathy Shorr’s “Limousine”

Prediction markets are so 2026.

I read the other day you can now bet on whether certain famous people will utter particular words.

That’s a real thing.

And sports betting is so ingrained in every professional league out there, it’s become a part of the content itself, included within the broadcasts.

(Somewhere, Marshall McLuhan is rolling over in his grave.)

Or what about the World Humanoid Robot Games that happened in China recently? Is there anyone who didn’t see the video of a streakingly fast robot, running into the padded wall after the race, and destroying itself?

Because life is so complicated these days, and overwhelming, it’s easy to lose sight of the pace of change.

Things that were projections of science fiction, when I was growing up, are now happening every day.

If we’re not careful, before we know it, America will exist as it did in Sylvester Stallone’s 1993 Sci-Fi movie “Demolition Man,” and every restaurant will be a Taco Bell.

I didn’t bother with a flowery intro about my return, but it’s true, after nearly four years away, I’ve come back to A Photo Editor.

I’ll spare you how many of my parting predictions about the impending demise of much of the photo industry, written in 2022, have come true.

What’s the point?

We all know it’s a different world out there. But that’s actually the reason I came back.

I love writing. I love thinking about photography, culture and art. And there are far-too-few places on the internet to engage with the kind of articles I wrote for you, weekly, for 11 years.

Rob Haggart, my longtime editor, (who runs this site,) also liked the idea of having me back, so here I am.

Times change, and people need to adapt, or they’ll end up like a broken robot.

Speaking of Taco Bell, I remember going to my Step-grandpa Sam’s grandson’s Bar Mitzvah on Long Island, back in the late 80’s.

I wrote about Grandpa Sam here years ago; he was quite the character. (And according to the New York Times, also a suspected criminal.)

I didn’t know his family, and as I was from New Jersey, Long Island was hostile territory.

There is such a long-standing rivalry between the two coastal, New York City suburban enclaves, I was even texting about it with my friend Sean last night.

(Billy Joel vs Springsteen. Fire Island vs Long Beach Island.)

Anyway, my family rode out to the Bar Mitzvah in a limousine, because one of my father’s law clients owned a business, so we got good deals.

Back then, I rode in limousines from time to time, as it was a thing. A cultural statement where people felt special for a night, like a golden ticket to the Upper Class for an evening.

That night, at a Bar Mitzvah on Long Island, for some reason, my father gave me and my brother permission to take the limo, mid-party, pick up some summer camp friends, and go to Taco Bell.

I’d never eaten there before, and it was pretty tasty. Ironically, I’m sure we could have had steak, had we only stayed and ate our event food.

In retrospect, I can’t believe he gave us the proverbial keys, because it must have pissed off Grandpa Sam something fierce.

(Maybe that was the point?)

I rode in limos ten or twenty times, as a youth, but not since my Senior Prom in 1992.

Do people even use limousines anymore?

Highly doubtful.

80’s Americans could not have conceived of Kalshi, or Polymarket.

Sprinting robots were from the movies then.

(Not today.)

I mention all of this, having just put down Kathy Shorr’s 2024 book, “Limousine,” published by Lazy Dog Press, which she sent me last year.

It’s a time-capsule book, filled with black and white images of Brooklynites, on their way to weddings, christenings, fancy events, and maybe a Bar Mitzvah or two.

The hair, the clothing, it all screams period.

Kathy Shorr made the pictures while she was a paid limo driver, after graduating with a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.

A Bushwick kid, she would have seen Manhattan as another world, and I’m sure she would have been called “Bridge and Tunnel” more times than she could count.

(As a Jersey boy, I was “Bridge and Tunnel” too.)

The idea of people renting a car to feel special, to be driven to a ceremony with panache, might feel dated.

But that’s the best part of a photo book like this. It gives us access to the past in ways nothing else can.

Pure coincidence, but just yesterday, a South Korean friend from graduate school, whom I reconnected with on IG a couple of months ago, sent me 40 pictures from an art opening we had at a gallery I ran out of my apartment in Brooklyn.

(We called it BQE33.)

There is basically no photographic evidence of that era. (2003-4) Everything lived in my memory only, which was spotty. All of a sudden, I now have pictures of who was there. The art on the wall. What we all looked like.

It blew my mind.

And this book, “Limousine,” does something similar.

It reminds us why photography is such an addictive habit that, by the time of widespread iPhone adoption, it basically became the lingua franca of the entire world.

It wouldn’t be one of my reviews if I weren’t at least a little critical, and here, I’d say the two well-written essays at the end of the book, by Chris Lezotte and Jean Dykstra, are a little duplicative.

Given they’re the only text in the book, I feel the pages could have been more creatively utilized.

But that’s just a quibble.

There are no image titles, so all the people featured within, from many of Brooklyn’s infinite cultural groups, remain lost to time.

No matter.

This is a fun book. It’s purely likable.

And I’m so glad Kathy sent it along.

(Thanks, Kathy!)

As for the rest of you, I hope you’re happy to have me back. I know there are not 100,000 people reading this blog a month anymore.

Hell, Rob mostly posts on Instagram, where he has a big audience.

But I’m old school, as you likely know.

An OG.

So I’m thrilled to be back.