Mini Cooper Photo Project

The Mini Cooper Photo Project started after I increasingly noticed the pint sized cars in my neighborhood. At first I considered that I just thought I saw a lot of them. But then I started photographing them. Each day I would look them over thinking for sure that I must have reached the end of the supply, only to find that actually I had found more.

Even I was surprised at how many Minis there are in Jersey City. Maybe its the increasing price of fuel, or the increasing gentrification, but I have reached over two dozen automobiles already. I've ensured each car in the Flickr Set is unique by matching license plate numbers.

The Minis are a great subject for this sort of photo collecting project. The models are varied enough that so far nearly every unique car is also been unique looking car. The minis have three style roofs-- black, white, or the color of the car. There are also convertible models. The cars also can have racing stripes and other specialty markings. But all the models look like Mini Coopers.

More importantly though, the Mini Cooper has a kitsch factor most other cars don't. The cars have a unique look that distinguishes them. A Honda Civic or Toyota Yaris, or any of a dozen other tiny cars just don't have the same allure. The Smart Car would, but sales just started in January, and I've only seen two in all of Jersey City.

I've been snapping the cars with the camera on my first generation iPhone. Using the camera phone is ideal because I always have the phone with me whether I'm walking the dogs or just running out to the dry cleaners. Also, I can email the photos directly from the phone to my Flickr account, and then later add them to the Flickr Set of Mini Coopers. All the cars in the collection are in downtown Jersey City.