in the dark for many years. Not
only have they never seen the
light of day but have never made
it to print. Only their creators
may have taken a glance at them
not long after they were devel-
oped in their homemade dark
rooms (like I did) or given to our
own Cycle News lab tech guy
to bring to life. Many great shots
were passed up so a photo of
the winner could be featured in
the newspaper. After all, back
then (and even now, really) it was
about the "news," not the best
photo. As a result, the photo
chosen for publication might not
have even been the best one,
but it was the one of the winner,
and that's what always made it
to the pages of Cycle News.
That awesome photo of the fifth-
or 10th-place guy never had a
chance. Nope, that photo (or
photos) most likely got stuffed
into the dark filing cabinet and
never seen again.
Cycle News relied on black
and white photography in the
day. It was easier and, more im-
portantly, quicker to develop and
cheaper to print than color, so
that's why most of the "classic"
photos you seen in Cycle News
these days are black and white.
In our eyes, black and white
still look just as pretty as color.
There really is something special
and timeless about a really sharp
black and white photo.
Y
ou might have noticed
something a little differ-
ent in this issue of Cycle
News. In our Captured section,
we now have a spread called
"Classic Captured," which we
plan to make a regular thing.
This publication has been
around for a few years, since
1965, to be exact, when it was
called Motorcycle Journal. The
name was changed to Cycle
News not long afterward. Since
then, we've been filling up filing
cabinets upon filing cabinets
with thousands of photos, and
the truth is only a fraction of
those photos ever saw the light
of day, and you can take that
literally, too. They've been kept
P132
CN
III OBSERVATION CHECK
BY KIT PALMER
Classic Classic Classic
CAPTURED
CYCLE NEWS UNPUBLISHED OUTTAKES
HIDDEN CLASSICS
