Why I Started Sepia Motors

There’s a moment that happens whenever someone encounters a vintage car — a pause, a soft smile, a story that suddenly resurfaces. I’ve seen it countless times. A stranger waves me down to tell me about the car their grandfather drove. Someone else recalls summer drives in the backseat of a roadster. Another remembers the first car they ever saved up for.

Vintage cars do something few modern objects can:

they unlock memory, emotion, and storytelling all at once.

Sepia Motors began as my way of reconnecting with those feelings — and with a more analog, intentional version of myself that I felt slipping away as life sped up.

A Return to the Analog

As the world became more digital, fast, and optimized, I noticed something missing in myself. I craved moments where life felt slower, richer, tactile — where the world wasn’t rushing past me, but rather asking me to feel it.

Vintage cars became that anchor.

They don’t hide their purpose.

They don’t apologize for their imperfections.

Every curve, every switch, every piece of chrome was designed with intention — not efficiency, but emotion.

Behind the wheel of a classic car, you’re reminded that beauty doesn’t need to be complicated, and that craftsmanship still matters. I wanted to share that feeling.

Cars Were the Thread That Never Broke

I’ve been around cars for as long as I can remember.

Driving go-karts in the hills of Lake County.

Sleeping in a car as a kid growing up.

Building engines for Subarus and old Japanese cars.

Carving through mountain roads in Japan.

Dating someone who's dad was a Formula Ford driver.

Every chapter of my life had wheels attached to it — not because I planned it, but because cars quietly became my place of comfort, belonging, and creativity.

They connected me to people, to community, to myself.

Starting Sepia Motors wasn’t the beginning of something new — it was the continuation of something that had always been there.

Why Vintage Cars — And Why Photography?

Vintage cars and photography have something in common:

they both freeze emotional moments in time.

When a couple uses one of these cars for their engagement photos, or a bride steps into the MG Roadster on her wedding day, or a photographer frames the Alfa beneath golden light, it creates a story with depth.

Not staged.

Not trendy.

Not manufactured.

But felt.

A classic car becomes a medium — a catalyst — helping people express something intimate and true. It shapes the mood, the memory, the experience. It gives people a way to tell their story with more texture, more nostalgia, more identity.

That’s why vintage cars feel so right in photos.

They carry history.

They invite emotion.

They amplify the moment.

A Business Built on Belonging

Sepia Motors exists because I wanted to share the sense of belonging that these cars have always given me.

To me, a car is never just metal and fuel. It’s a companion. A piece of someone’s past. A doorway into a different era. A reminder that life can be both beautiful and simple.

By bringing these cars into the hands of couples, photographers, planners, and creatives, I’m sharing more than a vehicle — I’m sharing the stories these cars carry, and helping others create stories of their own.

This is why Sepia Motors matters to me:

These cars don’t just drive people — they move them.

And if I can help someone feel a spark of nostalgia, connection, confidence, or joy through a single photoshoot or a single moment behind the wheel, then every bit of this business is worth it.