The Wide Shot celebrates the work of Bay Area photographers, showcasing their latest projects and the behind-the-scenes stories of how they got the shots.

They are loud. They are dangerous. They are illegal. But sideshows also leave behind something beautiful — at least when seen from way on high. 

To photographer Winni Wintermeyer, these cultural events, which have exploded in frequency in the Bay Area since the pandemic, are a way to explore an intriguing question: How do humans transform the space around us?

In his project “Intersect,” which he began in 2020, Wintermeyer catalogues the after-effects of this automotive exhibitionism, the tar left behind on the blacktop after the sideshow has ended. The results are transfixing bird’s-eye-view images that capture the fluidity and abstraction of tire marks, a visual echo left after the revved engines and exhaust fumes have long gone.

Wintermeyer, who is from Germany and has lived in San Francisco since the early ’90s, is best known for his photojournalism in The Guardian, Bloomberg, and Der Speigel.

Here, he presents images from “Intersect” and answers The Standard’s questions about how he put it all together.

“Intersect” began with my long-standing fascination with tire marks on asphalt. Over the years, I’ve probably photographed hundreds of them from ground level. There’s something about these marks that reminds me of abstract paintings or calligraphy brush strokes, accidental art created through movement.

Initially, I thought about shooting it with an extra-tall tripod and light stand, but when drones became more affordable and the still image quality improved, it jump-started the project. I’d always been drawn to bird’s-eye views from tall buildings, hillsides, and planes, and how that perspective reveals graphic patterns not seen from the ground. The drone allowed me to document these ephemeral marks systematically, almost like conducting a visual survey of urban calligraphy.

I started with the intention of documenting the tire marks very clinically—straight top-down shots focused tightly on the marks themselves. But during my first flight, I found myself pulling back the drone further and further, incorporating more of the surrounding environment. This completely transformed the project. What began as documentation of “accidental art” became a study of contrast — how these playful, chaotic lines interact with the rigid structures of urban planning. There’s something almost rebellious about these marks when seen in the context of carefully designed city grids.

One of my favorite images in the series shows an almost perfect circle set against the straight, painted lines of a parking lot.

I’d been on the lookout for something like that, thinking I’d never actually find it. I even told myself, if I ever come across a perfect circle, maybe that’s the moment I’ll wrap up the project. 

And then one day, there it was, an immaculate circle. Everything about the image just clicked. Of course, I didn’t stop the project right then, but it felt like a moment of completion.

Not at all. In fact, I deliberately avoided the known hotspots where sideshows usually take place. Aesthetically, they weren’t that interesting to me, there were just too many overlapping layers obscuring the individual tire marks. There’s one shot from an obvious sideshow that I stumbled upon when I was shooting another intersection close by, and that kind of illustrates that. But I was more drawn to moments where a single driver had left behind a distinct, identifiable pattern. If anything, this series is about finding beauty in the unexpected and mundane, and looking at things from a new perspective.