Chasing Route 66 Kitsch in Williams, Arizona
My wife and parents joined me on a 45 minute trip from my hometown of Flagstaff to Williams, Arizona in the middle of the day, which is about the worst possible time to photograph anything - but a great time to have a late lunch. Harsh overhead light, hard shadows under every awning, no golden hour magic to hide behind. If you know landscape photography you know midday sun is usually a reason to leave the camera and grab lunch instead. But Williams isn't really a landscape town. It's a Route 66 town, and Route 66 towns are built for a different kind of shooting.
I had my Fuji X100VI with me, and it turned out to be exactly the right camera for the job. There's something about that camera's whole look and feel, the rangefinder-style body, the retro dials, the built-in film simulations, that just matches the subject matter. Photographing 1950s gas pumps and hand-painted signs with a camera that looks like it’s from the same decade felt right.
The Kitsch Is the Point
Williams leans hard into its Route 66 identity, and most of downtown is exactly what you'd expect: souvenir shops selling shot glasses and refrigerator magnets, neon signs advertising motels that may or may not still be renting rooms, and a steady stream of tourists posing next to anything with "Historic Route 66" painted on it. None of that is a knock. It's genuinely fun to photograph, even in flat midday light, because the color and the signage do most of the work for you.
I spent a good amount of time walking the main strip photographing storefronts and signs. A lot of it is forgettable, more of the same souvenir-shop clutter you'll find in every Route 66 town between Chicago and Santa Monica. But a few spots are worth the trip on their own.
The Real Finds
Pete's Route 66 Gas Station Museum is the standout. It's a restored 1949 station with the old glass-topped Mobil and Shell pumps still standing out front, along with a vintage car usually parked next to them. Even at noon with the sun straight overhead, the pumps have enough character and color that they photograph well. I'd love to come back for this one at golden hour. The warm light on that white, orange, and blue paint job would be worth the drive on its own.
The other thing that caught my eye was the collection of old hand-painted business signs scattered through downtown, the kind with chipped paint and decades of sun-fade that you can't fake with a filter. Places like Cruiser's Route 66 Cafe and the steer sign outside Rod's Steak House have that genuine, weathered look that separates the real Route 66 history from the gift shop version of it.
Shooting Notes
A few notes if you're planning your own trip:
Go at golden hour if you can. I couldn't this time, but the neon signs downtown come alive at dusk and the harsh shadows that plagued my midday shots disappear.
A compact camera helps. Downtown Williams is a few walkable blocks. The X100VI's small size meant I could move fast between shops without lugging a full kit.
Look past the obvious souvenir shops. The best photos aren't the big neon "Route 66" arches everyone already has on their phone. They're the smaller details, an old gas pump, a rusted sign, a hand-lettered menu board.
Black and white can save a midday shot. When the light is too contrasty to work with in color, I leaned on Fuji's film simulations to convert a few frames to black and white, which handled the harsh shadows better than color did.
