I’D GROWN UP in Albuquerque seeing lowriders my whole life, but mostly in passing. One Sunday in 2017, I took my camera to Seventh Street and Central Avenue. I wanted to photograph scenes I’d only ever caught out of the corner of my eye. I started making pictures.

Then I ran into Steven “Sparky” Gomez. With a vintage trailer he’d turned into a hot dog truck, he was one of those people who held the scene together. When I gave him a print I’d made of him a few weeks later, the exchange changed everything. It wasn’t a strategy. I was just trying to show appreciation—to say, “I see you.”

The lowrider community gave me a sense of belonging. It’s tight—family centered. Kids and elders are everywhere. People greet each other like relatives. Lowriding is a cultural expression built on pride, creativity, and community, tied to Chicano heritage, craftsmanship, and storytelling. The cars are rolling works of art, but they’re also family history: A pinstripe’s clean line, a father teaching his kid how to hit the switches. 

Seventh and Central really was the spot. The intersection would fill up with cars, people, and music, and stay that way late into the evening. People posted up in clusters, catching up, laughing, checking out rides. Sundays felt magical.

And then, like everything real, it changed. The community has always gathered, but the spots move. A corner that’s packed one year can be quiet the next. The scene adapts. The culture keeps going, because it’s not about one intersection. It’s about people.

A sharply dressed man wearing a suit, vest, and matching hat stands outdoors in South San Jose Park, showing expressive eyes and visible tattoos.

JESUS MORALEZ, SOUTH SAN JOSE PARK

I met Jesus Moralez at a memorial gathering in South San Jose Park for a member of the lowrider community. He caught my eye immediately, sharply dressed in a suit, vest, and matching hat. Beyond the clothes, I was drawn to his eyes and his tattoos. He was visiting from El Paso, and that was the only time I ever saw him. Sometimes a photograph is the beginning of a friendship; sometimes it remains a single moment held in time.

Two Taking Over Car Club members brace the rear of a lowrider as another man operates the switches, causing the car to hop during a crowded Duke Day event.

DUKE DAY HOP

Taking Over Car Club members Fernando Ortega and Jerry Chavez hold down a car’s rear as Issac Lerma hits the switches. In August 2021, it was only the second time I had photographed a hopper. Duke Day was held in a small parking lot off West Central, and by evening it was packed so tightly with people and cars that it was hard to move. As the sun dropped, the Taking Over crew brought out their hopper and the whole place came alive. In the years since, I have been present for many more moments like this.

A man drives his 1959 Chevrolet El Camino at the front of the Día de los Muertos Parade in Old Town, surrounded by parade activity.

GEORGE BUSTAMANTE, OLD TOWN

George Bustamante cruises his 1959 Chevrolet El Camino at the head of the Día de los Muertos Parade in Old Town, November 2024. Almost every weekend, he brings the car down from Villanueva to Albuquerque to cruise Central and spend time with friends. His place at the front of the parade came about by chance. The week before, he was out cruising and visiting friends when someone from the parade organization spotted his custom El Camino and asked if he would lead the following week’s procession.

A nighttime scene where a lowrider hopper is being operated, framed by dim streetlights.

LATE NIGHT HOP, EIGHTH STREET

“Fern’s bringing out a hopper,” fellow photographer Jessica Roybal said when she called. It was late, but I drove downtown and parked in front of a closed hotel. After what felt like forever, a tow truck rolled in with one of Fernando Ortega’s hoppers strapped to the bed. Fern, president of the Taking Over Car Club, got to work. That night, he and lowrider painter Joseph “Blast” Leyba hopped their cars for the love of the game. No competition. No crowds. Just the sound of hydraulics and the quiet glory of lowriding on a cool summer night.

A group of men with their dogs stands in front of a lowrider, with an arm holding a phone entering the corner of the frame, capturing a spontaneous moment at Duke Day.

ANNUAL DUKE DAY, WEST CENTRAL

A group of men and their dogs stood in front of a lowrider, lined up as if they had arranged themselves for the picture. Just as I knelt to make it, someone reached over my shoulder to pass a phone. I have always liked the way the frame came together, with that arm entering the corner of the photograph and reminding me how quickly these moments take shape and disappear. Duke Day began in 2020 as a small gathering and has since grown into a community tradition, bringing together lowriders, music, food, style, and a spirit of inclusion that feels deeply rooted in New Mexico.

Members of the Razaunida Bike Club display custom lowrider bicycles during a community event, surrounded by people and lowrider cars.

LOWRIDER BIKE CLUB

I cannot remember now whether it was a grand opening or some other kind of celebration at a local business, but such events often bring lowriders out. The cars show up, people gather, and suddenly the whole thing feels bigger, louder, and more alive. That day, Joseph Shaw and the Razaunida Bike Club rolled in to watch a performance, and I made this photograph. The bike club is tied closely to the Razaunida Car Club, where many of the kids have grown up around the tradition. The bikes give them a way to take part in the culture with their own rolling works of art. It does not begin with the bike, either. Before that come tricked-out pedal cars with toddlers riding low, and even earlier, customized antique strollers. 

A portrait of Mabel Chavez in a lowrider, dressed in stylish clothing and looking confidently into the camera.

MABEL CHAVEZ

This was the first time I met and photographed Mabel Chavez, in August 2021. Since then, I have made a picture of her nearly every time our paths cross. Mabel always arrives with unmistakable style. She has the kind of presence you do not forget.

A father, Matthew Pete “Goof” Cordova, holds his six‑day‑old daughter Ava during a nighttime cruise on Fourth Street in Barelas.

MATTHEW PETE “GOOF” CORDOVA AND AVA

Matthew Pete “Goof” Cordova holds his newborn daughter, Ava, on Fourth Street in Barelas during a nighttime cruise. Goof is a local tattoo artist. Ava was six days old. Since that day in July 2022, I’ve photographed her whenever I see them. Watching kids grow up inside the culture and getting to make some of the first photographs of a father and daughter is one of my quiet joys.

A family sits in front of a memorial display featuring candles and a lowrider belonging to Sparky during a gathering at Seventh and Central.

SPARKY’S MEMORIAL CRUISE

Sparky was one of the first people I met in the lowrider community, about five years before this day in May 2021. He welcomed me with my camera and even let me photograph the tattoos on his head. This memorial was held at Seventh Street and Central Avenue, in front of Firestone Tires. As people gathered, a family I did not know sat down in front of Sparky’s lowrider, getting ready to take a photo beside the candles his loved ones had set out. Like Sparky and like Firestone, this corner is no longer the lowrider sanctuary it was. But the culture carries on to the next spot.

Sonny steps out of his Oldsmobile into a crowded street full of lowriders during Sparky’s Memorial Cruise, with traffic briefly stopped.

SONNY, SPARKY’S MEMORIAL CRUISE

At Sparky’s Memorial Cruise, the street was so crowded with lowriders that traffic came to a stop. I saw Sonny open the door of his Oldsmobile, and I ran down the street with my camera, catching him just before traffic started moving again. About a year later, I was scrolling Facebook when I came across the video he had been filming at that exact moment. In it, you can see me rush into the frame, make the picture, and disappear again. I loved finding that small piece of the scene from the other side. 

A gold Chevrolet Impala cruises through downtown Albuquerque in warm evening light, the paint glowing as it catches the sun.

DOWNTOWN ALBUQUERQUE

What I remember most is the light. I was downtown trying out a new 50mm lens when this gold Chevrolet Impala came cruising through. For a few brief moments, the evening light was especially good, and the gold paint caught it perfectly. There was nothing complicated about it.   

A red Chevrolet Impala drives past the El Camino Motor Hotel sign along Fourth Street in Los Ranchos on a warm September evening.

EL CAMINO MOTOR HOTEL, LOS RANCHOS

A few times a year, the lowrider community comes out to cruise Fourth Street in Los Ranchos. In September 2023, it was that time of year when the weather was still warm enough to ride comfortably with the top down, though plenty of people cruise that way even in winter. I was walking back to my car when I turned around and saw this red Chevy Impala pass by. That was the picture.

A portrait of Unique Lovato sitting inside her father’s Impala, looking toward the photographer, capturing her connection to generations of lowrider culture.

UNIQUE LOVATO

Unique Lovato comes from generations of lowrider royalty. Her grandfather Leroy Joe Sanchez was an old-school pachuco who owned a Lincoln Continental and a Cadillac Eldorado. I first met Unique when I came across a lot full of lowriders, pulled over, and started walking through. I passed by Unique sitting in her father’s Impala, then turned around and asked for a portrait. I have come to know much of her family, photographed her first child, attended baby showers, and ridden in the back of her parents’ lowrider. That is part of what makes photography so rewarding to me.

An older dog named Duke sits quietly on a towel among a lively lowrider gathering at Seventh and Central during a warm summer evening.

SEVENTH AND CENTRAL ON A WARM LATE SUMMER NIGHT

That night in August 2022 still carried the day’s heat. At sundown, Seventh and Central had become what it so often became on a Sunday, and the whole scene held that particular mix of ceremony and ease that defines the spot at its best. Duke sat quietly on a towel, steady and patient, taking it all in. One of the calmest dogs out there, he often cruised in the back of a Monte Carlo lowrider like he belonged nowhere else. On this night, he needed a little extra padding. He was old and sick, but he was still there, part of the ritual, among his people. Not long after I made this frame, Duke passed away. He is missed deeply by the family and community who loved him.  

Black and white image of a lowrider car performing a high tilt with one wheel lifted.

 


Find Seventh and Central by Nathaniel Tetsuro Paolinelli (University of New Mexico Press) at nmmag.us/seventh-central.