Max BMW’s Steve Willard Has Photo Show in Woodbury

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com

Steve Willard was vacationing in Maine last summer with his wife, Chris Brouillet. They’d spent the night in Freeport and he was out taking a morning walk when he noticed three women dressed in blue jeans and wearing shirts that resembled the U.S. flag. They were standing on a sidewalk and were also holding flags. “Of course, you’ve got to take a picture of that,” he said.  So he did, and later learned that the ladies gather every Tuesday morning, regardless of the weather, to honor the victims of 9/11. They also turn out at airports when service personnel from Maine return from deployment.

(Photo by Steve Willard)

“It affected me. Not all at once, but it did,” said Willard. “I was moved and continue to be moved by these women. The kernel of an idea began to grow.” That idea was to compile a collection of photos that show off Old Glory. A U.S. Army veteran, Willard has a love of country and an appreciation for our flag. That appreciation will be evident during July at the Woodbury Public Library, which will host a month-long, one-man show of Willard’s flag photographs.

“You’ll see flags juxtaposed with other things,” said Willard, who estimated that as many as 23 pictures will be displayed. He was still assembling the show when RIDE-CT visited him at his Woodbury home. Most of the shots were taken locally, many on his way to and from his job as a parts advisor at Max BMW in Brookfield. “A surprising number are within 20 minutes of here,” he said, noting that in taking all the flag shots “it became clear to me that flags have many different meanings.”

For Willard, photography has been a “fluctuating constant” in his life, a passion equal to his love of motorcycles, although he got his first camera long before his first motorcycle. “The first camera I ever took a picture with was a Leica,” he said, recalling that it was a pre-World War II model that his father introduced him to when he was seven or eight years old. “He taught me about shutter speeds and f-stops. I was introduced to it pretty early.”

His love of photography landed him on the yearbook staff in high school in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he co-editor his senior year, and eventually to freelancing for a local weekly newspaper. His goal as a teenager was to become a high-dollar fashion photographer or a photojournalist, and he even studied photography at Sam Houston State University before dropping out after two years. “I never did either one of those things. I chickened out and went in the army instead,” he said.

(Photo by Steve Willard)

It was when he was in the army in 1970 that he bought his first bike. It was a Honda 350 Scrambler. He replaced it with a Triumph T100R Daytona, which he rode until it was stolen when was transferred from Maryland to Texas. “I showed up in Texas late in the afternoon,” he said, recalling that he was tired from driving and wanted to sleep. He chained the trailer containing the bike to a lamppost and went to bed. The next morning “the trailer was there, the bike was gone.” His next ride was a BMW R75/5.

After getting out of the service, Willard lived in Atlanta. That’s where he met his wife and where he had is only accident while riding – on a Vespa. Brouillet was working as a teller at a drive-in bank. “She agreed to go out with me even though she knew my bank balance,” he said.

The Vespa got replaced by a 1965 BMW R69S. “It was cheap. It needed a lot of attention. It didn’t need a lot of get it back on the road. I rode it from Atlanta to Chicago and back,” Willard recalled. The R69S has since become a collectible, selling for upwards of $20,000. “It kills me to see what they’re going for now,” he said.

Over the years, Willard said he’s had “a number of occupations.” In Atlanta, he was a partner in a chain of stores that sold hiking and backpacking equipment. He’s also done woodworking. He’s also had many motorcycles. His current bike is a 2001 BMW R1150GS, which has loads of carrying capacity for his camera equipment.

All he’ll need on Saturday, though, is a pen to sign prints of his flag photographs at a pre-Fourth of July show opening reception that’s planned for 1 to 5 p.m. at the library. It’s free and the public is welcome. “Flags are a reminder. They’re a symbol of where we live and what we have,” said Willard. “No place is perfect, but this place is pretty damn good.”