After months of shooting photographs all over all the country, photographer and rider Sarah Lyon has finished her 2007 Female Mechanics Calendar just in time for the new year.
The 14-Month full color wall calendar features portraits and biographies of real women mechanics working in their environments. The types of mechanics include automobile, diesel, jet airplane, and motorcycle.
Sarah Lyon, a 28-year-old artist, motorcycle rider and mechanic from Louisville, Kentucky, rode her 1978 Yamaha XS750 this summer photographing female mechanics in their shops. Despite battling a rusty fuel tank and a nasty bout of poison oak, the journey took her 6,000 miles from Kentucky to California and back, meeting many of the mechanics through word of mouth. Sarah hopes the calendar will dispel stereotypes of the typical tool-girl, pin-up calendar by showing there are women working in the field of mechanics.
“As a motorcycle mechanic I didnt mind working in environments with only men, but I often was treated as an anomaly during my initial experiences in the workplace and often throughout the duration of the job,” says Sarah. “I wanted to know how other women dealt with the variety of pressures in these situations.”
Sarahs unique idea was born out of her desire to meet other women mechanics. “I was curious to find other women like myself (as well as having a passion for travel, adventure, riding, and a further understanding of my own motorcycle), and desiring to challenge stereotypes of what women can and cant do led to my idea of the calendar.”
The calendar is $20 and available online at SarahLyon.comSarah can be contacted at studio@sarahlyon.com, phone 502.558.3230.