Professor Todorov's Photo Capturing Unsettling California Scene Wins NatGeo Photo Contest

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE -- Jassen Todorov photographed the cars from an airplane. The resulting image, titled Unreal, won him the grand prize in the 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest. Todorov is an American concert violinist, flight instructor and professor of Music at San Francisco State University.

Todorov depicts the profound disorder lurking beneath the ordered surface of his image. The cars were dropped in the Mojave after Volkswagen recalled a half-million vehicles it manufactured between 2009 and 2015. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the cars were designed to cheat mandatory emissions tests.