Difference Maker Anthony Schmidt

On this episode of A World of Difference, you’ll meet our latest Difference Maker, a teenage car buff and photographer whose loving portraits of classic rides turn the saying seeing is believing on its head. It’s not unusual for a teenage boy to have a full-throttle love affair with cars. So, in that respect, Anthony Schmidt is ordinary. It’s only when you look at his photographs of vintage automobiles that ordinary shifts into a higher gear. Using his iPhone, Anthony composes photographs of model cars that appear life-size and realistic. Apple CEO Tim Cook even took notice in a tweet of Anthony’s deft skill employing a photo magic trick called forced-perspective photography that Anthony taught himself when he was six years old. That was just a year before Anthony was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder — and just a few short years before he published his first book of his work, “Small Cars, Big Inspiration.” You heard right: I said first book. Anthony’s second collection, “Shifting Perspectives,” also is drawing raves. As is his family for choosing to be transparent about his learning difference rather than stashing his neurodivergence in the trunk.