Give Up A Little Love For The Old Girl.
Prowler Roadster inviting suitors, American Classics Car Show, NHRA Museum, Pomona, California 21-Oct-2012.
Click on image for high resolution or to purchase.
Black Vette #26
American Classics Car Show, NHRA Museum, Pomona, California 21-Oct-2012
Purchase a fine art print here.
Black Vette #23
American Classics Car Show, NHRA Museum, Pomona, California 21-Oct-2012
Purchase a fine art print here.
A Pair Of Coupes
American Classics Car Show, NHRA Museum, Pomona, California 21-Oct-2012
Purchase a fine art print here.
Red Coupe #5
American Classics Car Show, NHRA Museum, Pomona, California 21-Oct-2012
Purchase a fine art print here.
Orange Duo
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 40mm ISO 125 1/80 f/16 Lr4; PsCS6
A treat for orange lovers at the Pasadena Police Department Classic Car Show, June 17, 2012.
To view in high resolution or to purchase this or similar prints please click here: http://goo.gl/DDUfc
Reminds Me Of Chocolate Milk
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 32mm ISO 125 1/60 f/16 Lr4; PsCS6
It must be the color scheme of this 1940 Chevrolet pickup truck, the cream and brown tones make me think of chocolate milk, and I can see in my mind milk crates with old glass bottles of chocolate milk stacked in the bed of the truck. This beautiful machine was captured at the Pasadena Police 2012 classic car show in Pasadena, California on June 17, 2012. This year’s Pasadena Police show was a bit of a disappointment, though, not as many cars as last year, and fewer, in my opinion, distinctive vehicles. I also thought last year’s venue on Colorado Boulevard was a better showcase in front of Paseo Pasadena rather than this year’s venue on Green Street, behind Paseo Pasadena.
Prints available here: goo.gl/iPFsg
Classic Car #125
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 75mm ISO 320 1/320 f/11 Lr4; PsCS6
Captured at the 2012 San Marino Motor Classic, Lacy Park, San Marino, California.
Prints available at: http://goo.gl/DMbZP
T-Bird Cockpit
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 32mm ISO 400 1/160 f/16 Lr4; PsCS6
This passionate purple Ford Thunderbird was on display at the Corvettes West/Ronald McDonald House car show on April 1, 2012 in Rancho Cucamonga, California.
Prints are available here: http://goo.gl/dV7Q7
Still In Love After All These Years
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 28mm ISO 250 3-bkts f/16 Lr4; HEP1
A Stingray (C2) on display at the North San Diego County Corvette Club’s “Plastic Fantastic” show, May 6, 2012, North Embarcadero Park.
Prints available here: http://goo.gl/qMOt2
Cadillac Dream; Improving Past Performance
Nikon D7000 19-24mm @ 18mm ISO 800 1/1250 f/20 Lr4; PsCS6
One of the most important attributes of Adobe Lightroom is the fact that it is not an image editor, but an image data base application. Unlike tasks you perform in Adobe Photoshop, which permanently alter files, tasks you perform in Lightroom that are related to editing your image are non-destructive, you are not altering your image, you are simply attaching a series of descriptive attributes to the image file. No matter what you have done to an image file in Lightroom, you can always return it to its original, raw file state. This means that Lightroom allows you to travel back in time, and “re-do” any image in the catalog.
This has proven very useful to me as my skill levels have improved over time and my self-critical eye has become more discerning. The original rendering I made of this image last year used the HDR process, and that processing resulted in a muddy image with no additional dynamic range other than the range of tones that are present in this rendering. The other outcome of my original HDR rendering produced an incorrect color tone on the body of the Cadillac. Today’s image was processed in a straight-forward manner, with minimal adjustment to overall exposure, highlight and shadow detail. Minor boosts in contrast and clarity of the car and a boost in brightness of the chrome and white walls were brushed in. A virtual copy was made of the entire image and that second image had clarity reduced and was darkened. The two images were then composited together in Photoshop, producing the bright, sharp foreground image of the car with a subdued background. I am very happy with the final body color, which to my recollection matches the actual body paint color of the car in life. Suffice it to say, I am now moving in a steady direction away from HDR processing of my automotive images.
Prints are available at: http://goo.gl/tC10m .
Two Tone Rod #83
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 32mm ISO 200 1/320 f/9 Lr4; PsCS6
Some more of the eye candy on display at the Chino Fire Foundation Car & Bike show, May 19, 2012 at The Shoppes in Chino Hills, California.
Prints available here: http://goo.gl/EUV3G
Orange Blossom Special
Nikon D7000 18-200omm @ 29mm ISO 200 1/200 f/10 Lr4; PsCS6
Part of the eye candy on display at the Chino Fire Foundation Car & Bike show, May 19, 2012 at The Shoppes in Chino Hills, California.
Modified Yellow Pick-up
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 34mm ISO 200 1/400 f/9 Lr4; PsCS6
You wouldn’t want to be driving this during a rainy day, but for a typical sunny southern California day this would be perfect for carting things around in. Captured at the Chino Valley Fire Foundation Car & Bike show, May 19, 2012, Chino Hills, California.
Peacock Syndrome
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 24mm ISO 320 3-bkts f/16 Lr4; HEP1
One of the many Corvettes on display at San Diego’s Embarcadero Park North at the North County Corvette Club of San Diego’s “Plastic Fantastic” show, May 6, 2012.
Binky Blue
Spring Car Show Season
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 38mm ISO 200 1/250, 1/60, 1/15 f/22 Lr4, HEP1; PsCS5
The scene is adjacent to the Red Robin in Chino, California where Binky Blue (2005 Corvette C6) and his proud owner took a lunch break after almost a full eight hours of display at Binky Blue’s first car show, the Corvettes West/Ronald McDonald House car show in Rancho Cucamonga, California, April 1, 2012. If you would like to see Binky Blue up close and personal he plans to be participating at the Chino Valley Fire Foundation Car & Bike Show, Saturday, May 19, 2012 at The Shoppes in Chino Hills, California.
Roaring 20′s Excursion
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @ 24mm ISO 1600 3-bkts f/8 Lr3; HEP1
A typical baggage cart loaded with hand luggage and mail bags is on display at the San Bernardino Railroad & History Museum. The era represented could be the Roaring 20′s, the advertising card is for a rail excursion in 1923 from Venice, California to the 13th National Orange show in San Bernardino. The excursion was operated by the Pacific Electric Railway Company, which during its heyday had electric trolleys, popularly termed “red cars” criss crossing the greater Los Angeles area. The excursion from the beach at Venice inland to San Bernardino would have been roughly 100 miles if travelling by automobile, Pacific Electric offered a special excursion fare on Washington’s Birthday, February 18, 1928 for $3.25, round trip, via their electric trolleys
Pacific Electric’s operations began declining after the second world war, and most of the rail lines were eliminated throughout the 1950′s. The scandale that arose in the 1960′s was that it was widely thought that oil company and automotive manufacturing interests were responsible for the decision to replace the interurban rail transit system with freeways, cars and buses.
Ironically, local government and transportation authorities began championing interurban rail transit again in the 1980′s and the first Metro Blue Line rail transit (subway) line began operations in 1990 and later the Red, Green and Gold Lines were added, as was the Metrolink heavy rail system linking more distant exurbs. All of this work completed or still under construction in 2012, at considerable more cost to the taxpayers and environmental impact than would have accrued if the Pacific Electric Railway would never have been abandoned.
Please click on the image to view in high resolution.
“I don’t like it when you ignore me”
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 34mm ISO 200 3-bkts f/20 Lr3, HEP1, TpzSim; PsCS5
Another image from the Chino American Legion Car Show this past November. This coupe was parked next to the “Weekend Warrior” and impossible to overlook.
Please click on the image to see it in high resolution or to purchase a print.
Weekend Warrior
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 28mm ISO 200 3-bkts f/20 Lr3, HEP1, TpzSim; PsCS5
This vintage GMC pick-up was on display at the Chino American Legion car show in Chino, California this past November. The owner had spotted me capturing images and asked if I was a pro, I handed him a business card, and told him yes, I do a lot of cars. He got excited and asked if I could take some shots of his truck, he really wanted to get a large print to display in his garage, I agreed and he subsequently repositioned the truck a few times while I was photographing it so I could get the best angles and I spent about 20 minutes shooting just his truck.
Normally in these car shows I am capturing images on spec, so there is no real pressure to deliver product. In this case the guy was so excited and seemed so hungry for images of his truck that the next couple of days I knocked myself out post processing his truck’s images. I put a variety of images in various interpretations up in my gallery for the guy to choose from. I had under-promised when the images would be ready and actually put them in the gallery much sooner than promised. So that was more than a month ago, and I have never heard from the guy. That is just how the chips fall I suppose, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
If you would like to see the other images of his truck and the other vehicles at the car show, please click here.
A Boy’s Passion Is Born
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @ 19mm ISO 800 3-bkts f/16 Lr3, HEP1; PsCS5
For a change of pace we are back to automotive images in the blog this week. This image was captured at the Pasadena Police Department Classic Car Show in June of this year. One of the issues that impacts the images that I capture at these events is the fact that all the cars are so close to each other, it can be a challenge when you are trying to capture an image of one specific car. I like to let the viewers of my images appreciate one car at a time. In quite a few cases I resort to employing post processing techniques, and then the likes of Topaz Simplify and Photoshop, among others, come in to play.
Another element that can be distracting in these scenes is the people usually “loitering” around the vehicles. Sometimes I try and wait them out to get an unobstructed view, sometimes I find that if I am patient, the people may position themselves where they can become a part of the narrative of the image. This was one of those times.
To view in high resolution or purchase a print, please click on the image.
Silver Ghost
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @ 17mm ISO 800 3-bkts f/16 Lr3, HEP1; PsCS5
Another classic Chevrolet at the Pasadena Police Department Classic Car Show, June 19, 2011. A reminder of how inspirational art objects of the past can be for artists of the present.
Hard Charger
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @ 15mm ISO 800 3-bkts f/16 Lr3, HEP1,ASSA3; PsCS5
Whether the car or its owner, you get the idea that once they start driving forward, they will not be slowing or stopping until they have reached their objective. A Dodge Charger (circa 1968) on display at the Pasadena Police Department Classic Car Show, June 19, 2011, Pasadena, California.
Chevy Front Quarter
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @ 24mm ISO 800 1/320 f/16 Lr3
This image is for my friend Sheila Creighton who is a photographer and an automotive lover, Sheila blogs at Imagery of Light. This classic piece of automotive art was on display at the Pasadena Police Department Classic Car Show, June 17, 2011 and was parked on Colorado Boulevard where the Rose Parade takes place every New Years Day.
