no pressure or nothin’

chopped mercury

a while back i mentioned that they asked me at work, if i would be able to consult or maybe even shoot portraits of management types at the office. and then it never happened. next big event, they hired the outside guy to shoot it. fine by me; didn't want to deal with that many big cheeses from all over the states, in one setting, much less one after another. that would be dealing with a lot of people and my little introverted circuits would be overloaded pretty quickly. and i shoot cars, not people.

well, i guess the usual guy that shoots quick and dirty stuff is out of the office this week. says he has an ulcer. that didn't take long; he's only been there a year or two. j/k. sucks.

so the public relations girl asks if i might be able to take a picture of someone who is visiting the office tomorrow, if i could bring in my camera...not sure where the company camera is, but most likely its a canon or nikon, and i'd be pretty dumb using it, not knowing my way around either one. her existing picture is fuzzy/blurry. i have a kick-ass hundred millimeter macro, so i think i can do better.

i've had to go back and review all the class notes and the book i studied on doing portraits, and did a crash sitting with my better half being my test subject. i think it'll be ok. only thing to worry about really is that the room they'll have me shoot in has windows on two sides and an obnoxious orange wall on the other. hoping they know where the green screen might be hiding.

i could take her outside, in natural light. just pretend she's a car, and aim for her headlights, i mean her eyes, not her hooters.

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speaking of green, this car was pretty bright. i wonder if i could use it to strip in other backgrounds, like the memes have been doing with the queen elizabeth birthday pictures and that bright green suit she was wearing.

i thought the shot straight from the camera was pretty clean, so i only kicked the pixels a little bit.

father and son

1951 mercury and 1950 ford

1951 mercury

putting up a few shots of these two cars, since the kid asked. well, he asked my better half, and then i got the email.

i like the idea of the nose to nose shot, but i'm not so sure my wide angle lens does them justice. just couldn't get up high enough. maybe next time i should climb on top of another car or truck.

not sure if these are works in progress or if this is it. better half said the headlights are really meant for motorcycles is what i think they told him. whatever they are, the headlights on the black one had small red lights around them and they made the grille glow red.

black one belongs to the dad, the other to the kid. nice to share the same interest, and to pass your knowledge on to the next generation.

long way to go

1940 mercury

i've seen this car before. probably at chicano park.

i was chatting with a car owner when i spied this car drive by at the end of the lane. he off-handedly mentioned that the merc owner had driven up to city of industry from san diego. that'd be about a three hour drive on a good day. but on a friday, it must have been hellish.

gave me more hope that this frisco's show was worth the effort to get here. having the previous show shut down before it had barely got off the ground, definitely was a good sign.

but what if this guy drove all the way the eff up here, just to have to leave?

i guess it was a gamble he was willing to make. i did not hear that the authorities shut it down after we left, so he lucked out.

i bet he has plenty of friends to hang out with as a back up anyway. nice car, no problem meeting people, i suppose.

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rained a bit today. predictions put it at eighty percent chance of rain all day saturday and sunday, so i guess my weekend outings are off. shows may be on, rain or shine, but my lenses don't like rain that much. maybe i'll actually pack up my camera that crapped out on me last summer, and send it in for repair. does me no good as a paperweight.

choppy waters

i've heard that to help keep your heart healthy, you should do ten thousand steps a day.

the internet says that adds up to about five miles. who the heck has time to walk or run five miles a day? says the girl chained to a computer ten plus hours a day...

i don't have a phone or an app to track steps, but i'm pretty sure i'd be lucky to do that many in a typical week. i think the only time i can is when i'm on vacation, when we have all day to casually walk as far as there are things to do and see. but alas, i'm not on vacation everyday.

today was sunday. i had some time. i walked about three miles. went the other way, from a where i'd take a typical walk, out and about in whittier.

sadly, i didn't see one old car. saw a guy on a harley, who waved to me. maybe i've seen his bike around, but he went by too fast to know for sure.

purposely headed back home down a particular street, hoping to see an old fleetline that used to sit in the same place, on the same road, all the time. i wanted to finally get a picture of it, since i was going to walk past it, but it was gone.

saw a porcelin throne, sitting randomly in the middle of an alley, and a sign in a window that said, "prepare to meet thy god." what the hell kind of message is that? would it be some kind of indiana jones dart blowing fun run, if i had chosen to take that alley path? freestyle target practice? strange way to express your religion, or maybe my mind just ran off on a tangent, and lost the message completely.

saw a few cars from crazy life car club, but didn't shoot them. maybe the one that was parked sitting there, on its highest hydraulics setting would have made a decent picture, but nah. didn't.

not sure when i'll take another long walk. still pretty warm out. i'll wait for the cold. or the rain. or even better, a big car show.

and cars like this one. all the way down at the end of uptown--that walk must have done my heart good, right?

baggage

i've been busy all day. walked uptown for an hour or so at lunch...shopping for a graduation gift. really difficult when you don't know what someone likes or needs, or what is appropriate for the occasion. me, i like toys—monsters, aliens, weird stuff. don't think that would work for this girl.

still need to pack my bag for the trip. haven't decided when to leave. so i've been sitting here playing with my pictures. was trying to find a specific car, a black bel air. looked through the last few years of pictures. i think i have it, but no doubt i've labeled it wrong. probably on a hard drive i don't have here, a backup drive at a different location. oh well. this merc will have to do.

chopped and differently stylized flames than i usually see on cars. it was sitting at the edge of the park, stopping traffic. even got a crazy guy from a passing bus to get out before his real stop, to come over and make loud exclamations. i think the general thinking was that he might have been on something, but maybe he's just overly enthusiastic.

kudos to the pinstriper/airbrusher. somebody named vandemon, at least that's how they signed the back end.

and check out al the louvres. that looks difficult to do, without effing it up. also had hubcaps with cadillac emblems on it, and a desoto grille. guy sitting next to it, who seemed to know the owner, said just because they were cool.

full history

started my day by dropping my pictures off at the oc fairgrounds. fourth year in a row...will it be a fourth honorable mention? seem to be collecting those. it will make me laugh if i do. eh, good enough they will be on the wall.

then a quick run through the swap meet, and out to my condo to grab the mail, without disturbing my kid and his dog there. didn't feel like walking the dog.

randomly, it started to sprinkle. explains the humidity. almost felt like when i was a kid back east, just before the rain comes. almost, but not quite.

back home now. afternoon moving files on my computer, to make room for more. i can fill up a eight terabyte drive like nobody's business. they say all hard drives fail eventually, which means someday, everything i've ever shot will disappear at some point. sad thought. buy a print.

better half just now pointed out six or seven bad ass old chevys driving by the house. can't remember the club, but i've seen them all before. maybe i should take a walk up to the cigar bar with my camera...

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saw this mercury at the chicano park show. i think the simple blackness of the car balances out the busy and colorful mural behind it. i get that it's a historical mural, but do they have to jam the whole history into a freeway overpass?

kinda reminds me of the doodles my sister used to fill notebooks and her bedroom wall with. just not so bright.

peep show

happy easter or passover or whatever.

now pretend like that didn't happen and look at this:

i had already packed up my camera, and was just watching my better half shoot this car. testing out a new camera and lens, he was just having fun. i was standing in the shade, so whatevs.

then a '39 master deluxe drove by, and asked my better half if it was too late. he said of course not, and went off to follow that car to a parking space.

so damn. i stood around for about five minutes, saying i won't, i won't, i won't [on the inside]. it was hot, i was hungry, and just done.

then i lost the inner argument, and got my camera back out. might as well, i'm just standing there waiting.

super shiny and perfect. almost wanted to kick it, like stomping on the feet of a kid with the brand new white shoes.

then, of course, i had to go shoot that '39 too. i'm not stupid.

deuces wild

this guy needs attention. i can't imagine you'd do this much to a car if you didn't want to be noticed. pinstripes, airbrush, striking color combo, tweaky bullet lights on the back, red tinted windows, airbrushed seats...ya, it's different. a little overkill. but i did take a picture of it.

actually, i liked the car to the right more, but the doors and trunk were open, and that guy kept talking to the owner about the indian artifacts he was displaying in the trunk. so, while he wasn't ruining this shot, he prevented me from taking a shot of that car.

also just noticing the dude smiling for the camera off to the left there. that makes me laugh.

same car, different place

ya, i thought i'd seen this one before. and it is a nice car. probably would have kept on going, but it does pick up the sun so nicely with the lightest dusting of glitter or sparkle in the flames. plus the owner busted me taking a picture of it and jokingly asked what i was doing. said he expected a snapshot of it. 

well, i don't give those out for free, but i'll show him the shot of it, since he said hello.

found it this time at silverado days in buena park. didn't expect it to be as busy as it was, but there were about a hundred cars, including a few of my favorite clubs, so it was all good. and a carnival to boot, in the shadow of knott's berry farm, was a bonus.

too bad so many cars had the hoods up...

leadrag

i've seen this one many times. i thought i'd posted it at some point, but i'm not finding it right now. well, i know i have other shots, but not very satisfying ones.

this is the first time i've seen it with the top up. i suppose because it's next to those trees, those lovely, drippy, sappy trees. and the birds.

i'm not saying it's my favorite car, but i do just like the challenge of trying to get a good shot of cars i see far too often. usually solved by a change in location. like this one; they killed off the fuddrucker's show in el toro...all that construction had pushed it too far from the main drag, and no one knew it was there. here it is at chik-fil-a, where you are separated from the main street by a few feet of concrete, dirt, trees and flowers.