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living daylights

fleetmaster

saw this car with the lights still on, past sunrise, and the light coming up quickly, but the parking lot lights were still on. the sky was overcast, so i guess that fooled the sensors in the lamps.

wished it was a bit darker, a little more foggier, more atmospheric. would have got that warm spray of light intersecting with the wisps of fog.

better half says i have the power to make it so...i know photoshop. only, it wasn't like that when i saw it. i could darken the picture, kick the shit out of the pixels, add some fake smoke, but nah. if was going through the trouble of all that, i might as well be the guy masking out the car and having it fly through space, with george jetson giggling like a school girl behind the wheel. and a trail of stars flying out the tail pipes.

i like it just the way i found it, thank you very much.

wings and a prayer

1959 chevrolet impala

came across this impala in the midst of things. i just love the back of these cars, and usually don't pass up the opportunity to take a shot.

usually, i pull in close, up and under those fins. i did that with this one too, but just didn't get an angle i liked. this picture, pulled back a bit, still showed the curves that i want, and gives it a sense of it's place in the world, the variety of makes and years represented at the show.

is it my eyes, or does it still look a little dark? maybe it's my monitor.

pinks

1962 chevrolet impala

looking at my project for work. i don't want to do it, but i really should. will just hurt less on monday, if i get it out of the way today.


i could still make it to the car show. get my better half to drop me off. think we're going to walk uptown for bfast now, so maybe later...


impala from the new year's show at the dam. sparkly. caught my eye. one of the few low riders i shot that day. just love the details these guys add to the cars—really remarkable artistry. i think maybe this one is right on the cusp of doing too much of a good thing.

sick of being sick

1940 chevy sport coupe

so right on queue, following a week long road trip vacation, comes the annual week long cold/flu thing. usually follows being stuck in the confines of an airplane next to patient zero, but this year my better half blames it on me out on the ferry in san francisco bay without a coat and wearing flip flops too late in the evening. pfft.

i blame it on the coworker calmly telling others about the cold that's run through her family, and she was still fighting it off, but was valiently slugging through a day at the office a few days before our trip. her, or any one of the thousands of people in the city that happen to sneeze or cough or hoick in your vicinity. but no, i don't think getting chilled for a couple of hours will do it to you alone.

whatever. thusly, with said illness, i am banished from the house, in the effort to prevent the mother-in-law from catching any respiratory bug, which at her age, may not be in her best interest, which also separates me from my computer and my blog. my kid is in my house, and i'm not going to get mr. law student sick. just spent my vacation fund, so not going to a hotel. end up at my parents house for almost a week. i think i heard my dad sneezing a couple of days ago, but mostly he's just a couch potato, asleep in front of the tv.

decided i was well enough to go to the office on friday. was about forty minutes from shutting down and heading over to ruby's last show of the season, when the boss asked if i could tweak a file and get it uploaded to a vendor before i left. spent over two hours trying to ftp the fricking thing, and it was the ftp at the other side that kept crashing. file too big to use dropbox.

ended up simplifying the file and sending it in parts, only to have the last piece get stuck. sent an email to the boss, who later responded that i hadn't been expected to stay, and the guy at the other end had left the office for the day. pissed that the traffic was too effed up to tackle and get to the show in time, headed back over to my mom's for another night. glad i'd kept a couple of extra sets of things to wear over there just in case. at least when the company moved their headquarters, it's only a five minute drive on the freeway to my mom's house.

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enough blathering. sick of it now. here's a car from the show in san diego i mentioned before. they block off about five blocks right near horton plaza in downtown sd. my better half didn't really see anything he wanted to shoot, and ended up being my bag boy the whole time, pulling my gear around, but i suspect mostly just checked out my ass when he thought i wasn't looking. he also made sure i was properly slathered in suntan lotion and that i didn't forget to drink water.

really expected a lot more there than there was. i mean, i've been to shows in rialto, riverside, whittier,... with blocks closed off and they get cars out the ying yang. this one mostly had blocks segregated, by decade or type. most crowded block was full of ferraris and lamborghinis...freakin teenie peenie club members. maybe i'll post a shot of those. nah. seen one, you seen them all. just imagine the show room in all reds and yellows and whites, and that was what was on the street.

then there were muscle cars <yawn>, too many with their hoods up, so buh bye. too few chevys and low riders. really didn't take so many pictures as i'd have hoped to. guess we'll have to make a point to go the show in chicano park next spring, to find the kind of cars we like.

i was only going to shoot the hood ornament on this one, when the owner walked over and asked if i'd vote for his car. they had awards for the different categories, but also a people's choice, so he was being proactive. i shot the car while he convinced my better half to also sign for it. it was a nice car, and i liked shooting a car in a different setting, so there you go.

green machine

1950 chevy truck

went down the street to la habra high school's fundraiser car show on saturday. no idea what would be there, but didn't think i could deal with a bigger show on a hot day. ya, it was too hot, and not really any shade unless you chatted with owners under their pop-up tents.

there was maybe thirty to forty cars there for the show, anything from a porsche 911 to old chevys and seventies low riders. several car clubs had cars there.

one of the guys i'd met from the fleetliners came over and asked if i remembered him—met him down at a show in fullerton, and also in santa ana last christmas. told me how his daughter had found the picture i'd shot of his car on the net, and who was kinda pissed because she wasn't able to download it. oops. sorry about that.

there were several cars from the dukes club, including this wonderful truck. it stood out, for its color, for its size, for its perfection. me standing out there with my tripod, led to one of the guys coming over to ask if i was with a magazine or something. when i said nope, his response was along the lines of "darnit," only maybe a little more colorfully.

i have a few more pictures from this show that i'll put out there, but not as many as i would have liked, because, like i said it was hot. why don't you do more shows in the winter? it doesn't rain so much here, and clouds in pictures and reflected on paint are awesome anyway.

after i did a quick run through the aisles, and a stop at the food stand for a coke, i went over and sat in the shade. i packed up the cameras, knowing as soon as i did so, something nice would drive in. yes, while i sat there, another very nice black and white chevy truck drove in, but i was done with the show, and let it go.

i keep on truckin'

1953 chevrolet truck

for someone that isn't that interested in trucks, here i am posting yet another. apparently, i like the '51 to '53s. but they're chevys, and they're curvy and chromed out, so that's probably what it is. and hey, it's got a hood ornament. :)

shit did i just use a smiley? not me at all. my better half is coming home tomorrow from boston...he's the bright, sparkly one; i'm just the dark, twisted one. he should be doing the smileys. i suppose i'll get back to normal soon. :) ahhhhhhhh!!!!!

el canas

1951 chevrolet thriftmaster truck

went to ruby's first show of the season last night. pretty good turnout—about five rows of cars with some cars up the aisles.

ran into the owner of this truck fairly early after i arrived. have joked around with him for about a year now, but hadn't seen him in a few months, since i hadn't been going to many shows. he asked me a couple of times if i'd taken a picture of his truck. not at the time, no, but i did get a few shots later, including this one. sun starting its way down, and this is from the darker side.

he asked for another one of my cards...lost the other, enjoys reading my blog...i think he's just collecting the whole set. each one has a different car on the back. lol. nah, he probably just keeps losing them.

met one of my flickr friends for the first time...hi there steve! he got some good shots too. go see a few of them here.

anyway, not sure what to do this weekend. big airshow in chino. big car show in riverside. definitely have to go to my son's baseball games. my big bro and family is in town from florida. better half is working all weekend. i think since it's getting late, i'll hit the car show before tonight's game, then do a few hours at the airshow in the morning before the afternoon game.

now if i stop at the train station in riverside, i'll call it a planes, trains, and automobiles weekend. :)

fleetmaster

1948 chevrolet fleetmaster

well, my weekend hasn't worked out as i planned. spent saturday with my car in for routine maintenance, ended up getting it home for a little over $900. ugh. definitely not doing xmas this year. then, since i wasn't home to work on my pictures, i didn't work on the cars i wanted to post here.

so there's just this one, and then i have to go sit through a church choir thing my mom is part of, my xmas present for her. my better half enjoys these things, xmas carols and such, and it makes my mom happy that some family will go and see her do her thing.

for several years, i endured the show playing solitare on my phone, then last year i unfortunately picked seats up front, unknowingly sitting next to the pastor or reverend or whatever he was. oh, i had to behave. it entertained my better half, his mother and mine that i had to be ever so good, not playing games, or making any comments. i'm heading for the loft this time.

this chevy (starting to max out on chevys right here now) belongs to the fleetliner club. danny asked me to shoot their cars, and i have a few more to post when i have time.

nice attitude, babe

chevy truck

i think i saw this one at ruby's last time i was there. here it sits in the parking lot of old world. kinda cool with the wall•e engine thing and weird finish paint job.

my favorite parts, though are the unused hood lock painted to give you the bird – F.U. too; and the metal rooster on the dashboard. wait for it, wait for it...no, i'm not going there, i'll be good for a change, and not say something about how big (or small) it might be. love the pinstriping on the door too.

i think the owner was sitting opposite the car, and would occasionally make the hydraulics squeak a bit. thanks for not bouncing it while i was taking my shots.

return of dragon master

1936 chevrolet

i've done this one before. almost the same angle, and same parking spot. but the owner is a friendly sort of guy, and came right over to mention that his baby was freshly cleaned and polished, and that nasty chair in the former post was not parked up front (though he forgot about that one at the back).

that's him in the reflection of the fender with me, and the owner of said nasty chair as well (wearing the hat). lol. nasty chair owner always likes to tell me how i should shoot a car — i'm not quite clear on whether he was a photographer of some sort in a past life.

he (mr. nasty chair) wanted me to shoot from the other side, which i did, but i liked the background stuff (a light pole impaling the car and traffic lights) less than from this side. of course, his car was on that side, and is reflected in the door of this car. kept saying he painted it the color of his girlfriend's fingernail polish. great, but here it's just an obnoxious hot pink reflection.

the owner of this car told the other guy to pipe down and let me do it my way, which is what i always do anyway.