i want to ride my...

harley davidson

so, i've been busy doing stuff i'm not allowed to talk about, so i won't talk about it. i've been away from my computer and/or too tired to turn the damn thing on all week.

saw this bike at the viejitos show. one of the few i saw that morning before i bailed. only one i shot.

liked the paint and pinstripes. not a girly girl, so i won't call it pink; more of a mauvey marooney color.

now i think i'll work on another picture until it gets late, which is going to happen quickly...time flies when i'm having fun...then gotta get some sleep.

florence

motorcycle

made it out to mooneyes open house today, relatively early. sun didn't come out from the overcast for a couple of hours, but it did feel humid. way fewer people in the way at this show if you get there early.

its a popular show, but there really isn't anywhere for people with cars to park. they jam into the lot of the hamburger joint on the corner. there were other business lots that were taped off, that weren't last year. the lot of a flooring showroom on the other side of the intersection was taped off, but cars were parking in there—one of the other photographers i talked to figured they must know the owner. that, or they said they would make him an offer he couldn't refuse.

other cars parked along the side of the street, or in what other parking lots where businesses seemed to be closed. some parked on the street, but didn't pay attention to the no parking signs, so cops had to find the owners to move them. only option for anyone else was to keep cruising up and down the street until a spot opened up, or they got bored and left.

we started shooting at the burger joint, walked down past mooneyes, then back to the burger joint. same bunch of cars there, so we crossed the street to shoot a blue truck i'd seen passing by, and also found a few others parked in that lot with him.

then, crossed at the light with another photographer with a huge lens, who seemed interested in shooting video rather than pictures, at least that's what my better half said.

found this bike in the lot with the flooring store. tavertine. carpeting. tile. didn't need any of that today, but they appeared to be open for business. now if they had been selling some water, i'd have bought that.

took a couple of shots of this bike, then went to shoot a purple truck. while waiting for some people to move out of the shot, the owner of the bike came over to ask where he might see a picture. gave him a card. here it is. wish the goober on the left wasn't just standing there gawking. i think he followed me around for a little while. haven't looked at a lot of the other pictures closely, but i wouldn't be suprised to find him hovering around in them too.

found a shady spot nearby, that actually had a nice, cool breeze blowing through, where we took a break before heading down this side of the street and back to the car. better half insisted that i take a swig of his drink.

he likes diet snapple, which i do not like, and which was not cold, but it was wet. he'd rather i choke that down than have a heat stroke. he also said, "39jimbo wasn't there to give me a cold one." i argued that there was a case of water in the car, but he argued that i wouldn't make it back to the car, so...gagged down half a bottle of the stuff. warm rasberry. i'd give it a warm rasberry.

imperials show tomorrow. and dam, it's after ten, so i better get to bed.

victory

victory motorcycle

motorcycle from the blessing of the bombs show. don't remember seeing a victory before, or at least shooting one. usually all harley, all the time. nice for a change. nothing fancy about this one, except i liked how it was sitting, and the clouds in the sky.

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fourth of july. day off. went to a movie this morning. playing with pictures now. next, there's some bananas that need to be made into bread.

i even made dinner last night. seems if i've got to much time around the house, i start getting domesticized again. i hate cooking, but when i have a craving, i go with it. my better half and his mother aren't complaining about it either. except for the chocolate chip cookies i made on friday; they're made with real sugar, not that fake stuff, and they both are trying to stay away from it. same with my kid and my parents—at least they try not to indulge. so hell, i'm slowly working my way through them myself. going to try pushing them on the neighbors. i certainly don't need them all.

after the bread is in the oven, i guess the whining about going to work tomorrow will begin.

no plans for this evening. i've seen enough fireworks for a lifetime. i'll just stay home, and see if there are any here. >:)

better leather

harley davidson heritage softail

ahem. let's get to last week's whirlwind through the whittier uptown carshow. i've got several to prepare for those few people who asked me to post pictures of their cars.

as i mentioned before, i only had six hours out there, and i still didn't get around to everything. had to get to the train station, and i've been gone most of the week.

it seemed mostly organized this year, though i don't remember checking what time they started rolling the cars in from staging. i was busy, going from flower to flower to flower...i mean car to car to car, trying to shoot as many as i could in my short amount of time.

was out there at five-thirtyish a.m. where were you?

found this motorcycle down in the rick's parking lot, the owner nearby keeping an eye on his bike. he offered to move it, nah, i'd find it later for other shots. this is how i found it, so leave it be.

there was so much detail on this bike, that it seems to be less about the harley itself—which is pretty nice, shiny and pinstriped—and more about the leather.

everything decorated in an aztec theme, with the usual characters and patterns you'd expect. skillfully done and fitted, i asked the owner about it. 

he said he'd save himself a buttload (he didn't exactly use that word, my edit) of cash by taking it down to mexico himself versus paying a guy here, to basically do the same thing.

he had to point out that there was a little felix the cat medal/figure on the side. probably thought i'd appreciate that since i was wearing my felix the cat chevrolet shirt. if he hadn't mentioned it, i wouldn't have noticed it, it was low, on the side next to the wall, and there was so much other detail to look at.

anyway, really nice work here.

l-e-d, you and me

harley davidson heritage softail

haven't decided if these lights on bikes add or subtract from the overall look of the bike. this one is already blinged out with etched chrome and airbrushing.

i shot it earlier, just after we arrived. the owners moved out of the shot then. i like those shots, with the clouds in the sky, from a low angle.

i found it again, just before i packed up my gear, in the evening, sun setting, sky colors changing. mostly it was the sky i wanted. i guess the red glow is ok. 

i guess the owner was too tired by then to move his chair this time, as well as there being other bikes in the same space. also, there were more people crowded around to look at the bikes this late, making it more difficult to find a good angle to shoot my longer exposures, and not get them smearing through the shots.

green reaper

harley davidson road king

found my better half chatting with some guys from the timeless classics club in the lot between the buildings, an overflow parking lot. the real show lot only had one hundred spaces available, so i'm pretty sure this area was meant for actual customers for the nearby businesses. i think the majority of the customer parking areas quickly became overflow parking for the show, and any of the paid, reserved show spaces were quickly forgotten after the tape went down.

i shot the immaculate impala my better half was standing in front of; i'd shot it previously at the majestic's new year's show at the dam. the car looks fine, but my better half and the dudes he is chatting with are too close to the front of it. i'll have to think about if i want to waste time cloning them out, or just leaving them in.

anyway, right behind that car, this bike pulls in and parks next to the wall. i'd seen it cruise by the main lot earlier. wondered if he was going to park, or just pass through. a car had just abandoned the space before he got there, so there was a big gap between the bike and the cars in front and behind. perfect for a picture, and there really weren't a lot of people in that area, only traffic to contend with.

as i set my tripod down, and started to frame up a shot, the owner offered to turn the lights on for me. awesome. thanks, i think it looked better with them on. kinda kicking myself that i didn't shoot the details of the airbrushing on the fenders and tank. flaming skulls are always fun. and love the rearview mirrors held by skeletal arms and hands.

now if the headlights had been on, and it was a wee bit darker, that could have really been cool.

i think i made a car wait while i finished my shots of this one, my ass hanging out in the drive lane, but i think it was worth his aggravation.

day off?

it has become increasingly clear, that i can't take a day off without working enough overtime to equal two or three regular days. and still, today, i've logged in, and worked on one job. over the weekend, i will have to go to the office, probably, to rework another job before monday. that one deals with a giant spreadsheet, that i'd rather work on at my desk, with two screens. i have two screens at home, but the remote connection won't let me use a second one. so stupid.

monday will start another week from hell. we'll be down one designer, since it's spring break for his kid. then the following week, the other designer will take off for three plus weeks, for her annual trip to the other side of the world.

going to rain this weekend. sucks, since sunday is the swap meet at pomona. camera is waterproof, but not the lenses, so blows that idea out of the water.

spring is getting closer, so more shows are being added to my dance card. looking forward to it. please let me know if there's anything interesting not already on my list to the right. send me an email. or hand a flyer to my better half—that works too.

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motorcycle from the little show at the vfw. sometimes i just shoot them. a different challenge, to get a decent angle, without chopping the handlebars out of the picture.

chopper

motorcycle

when i was a kid, there was a cartoon on after school, with a bunch of talking motorcycles. i was kinda stupid, but i watched it anyway. sort of was like the fat albert show, but with cycles. the sterotyical personalities of the group were predictable, so i'd have to say this one would be the cool guy.

saw the owner drive up and park, at the front of the show, near the datsun squad that we were busy passing by, so i took a few shots, just because it was different than the usual harleys. also because a crowd hadn't gathered around it.

dude didn't stay too long, i watched him drive away.

light it up

went out to the dam today. probably a bit earlier then needed to — probably there about five-thirty am. parked further away then we've had to before. someone said they wouldn't even open the gate until six-thirty. so, as usual, we got out and took advantage of the cars and bikes just sitting there in the dark.

better half had me shoot using different settings than i usually use, just because it was so dark. i don't think it would have mattered, since there weren't many people around cars i did shoot. not so sure i like them as much. a lot of detail is lost in the dark, but i guess in past years, when i went to evening shows, the results were negligably better.

posting this one, because the owner came over to chat, and because he casually walked over and flicked the lights on for me. pretty cool lighting, contrasting the yellowing street light.

i know i saw the bike cruise by later in the day, but it was far less interesting, and way more a typical harley that i wouldn't have shot otherwise.

i've got more pictures to post for a few people, and more to say, but i'm dead tired now, so i think i'll call it a night.

damn pop ups

i really hate pop up tent things. i know they are used for shade, but couldn't they just move them off to the edges of a show? they do kind of ruin a decent shot. as an added bonus, the people go to the sidelines with the tent.

maybe i should just make peace with them, and start just incorporating owners into the shots.

i think the other side would have been the better one of this bike, the way it was sitting, but i couldn't get back there without invading pop up space, and the sun was hitting this side. shoot them as i find them...

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been a little busy lately, with my son's upcoming wedding. out of town a lot, so my posts have been a bit inconsistent. if i haven't got something to say when i have a picture ready, i have at least been posting them over on instagram...most people don't want to read about the trivialities of my life and my warped sense of humor that unwinds from my mind to this digital diarrhea anyway. maybe it's time to stop paying for a blog and just post pictures for free there, or just on flickr.

i know my better half reads this, and sometimes it's easier to write about things than to just tell him. i get tougue twisted and i'm often hard to understand when i do talk. fun game for him to repeat back what he thought he heard me say. must be because i didn't have many girl friends growing up or being the type of girl that was a non-stop chatterbox. whatever. i'm perfectly happy with my own company...

an aside, to said better half..."i am lobo marunga. i hunt alone..." i'll be home later, gotta go to this party first.