end of days?

1947 chevrolet stylemaster

to listen to celebrities, you would think the world ends today--inauguration day. it's just another day. overpaid self-important idiots. just shut up already. drown your sorrows, go buy another ferrarri or something.

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rainy friday. haven't been home since tuesday. maybe later, after traffic dies down. 

meanwhile, here's a chevy that's been waiting in the wings a few weeks. an interesting color combo. don't recall the owner being around, so no story or drama to share. just a pretty picture. 

thanks

1951 chevy deluxe

owner of this car came over to say hi. inquired as to whether i had any interest and/or experience in shooting a car calendar. said he had seven cars and was interested in having a calendar done for his business.

i'm perfectly capable of laying out a calendar, was thinking about doing one anyway, but i suppose i didn't give him an affirmative, confident answer, so he went away. sounded like he wanted something more in-studio, and i don't do that.

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thanksgiving. happy. everyone. no turkey here, just some ham. not even a formal dinner, which is nice for a change, and a lot less stressful.

i'm sure my mom went all out for my sister and her friend. leftovers for days, if that's your thing.

i stayed in whittier this year. i offered to make dinner, but better half said he was just going to order food like he does most years. it's just easier, and it was.

missed the stupid crap my dad says, his annual critques of my mom's turkey and the sides. as if he were a food expert, followed by my mom apologizing for everything not being better.

my better half and his mom went over there once for thanksgiving, and got to witness their annual parlay. my dad saying it was bit dry, my mom apologizing for the food dishes, meanwhile, both of them stuffing their faces and wondering what my parents were talking about...the food was delicious.

missed my sister and her friend and their chit chat. he always brings a bottle of wine, which i'll sometimes taste, just to reaffirm my belief that it tastes like piss, and i haven't been swayed otherwise yet. i see her twice a year probably...thanksgiving and xmas dinner, though they live not far, near the beach.

both brothers are with their families out on the east coast. missed my younger brother's stories most of all. he is so funny when he's on a roll, telling tales from his government job. he really should write a book or do stand up. he gets into the character and acts out the situations, which are many times so ridculous, they're hard to believe they're true. but they are.

hoping to see them both in april, when i travel for business.

got out of the house only to go for a walk, but it was late, and we only went as far as the movie theatre and back.

supposed to rain saturday and sunday. prime car show days, and kind of will ruin our plans. on the other hand, we can go to plan b, which will be pretty fun too. >:)

time is fleeting

mmmm. i'm feeling like seeing a nice, sleek fleetline. i blame danny and several of his fleetliners club buddies. i had gone up to whittier yesterday, and they drove past me on greenleaf. my better half said a bunch of other old cars had been elsewhere in town earlier, mentioning in particular this mercury. where you all going??? sometimes i wish you'd put down some sort of bread trail i could follow...

and of course, later on, walking on the same street from the theatre, passed the tribe guy in his chevy, looking for prime parking in front of the cigar bar.

intended to stop by the latin gents show yesterday, but was too overheated and lazy to get out of the house once we got back from the movie. saw monsters university, btw. not bad, even for an adult to enjoy. guessing the artists at pixar grew up with tex avery and looney tunes, like i did.

as i was saying, here's a fleetline. shockingly without one of the pharaohs members walking into the shot. they'd just driven in, and were setting up their tent and getting stuff out of their cars, so there are random people in several of the shots i took of their cars. some i was just too exasperated and was already getting too warm, that i didn't bother to take them. i'll see them again, somewhere else. hopefully not on hot asphalt.

more whine

danny's car again. he really wants a three-quarter view of it. i've only seen it twice, and both times, not an optimal spot. i shot it before, but he wanted to see more of it. this one echos the other danny's car, both in color tweakedness and in lens flare. it's supposed to be a deep red wine color. must be the light and the shade on this side, again messing up the color. i like it anyway. guess i just like flares and starbursts.

i have a decent one from the other side, and it's the right color, but there's a group of dudes on one side and a single dude on the other in it that just bug me, and it's not quite showing this much of the car. throws the picture out of balance or something, and i can't crop them out without losing some of the car either. i think that is the point where i could revert to desaturating, darkening, blurring, stripping out the background, or a hundred other things to remove the annoying items. i don't have the time or desire to do that much work.

i need to get something done tonight for delivery tomorrow, so i'm just putting this one up because it's ready to go.

the other danny

i know i shoot cars as i find them, but sometimes i have my doubts, especially when someone asks me to shoot their car. i know what they are expecting to see vs what makes me happy. i like this shot, again with the lens flares. but i think this danny (the owner) would have preferred a shot from the other side, pretty plain vanilla.

this is the second time i've taken pics of his car, and both times, i knew they wouldn't be what he is probably looking for. parking in the shade to keep the car and himself cool—good for him, but not for a clean shot of the car, with more accurate color.

this car is a dark blue, but shooting into the sun is effing with the color. from the other side on this, and a couple of shots of other cars in this club, the colors are more vibrant, mostly due to the time of the day and angle of the sun.

but they're also clustered around their club tent, or jammed next to each other, so aside from the shadows off the tent, the people in the tent end up in the shot too. from the other side, you'd see a little gangsta doll off the front bumper and the tent legs, as well as the empty chair that one of the guys jumped out of when he realized i was taking the picture. but the color would have been nice and deep blue if the tent hadn't been there.

my better half says i should ask them to move the car to get a better shot. but then they'd lose their spot, wouldn't they? you wouldn't ask a tiger to hold still in the jungle while you take a shot, so why should i bother to have them move it? if i wanted to control it that much, i'd open a studio and be a master of the universe.

i might be making a lot of assumptions, based on a few past experiences with car owners. forgot that i was just taking them for fun, and tried to let them tell me how to do the shot. basic tenet: don't let someone else art direct my hobby.

since i shoot mostly to make myself happy, i post the shots that i like, and if, by chance, danny likes a different point of view of his car, well then, he's found one.

there i go again, i've rambled on, with my thoughts not quite in order and too tired to rewrite it correctly. what would my professor think of that?

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.

sunny side up

this belongs to the president of the viejitos club. he seemed like a nice guy, welcomed me right away, but that's what you'd expect from the host of the party. he asked if i'd taken a shot of his car, "the brown convertible up at the front." at the time, no, i'd just arrived, but i did go back up to the entrance and take a couple of shots.

i can't recall that i've seen another convertible like this one. i haven't decided if i would have rather shot it with the top down, or just as i found it.