what's up?

easy rider

been busy with work all week, and exhausted by evening. but it’s friday, and my better half is out doing some work. home to myself, so not bothering him with my movies playing in the background, while i sit in the dark in front of a very bright monitor, playing with a picture.

we’re thinking about going out to a show or two tomorrow. maybe flip a coin, as i can’t stay out in the heat too late in the day. or i could just keep fiddling with last week’s pictures. there’s never enough time.

here’s one of the few bikes that showed up last week. at least the only one i bothered to take a picture of.

my favorite point of view is down low, for bikes like this. they just seem more grand. just a typical motorcycle, but lots of chrome to catch the light.

back to it

we decided to get of the house today. try to get happy again, after the terrible stuff earlier in the month.

got up early, and headed out to the southeast classics fundraiser at pico park. i figured it would have enough cars to keep me happy, while i figure out how to use my camera again. better half came with me, he’d never been to a meet up at that park, and he wanted to play with some of his lenses that he’d never really had a chance to test out.

we started around the side of the building, after finding a bench to pull the cameras out of the bags. better half thought we should have left earlier, once he saw the cars already there. official roll-in was at eleven am, but here we were at just past eight.

this was the first car i took shots of. i liked the color. i took some pics of the back end, but didn’t like them so much, with a couple of modern vehicles in the background.

the owner enquired where he might see a picture of his car, as i was waiting for my better half to finish taking pictures, for a change. the sun came out after ten, so i was overheating, as usual, and was ready to go.

overall, it was a good turnout. more cars were showing up as we were leaving, but we were done.

¿donde esta el queso?

el queso esta aquí. on whittier boulevard. well, it was last month.

was here for the fundraiser, late, but better than not at all. was overheating by the time we got to this side of the street, so took a few quick shots.

i do love the back ends of these impalas.

sitting at home like a zombie. been on antibiotics for a couple of weeks for a surprise illness, side effects are drowsiness and stomach issues, and one says stay out of the sun. and haven’t driven in over a week. bland, boring diet for a week, so i’m starving, but haven’t lost any weight, so that sucks.

better half has been the bestest, taking me to appointments, and my mom’s, as necessary.

pretty much hosed any thought of going to chicano park today. big bummer.

sitting here, doing medical paperwork, so might as well post a pic.

too many plates in the air, so i haven’t been going anywhere, or doing anything interesting, if you don’t find medical tests interesting. really hate needles.

maybe i’ll feel better next weekend. i know there’s another fundraiser, and other shows. we shall see.

boy next door

i went to this cars for a cause show near my mom’s house last summer. she specifically wanted me to take a picture of this banged up panel truck.

that’s her neighbor. one of those project car guys. he has a couple of other cars in his garage that are in better shape than this, but he chose to bring this beater to this show.

i’m not sure he recognized me, as he seemed to be staring quizzically at me and my setup. would have preferred the hood closed, and him out of sight. but, he and his wife pulled up and instantly popped the hood and placed the bear on a chair out front.

shoot them as i find them, and if he thinks that’s a good look, well…

finally got around to looking at the cars from this show, since my mom has been bugging me about it, yet again.

in her neighborhood, cars are mostly hot rodded up, and i admire them, but don’t really care for them. they have no soul. they’ve lost their mojo.

best cars at this small event were an old impala and a chevy nomad. i guess i’ll have to decide if i care enough to post those.

at this moment, i’m feeling like chopping my hair off. just out of the shower, and it’s getting to be such a hassle to deal with.

i think it’s the longest i’ve had it, down to my lower back, but just barely. it’s getting really thrashed on the ends, and just makes my head feel hot all the time. constantly tearing up the left side in the seat belt.

i do like being able to tie it up and get it out of my way though, mostly in the house. it is tempting to just shave my head and grow it out again. maybe just to my chin. i’m kinda afraid that my stupid fine hair cut that short will just look like a messy karen cut. that’s not me.

better half does like it as is, so there’s that.

improving

here’s a packard we saw at a fundraiser in los angeles back in march. it rained that day, off and on. still some sprinkles on the fenders of this one. didn’t rain hard enough to scare us away, but did bag the camera a couple of times.

small show, but some lovely cars were there. space was tight, and some cars had a difficult time driving in, or for a few that had to leave early, getting out.

been a while since i looked through recent photos. two weeks since i bonked my head on the pavement. glue still holding my forehead together, but should be disintegrating little by little. still have a few appointments lined up, to be sure everything else checks out, but i am very lucky, it could have been so much worse.

vision is a little blurry, but i have a big monitor, so it’s not so bothersome. my arm is a bit weak, so carrying a camera and tripod around isn’t going to happen for a while. missed out on huffarama yesterday, so bummer.

my daughter has been working at the texas state fair for the past month, doing henna painting. today is the last day. she is so over it, and ready to come home. hopefully she made enough money to make it worth it, but i think the experience was worth it at least once. her birthday is coming up, but she’ll still be on the road with her friend, her dogs, and her tarantula. safe travels and happy birthday, my girl.

shoes

here’s a bright light on a cloudy day. it’s really, really orange. like fire. like fluorescent. it cuts through the gloom. it’s a fuckin’ beacon in the dark. everything is more drab because of it. i loved it.

and then it drizzled on it, and it kept on burning bright.

shoes on the wire above it, though you don’t really notice the dirty, dull white things so small in this shot, the car keeps your eyes’ attention.

rain or shine

i saw a flyer the other day about a fundraiser for yet another person that had passed away. i asked my better half if he was interested in going as we had nothing else going on on a sunday afternoon. he said sure and got his camera ready and picked out his lenses to use for the day.

It had been gloomy and wet most of the week, and there was a chance of showers. the show didn’t start till ten; we left about ten-thirty, heading north to east los angeles.

about the time we hit the 710 freeway, it started to rain. decided to wait it out and get some shopping done at the costco off of firestone boulevard. What a mess that parking lot was, jam-packed with people looking for places to park, the lanes very tight together, and blocked off for construction. I’ve never been to this location, but I got lucky and turned left, finding a spot at the very end of the lane, but not before pissing off an old guy with a handicap hangtag. he was thinking he could make two-hundred and seventy degree turn into that angled space going the wrong way, and with other cars aleady in the aisle sharking for spaces. I could see he was calling me a bitch when his lips moved. i already had three or four cars honking behind me, so i don’t know why he thought that would be a smooth move. i did not realize what a primo spot it was, being so near the entrance, and fully expected him to key the car while we were inside.

by the time we were done, the rain stopped, so we continued on to the car show.

we parked across the street, at a market, and walked over. better half went to the main table to make a donation and give our sympathies for their loss.

clouds looming, we got busy taking pics right at the front entrance of the parking lot. better half was wanting to shoot the same cars, and we kept getting in each other’s shots, so i moved a bit farther down the row.

it wasn’t long before it started to sprinkle. we continued to shoot. it was a tiny lot, just two rows of cars. when it did rain a little harder, we covered or put away our cameras to wait it out, as they aren’t waterproof. it started and stopped several times, not lasting longer than ten minutes. we got wet, but the cameras not so much.

I briefly took a break to watch someone trying to leave, in a old chevy truck. the way they were sardined in there, it was iffy on how he would get out without taking off a fender or two, save for a lot of help from the other guys.

The owner of this car came over to ask if there was someplace he could see a picture of his car, so i handed him my card and took a few more shots as I was leaving just in case the initial shot didn’t come out. nice old deluxe.

i think it was fixing to rain again, so we packed up and headed over to whittier, our old hood, for a late lunch.

what do you say to a cousin, that you haven’t really talked to since you were a kid?

well, i only think about it now, as i heard she’d had cancer. she had rung the bell, that it was in remission only a year ago, but it had come back. she’s done with chemo, there’s no point. she has weeks to months left.

i’m pretty sure i can remember seeing her twice since moving to the west coast in the seventies: once when her family came to visit my mum the following year, going to local amusement parks; and again a few years ago, on a trip through gettysburg, pa, when i traveled to a museum near to where she worked. my bro called several other family members to track down her number—he is a social butterfly, and can search out people from his past and just start talking up a storm, as if no time has passed. we met up with her for lunch. for me, as ever, it was a bit awkward, since i’m quite the opposite. she’s family, but a stranger mostly.

she seemed suspicious why we had contacted her, though my brother just said we were nearby, we’re family, so hello.

she’s closer to my sister’s age, so about all i can remember from my childhood is visiting my aunt’s home, playing the organ piano there, and sneaking to my cousin’s room and looking at her record collection, especially elton john’s album captain fantastic cover. it was so weird at the time. very hieronymus bosch to a kid.

i just don’t know that it would matter after all this time. and she will be just a memory in one of my mom’s photo albums.

fundraiser for big manny

has it already been three weeks? time is flying.

better half had an itch to go play with his new lenses he bought used online. needed to find out if they worked or send’em back. only thing i could think of was a fundraiser that i’d seen a flyer for on instagram.

garden grove isn’t crazy far for us to get to, even though we didn’t leave the house until almost noon. the typical fundraiser has a lot of the memorialized person’s friends and family showing up in their rides, meeting up for food and memories of the dearly beloved.

this particular meet up was at a small neighborhood bar, in a little industrial hood. though i used to have relatives in santa ana/garden grove, i can’t say that i’d ever been in this area. it wasn’t bad, as compared to some neighborhoods i’ve accidently turned into.

the parking lot was small, and there was a post office we parked in, just across the street.

as we drove up, we only saw a few cars. good enough. i always feel a tad odd showing up for some of these fundraisers. i didn’t know the person much, if at all, but i am fairly sure that i’d seen them, their car or club in the past. better half made a donation toward the collection for the funeral expenses, and gave our regards.

i haven’t seen my better half’s shots, and it’s been a while since he had a chance to turn on his computer, and not be working on work work versus fun work. he still has the lenses, so i’m guessing they performed as expected.

instead of just posting one car, i’ll post a few of the handful that were there, and maybe add more if i get a chance. people seemed to have just shown up, which is of course, more important to the family than whether they came to a fundraiser in their classic cars.

mistakes

drove up to a small fundraiser by the vintage ladies last week, memorial for jerry shepard.

added to the donation box, sorry for their loss. could have had the food they were serving in exchange, but we had come for the cars.

better half bought himself a camera online, and wanted to see if it worked. told him about the show, and decided to head up. got there about eleven.

he was having fun shooting cars, trying to avoid getting in my shots, mostly failing, as it was just a small lot, and he was usually on the car next to what i was working on.

in between, he was chatting with folks and handing out my cards, as he hasn’t gotten around to printing up more of his own.

i stopped to wait for my better half to finish shooting the car next to this pontiac—that’s his tripod sticking out behind the kids.

i had a conversation with the owner, seeing that he was taking pictures as well. asked if he’d gotten any good shots. he said something to the effect that he wouldn’t know a good shot if it bit him. i handed him one of my cards, if he was interested in seeing my pictures. then he asked me to take a picture of his kids in front of his car.

i knew this wouldn’t be the best shot of my life.

kids don’t like to pose for strangers, and i’m most strange.
i wasn’t really set up to shoot a portrait.
avoiding my better half’s shot, here i am on the wrong side of the car, shooting into the big fireball in the sky, hence that big ass lens flare on the tire.
did not shoot the same picture with and without the kids in it, to fix any mistakes in exposure.
i should have waited and moved them to the other side of the car, but then they’d be squinting into the sun and have my shadow on them. or just plant them in front of the car, but i’m kinda partial the three-quarter view. and i love pontiac indian hoodies.

it’s an ok picture of a moment in time, of brothers, who seemed already bored to be there, especially the younger two.

like the little dude’s avenger shoes, with iron man on them.

been working ten to twelve hour days this past week. deadlines piling up. it’s not sustainable, but there are others that can help me out. they’ll make it up to me with a day off at some point, but probably not until next month.

so i’m a little bit slow posting pics from last week, or any other week for that matter. patience, grasshopper. never is enough time.

out of touch

hello. just to be dull and repetitive, super busy at work, so nothing too much interesting to write about just now. back behind the orange curtain, leaves nothing but either souped-up hot rods or packards fixed up to showroom perfection. basically, i’m jonesing for the classics.

lots of changes at work, with people leaving, fewer joining. big workload. probably most people dos-si-do-ing to better employment options for a while. working half at the office and half at home sort of does suck, but better than all at the office.

yet, i still see no time to get to any shows for a few weeks. i’ve yet to set up my computer at home still, so there’s that problem. i think i’m just burned out from work, and just can’t.

flipping through some oldies, and found this shot from a show three years ago in montebello, which i missed today. mmm. master deluxes.

benefit show for the christian school, it usually fills the front and back parking lots.

i’d have gotten there when they are still setting up, and the sun barely rising. shoot the cars in the street, then inside the fence as it filled up. outta there by ten, when it would get too hot.

oh, and the pancakes…let’s just say, not my favorite, the one year i ate them.

i also popped or strained my leg at this show once too, so it kinda gives me the heebeejeebees if i think about it. made it hard to walk for a while. probably just pulling the camera bag into or out of my trunk did it. i dunno. the thing is kinda heavy when it’s loaded up.

hoping to get to a ruby’s show, or even the wednesday show in norwalk in the next couple of weeks. promised someone i’d shoot their car, but they didn’t show up last time i was there back in may.

i might have to do jury duty in santa ana, so i’d be halfway there already. i do not miss that afternoon drive…