what's up?

bigger isn't always necessarily better

my better half bought himself a couple of new gigantor computer screens. Actually just some tv screens, that with a little hacking are now working as computer screens.

yesterday, he decided that i needed bigger screens to work on. nothing wrong with my current screens. threw in a better graphics card he had sitting around as well.

he was being nice. cleaned off the desk i work on, polished the wood desktop, dusted off all the fans and guts of my computer, and spent several hours figuring out why the new screens weren’t working properly with my computer. updated the drivers, wiggled wires, did some research online. needless to say, i was unable to use my computer yesterday evening.

this morning he told me that he had figured it out. he had two screens for me. one is ok, one is better. the better one is incompatible with my graphics card he installed. now he is online looking for a better card for his computer, and then i would get that hand-me down that he knows worked with these monitors.

so currently, i am working with the one big screen that does work, but not at it’s optimal resolution, but at least it isn’t flickering. i’m not as tall as my better half either, so this is probably the maximum size screen i’d use here, as i can’t adjust my chair any higher to find that sweet spot on the screen and not be straining my neck to view it.

the vibrancy and color are more muted on this screen versus my old one as well, so i have to calibrate my eyes for editing on this monitor.

this olds from chicano park is the first one i’ve fiddled with on this screen. what do you think? too dark, too light? sort of think too much shadow on the wheel and on the door. i’d rework it, but i’d rather start another car.

get out from behind

still feel like i've been smacked by a baseball bat in the face, but don't look as much as if i did today. seriously thinking of going to legg lake and seeing what's up. >>update: went to legg lake, scoped out all different lots, both sides of freeway--no good times being had. too tired to drive over to lincoln park, so my weekend is done before it begun. shoulda gone out yesterday. 😞<<

wondering if my arms will work, and let me pull my bag and carry the tripod from one end to the other, and have the energy to make it back to the car. seriously. wtf is wrong with me?

i'm supposed to take a portrait of an exec at work this week, and i'm outta practice on taking any type of picture.

but the sun is soooo bright in my eyes, and it's hard to focus with sun glasses on. at least the weather is perfect.

lately, i've gone uptown about once a day or so, to get lunch or dinner, but mostly to scope out any old cars that may be parked there. if i can't get to a show, i go look for any that may come to me. there are the usual few, belonging to people who work uptown, and then there are always classic cars and harleys that drive through daily. shoot em with my phone, and post on instagram...better than nothing.

saw a poster yesterday for the annual dia de los muertos show uptown. last year was more car show than art show. hoping for the same this year. at least it's down the street and i can go home if i don't feel good.

i've shot this car before. friendly father and son usually go along with it, but didn't see them this day, at the uptown show. it's an unusual car, and i can't recall seeing another one like it, so i always take a shot of it when i see it. such a nice back end.

bee

1950 oldsmobile

i made it out to ruby's for the first time this season, this weekend as well. happened to have friday afternoon off for a change, so waited to see if my better half to get home, to see if he wanted to join me.

dude needs to get his air conditioning fixed in his car. after his hellish drive home, with the trapped heat of the day and warm wind blowing in through the windows, he was in no mood to go back out. completely understandable. i hate friday evening traffic more than anything—well only slightly more than evening traffic any other day of the week.

anyway, it was about as expected, a month into the season. there were cars. just not a lot of what i like to shoot. there were a few of the old regulars, and a few old regulars, that were not there...hopefully, just because they didn't go that evening, but you never know...

i'd heard the first couple shows of the season had been jammed with cars i'd love, but i just couldn't work them into my schedule. now this thin showing i was experiencing was no suprise to me, and it was fine. i'm still kicking the tires on these new camera bodies, making sure they are working well enough.

in the few lanes of cars, were some cars i'd never seen before, so i started with them. this bright yellow olds, is one of those. well, i just don't see too many oldsmobiles, actually, and i don't recall seeing one of this model.

curiousity brought out one of the owners...the lady of the couple, of course...to ask about my photography. she was delightful, and we had a quick chat. told her i'd post a picture, so here you go.

as she walked away, she brushed a bee off the hood. i hadn't noticed it before, but there it is on the hood in the picture. i'd have shot a close up of it, but too late, it was gone.

sick

1936 oldsmobile

ugh. perfect weekend overcast, lots of car shows running today, and here i sit, coughing up a lung. oh well.

better half took his mom out to downtown disney. don't have passes anymore, but it has been a long time for a disney fan to be away, and she wanted to go shopping. probably better to keep her away from me. lol.

i'm hungry, so i'll probably put on a jacket and zombie walk uptown to find something to eat. don't feel like calling dominos or cooking whatever might be in the fridge or pantry.

feels better to sit up rather than lay down, so i'll probably type up notes from my classes or work on some more pictures. take a wild guess what i'll probably do...killing time until game of thrones is on...

this pic has been sitting here for a while, so i'll just post it now, then get back to the whittier car show shots.

chicano park show, barrio logan. should they just call it the pachuco car club show? the last few years, they seem to line up all of their cars down this side of the street. it's their hood. they can.

stalking

i mentioned a car i was looking for in a prior post, that i saw after breakfast, but had to go uptown several times to find it. took a while, went the other way down the street; had to take a few breaks from the heat, but i finally found it.

isn't always the way it is, the thing you want is always in the last place you look, or you find it when you aren't even looking for it at all. here was this olds, parked way up the street, by itself. aside from being a funky purple color, it was the tail lights that caught my eye in the first place.

when we had seen it earlier, all the cameras were packed in the bag, not tripod ready. so we whipped out the newer, smaller cameras and shot some hand-held brackets. i got the shot of the dad and the kid waiting to move out of staging.

the kid seemed really nice and polite. he's just at that age, where he's happy to hang out with his dad all day looking at cars, and still polite to others. i hope he stays that way. i really do.

when i shot it later in the day, a bunch of kids kept getting in the shot, looking inside the car. turns out they were checking out the speedometer. they thought that since it said one-twenty or more, that that is how fast it can go. there was one boy in particular, that was overly enthusiastic about it. then he wanted to push the shutter button on my camera too. uh. no thanks. he was so hyped up, i figured he'd manage to knock the tripod over too.

eighty-eight

there's a number of "interesting" definitions for the term "eighty-eight." i'm not really referring to any of them here; just the innocent model number for this car.

nice, round back-end here. duke's car. always get a hug from the old guy.

pulled it up on an old computer. this is from last year. haven't seen it in a while. wonder if it's still rollin'? guess i'd have to go over to buena park to check it out.

is that a rocket in your...

ooooowwwwww, isn't pretty? i can almost fall into that paint job on the hood. yummy. hope it won something. it's like candy, i can almost taste it.

everything old is new again

i'd never seen one of these before, at least that i can remember. dropped to the ground, it was hard to decide which point of view would be best. i have a front view, that i like, but it doesn't give you a sense of how low it was, so i'll show you this one instead.

wish the three dudes had moved out of my shot, but they persisted in just standing there for more than five minutes, so i just said screw it, and shot away. maybe that was the whole point of staying there anyway. at least they aren't being dorks and making faces.

green with envy

been a busy month, and it don't look like it's going to let up for a while. ain't complaining, except for not being able to get out and shoot fresh images, and less time to play with the ones i have.

isn't this one a beauty? look at that paint job. says in the back window it belongs to the autoholics club. from that night some unrecalled magazine was doing a shoot. wonder if this one made it in? no doubt.