esprit de l'escalier

“there is no recalling what’s gone and past; so that afterwit comes too late, when the mischief is done.” — l’estrange

i think the french translation refers to the afterthought; the zinger that you should have said at the time, but your brain was too slow to come up with something. i suffer from this half the time. but its that other half that my better half waits for.

oh, the thoughts that went through my mind when i saw this puppy drive up. i'll leave you to imagine.

i took this shot back in september, so i can't quite remember if it was this one, or maybe a panterra that had advertising on the rear window, offering the car up for rent, in case of a mid-life crisis or some other malady. well, you know, what happens in vegas...

hisss and hisss

couple of cobras in henderson, nv. i haven't seen a lot of these around here, but there were three of them on this day. yeesh, i pounded the pixels the previous one. i like this one better.

i suppose i won't make it to this show again until next september, which is unfortunate. seemed to be a lot of interesting cars, and they said that was not even a quarter of what normally shows up...it was kinda rainy that day. at least it wasn't a typical sweltering day in vegas baby.

and there were a few other shows in the area that week, but i was too busy to check them out. at least i can vicariously enjoy them via my flickr friend, darkhorse68's photostream.

what happens in vegas...

geez i'm tired. wanted to post something though. this good enough?

i was taking a picture of another car when i heard this one pull up behind me. easy enough to just do a 180 and i'm set to take another picture, thank you very much.

sunshine on a cloudy day

another day, another dollar. i am having some difficulty balancing work, family, and hobbies. i've spent a little bit of time shooting other stuff, but your old cars seem to be my favorite subject. they all have their own personalities, but i don't have to try and make them smile. they look good even on a bad day. and they don't complain that i'm taking too long.

tbirds aren't the top of my list, but give me a shiny hood and a cloudy day, and it's my new bestest friend...at least until my next post.

“it's a girl car”

this one was at the labor day show in henderson's lincoln dealership. it stood out amongst all the chevys, rat rods, and other typical vintage stuff. mostly because it was hot pink. these puppies always make me think herman munster.

so while i was taking a few shots of it, some old guy walks by and mumbles about it being a “girl car.” ya, i didn't shoot his car, so maybe he was jealous?

even has hot pink dice...ya, it's a chick car.

triplets

so in case anyone noticed i haven't been around much lately, i haven't been. spent the better part of the last month working a bunch of overtime on deadlines, then i had to go to vegas this past week on business. honest. not fibbing. i don't gamble, smoke, or drink (what do i do...), so really, if i didn't have to be there, i wouldn't be.

anyway, one of my flickr contacts (shout out to darkhorse68), lives somewhere out there in that desert oasis, and is always posting the coolest pics of cars from this show. so i managed to squeeze in a labor day show on the way up to vegas, and then this one on the way home. fortunately, for both shows, it was early morning, the sky was overcast, with thundershowers likely, so it was perfect weather-wise, and with a giant natural light box above, killing off real harsh shadows. the bummer was that the possibility of rain probably scared off a bunch of cars too.

in spite of the weather, this parking lot got very full, so i can only imagine a typical day. i arrived just as they were doing the pledge of allegiance, which i did not realize until i saw that everyone was standing and looking back somewhere behind me. apparently i had parked in a section of the lot that typically lines up the corvettes, and a nice gentleman directed me to more appropriate parking.

after re-parking and pulling out my cameras, i bee-lined to a couple of old chevy bel airs, afraid they'd leave before the rain started. not a problem. took a bunch of shots of those, then spotted this trio in the aforementioned corvette lot.

i wandered over there and started shooting. being that there were three cobras, but four or five guys sitting behind them, i'd have to say the owners had been joined by a couple of their buddies. they mostly ignored me, and/but watched closely while they chatted. finally one of them came over to check out my tripod when i started to set it up low to the ground. he was intrigued and had never seen one quite like it, then went and sat back down with his buds.

at some point, after shooting several views of each car, another one of them walked over to see what i was doing. i asked if he wanted to look at my book of prints while i continued to shoot pics. should have done that sooner, because then all of them came around and looked at the book pretty quickly...and that would have got them out of the earlier shots. i'll have to remember that next time there's a bunch sitting there staring back at the camera.

anyway, they chatted a bit, and i thanked them for letting me shoot their cars, and went off to take more shots. not thinking, i had forgotten to hand them my card, in case they were curious about what shots i got, i wandered back over to them before i left. they were the only bunch that took the time to chat a bit and see my book at either show i went to, so that's that. maybe i'll post pics of the other two. i'll see if i get an email from them before i bother, if i don't post them anyway at some later date.

only bummed i didn't get to meet darkhorse while i was there, but then, i didn't warn him either. maybe next year...