who's your daddy?

 

so we drove out to brea this morning, to check out some annual show over by brea mall. if i had wanted to see a bunch of newer muscle cars with their hoods open, i could have just gone to the dealership down the street.

was about ninety percent peenie parade o'cars belonging to middle aged chubby guys who apparently think buying a car qualifies for entry in a car show. how the hell do the judges seriously go about judging these things? they're new, off the lot, or maybe a couple of years old, no effort to customize them has really gone on; i guess you could say they contain all original parts. probably paid the guy swinging the towels around to polish them up too. shit.

you really wanna know what i think about these guys? BFD. ok, don't ask me. my better half says i don't have a filter when asked my opinion on things.

really, we tried to salvage the trip, and wanted to get our cameras out of the bag, but it seemed almost a requirement to have the hood up. and the few and far between cars that we would have taken pictures of, just weren't doing it. too many people, crap location, and how crammed cars were into the spaces marked out. meh.

i did see a couple of guys i know. and i didn't even shoot their cars. even with the hood down. i guess i really didn't feel like shooting today, so skipped the hooters show this evening.

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so the news i mentioned the other day: i have four pictures accepted in the fair again this year. only three of them are cars. you'll have to go look for the other one over in pictures of flowers. of the pictures i entered, i can't really figure the reasoning for what was chosen and what wasn't, but fun just the same. so off to the framer's, and my mother-in-law is already imagining which wall this set will go on.

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oh, and this car is again from chicano park. and really, what dad wouldn't want a mostly nekked chick airbrushed across his hood? i think this is a viejitos car, but from new mexico.

anyway, happy father's day, dad. i know you read this blog, or at least look at the pretty pictures once in a while...

flamed and a little grumpy

the lovely couple that own this hot rod have been waiting a month to see a new picture of their baby. they thought they'd been going crazy and missed it, but no. i just don't post everything, especially if i'm not satisfied with it. i suppose i have an old email from them somewhere, so i could have let them know. or i guess i could have written something here. but then i wonder if they're just looking for the picture and not reading it, they wouldn't know then either.

i had been having an internal arguement over a couple of shots of it from a show out in riverside, but there was something in each that was just not doing it for me.

then this weekend, a couple of local shows i'd heard about and planned to attend, just simply didn't happen. so having awakened at an ungodly hour for a saturday, took my better half along for the ride out to rialto, promising him that i don't drive out there anymore if it isn't worth it. i'd scoped out a few while my son went to ucr, so i knew this would be ok.

and i kinda guessed they'd be there too. i saw them drive in as we walked over the train tracks to the main strip. we didn't actually get there until after 8am, so the sun was already past the sunrise we were looking for, but not so high as to be irritating.

i took a few shots early, then wound back around and took these two before i left. i think either one looks better than the shot with gary's favorite outhouses.

my better half went to the car show with me, so afterwards, we went out to chino planes of fame for him. he had fun...hardly anyone there, and a nice breeze for a change.

thanks for telling about another show the next day, but i just couldn't do another whole day in riverside.

oh ya, and there's the little grumpy on the back of the other car. didn't notice him last year, when i was just all about the skulls.

oh, and buy a print here

leadrag

i've seen this one many times. i thought i'd posted it at some point, but i'm not finding it right now. well, i know i have other shots, but not very satisfying ones.

this is the first time i've seen it with the top up. i suppose because it's next to those trees, those lovely, drippy, sappy trees. and the birds.

i'm not saying it's my favorite car, but i do just like the challenge of trying to get a good shot of cars i see far too often. usually solved by a change in location. like this one; they killed off the fuddrucker's show in el toro...all that construction had pushed it too far from the main drag, and no one knew it was there. here it is at chik-fil-a, where you are separated from the main street by a few feet of concrete, dirt, trees and flowers.

three for one

quick post. gotta get up early tomorrow. make up your own story about this one.

tiger in the grass

i've posted this one up here several times before. keep trying to get the stripey, random airbrush paint job right. lo and behold, there it was in with a small contingent of cars from orange county down at chicano park, hiding in a corner. 

as i've said before, it's fun to find a car over and over, and then to find it some new environment. typically, i find it on a hot, sunny day, sitting on hot asphalt in a parking lot. things get more blown out that way.

here i found it again, in the shade of the bridge overpass, sitting pretty on the grass. surrounded by hundreds of other remarkable cars, i found it without a crowd around it for a change.

more candy

a lifestyle car is most always a delight to the eyes. pinstripes, airbrush, candy colors seem to be their modus operandi. i walked past this one earlier. thought i'd seen it before and/or the light just wasn't hitting it right and/or it was surrounded by people.

on the last walk around this field, walking past from this direction, i had a change of heart and took this shot. i can appreciate a good paint job. and hey, look, no one paying it any attention. perfecto.

just realizing that it was the same car i saw last summer at the san fernando show. but not that surprising. nice to see it out in the open, and not crammed in with a bunch of other cars.

jesse’s girl

while wandering around the show, we passed through this group of cars. i was shooting the pinstripes on the back of this one, when the owner came over and asked what we do with the photos. so, since he seemed really interested, i took a few shots of his car, while he pointed out the finer points of the monte carlo next to it.

i liked his car. a pale yellow, with tan pinstriping, just a touch on the hood, and a little on the back end. not too much, not too little. he says their club mostly goes to the bigger shows, in several states. mentioned one coming up in laughlin, nevada next month. says it's a good show, lots of cars. i'm trying to remember how hot it gets in nevada in may. already thinking about going to vegas in september and it is usually smoldering then.

normally, i wouldn't shoot the monte carlo, but it was the details that really blew us away. etched metal on all the chromed surfaces, custom leather interior, airbrushing and pinstriping. really impressive. here are a few of the details:

chairman of the bored

my better half may have found jesus; i found frank. like forrest said, you never know what you're going to get, especially when you go around to the back of a car. i'd never seen one of these cars, and was happily shooting it from the front. then this happy surprise when i went to the other end.

while frank never impressed me much, the airbrushing here wasn't bad, but it wasn't especially great either. for one, why is the color almost pretty good all over, then his mouth is full of gray teeth and gums? did he wear dentures, or did they forget to add a little pink to liven it up a little? no, wait, he was a smoker; that explains it. i know he was old, but ick. kinda creepy.

no, i don't want to dance with you. maybe my dad helped him out with the punctuation—he too, also likes to use exclamation points on everything he types. i know he'll read this eventually! sorry, but it's true! i love you dad!

anyway, this is it for a week. i'm all packed up, and the weather channel says it's going to be raining all week, as one would expect in seattle. bringing my cameras anyway, in case a patch of sun opens up for a few minutes here and there.

i'm sure my better half will keep himself busy and not notice the time passing until i get back, right d? he can hang out with his other old lady...who also is known to read this blog...thanks for putting up with me.

---side note---hey ernie from the latin gents, did you get my email last month? probably in your junk mail...that's where they always go.

well, bummer

so i'm trolling my more recent photos for something different, and thought this would be interesting. then my week got busy, and didn't have time to get back to it and post it.

since i'd already started it, i figured i'd finish it tonight. but as i was trying to nuke the color funkiness from the sun glare—which i couldn't quite cancel out—i realized i'd already posted it recently. strange that i hadn't seen it in forever, and here it was a few weeks ago.

seems they added those big ass headlights, but the pattern i hadn't noticed initially on the roof is the same. pretty sure its the same car. pfft.

so someone tell me, is it a '39 or a '40?

tired now, so i'll go kick myself and get over it. i'll find another picture tomorrow.

not much going on

i stopped by the broiler this evening. albeit, it was early, there was not much more than the die hards there. could be the cold, or maybe people are still out of town. anyway, i didn't take my bag out of the car, and only walked around the lot to see if there was anything interesting, or a car in a different spot. no luck. being more picky until i get new hard drives.

i did chat for a bit with an acquaintance about hard drives, cameras and printing, until his other club buddies called him inside for dinner. decided not to bother staying to see what else might show up. i had to have dinner myself, and my better half was waiting for me at home. he worries sometimes. well, most of the time, when i'm out on my own.

found this car in the archives from 2010, a duke's show and shine car show. from the broiler, so i can pretend it was there tonight. parking lot was overflowing with awesome cars. only time i've seen this one and for all i know, it's been sold and repainted by now, but it did have a really interesting roof job. one of the first cars that i wished i had a ladder to shoot.