daddy's girl

i wasn't sure what to expect at this show. if i had just listened to my better half, we'd have been there earlier. last show i went to in this parking lot was pretty sparsely attended, and figured the same for this one, or at least that people would show up later, being that it was a sunday.

another photographer introduced himself because he recognized me from my flickr page. he said it all depends on which club is hosting and their connections, for pulling in cars. looking back at the good shows i've been to, i'd have to agree. i can be stupid sometimes. 

was unexpectedly hot outside for a december day. being late, i'm only going to have so much time before i get too overheated to stay and shoot all the cars i'd like.

there were a few impalas amongst all the other chevys. i can't pass up the swoopy back end, especially on a ’59. because it was midday, i was having to work around the harsh light and keeping my shadow out of the picture for a lot of the cars.

the only person who came over and asked for a card happened to be the daughter of the owner of this car. couldn't really decide what shot i liked the best, so i'm posting the one i liked the most. no people milling through the background is nice, but the modern suv thing next to it isn't my favorite. i'd have the door closed, but at least the hood was down.

stylin’

the week at work is going as i thought, very busy, even if very short. hoping to get to leave early like everyone else tomorrow, but its kinda up in the air now. traffic will be hell, so i'll be going to my parents' house. fortunately they are about fifteen minutes from the office if i stay off the freeway.

relatives will be taking the room i usually stay in, as well as the spare. thinking about inviting myself over to my own house with my kid, to avoid sleeping on the couch. or maybe a hotel...that sounds nice too.

gotta spend time this weekend backing up files. maybe a show or two or three.

this one was from the viejitos show back in july. never have really taken the time to post a lot of pics from this show. that was the month i was dog sitting the beast, so i was otherwise occupied. and there have been so many other shows since then.

don't shoot a lot of packards, but the lighting on this one was intriguing.

one family

when i was in high school, i had an armenian english teacher. he was funny. he talked funny, like he had a mouth full of marbles, he mumbled through the day. i took several classes with him during my years there.

he liked the way i wrote. so much so, that for one of my finals, while everyone else furiously wrote their minor tomes on whatever the topic was, he had me write a satire about the students in the class. i was already gonna get an a, so why the heck not?

i took classes on shakespeare and the classics from him. the papers i wrote for that class, i used for term papers in college. i knew how to write, i guess.

i think about him once in a while, joke with my brother about him too, since he took classes with him after me.

he was older then, so i can only guess that he's gone now. but i do wonder what he would think of this late night drivel i scribble without thought of order, more of a stream of consciousness than anything else. i suppose without wringing it out and editing it over days and hours, this is what you get. but i wasn't an english major, and i mostly just write whatever pops into my head at the time i'm sitting here.

and that had nothing at all to do with this car. this is anthony's car. i know his name is anthony because his shirt says "anthony" on the patch. oh, and that he spent a lot of time talking with my better half.

i suppose i should be jealous at how easily my better half can work a crowd, get into a conversation on a wide variety of topics, and come out the other side with lots of stories to tell.

but i'm not jealous. he's just that kind of guy, not shy. big, gregarious...greg-garious. lol. he gets more stories. i get more pictures. i'm the innie to his outie.

and to my dad, who seems to be reading this blog more often than i think, no, there's no competition with who gets better shots. just simply the joy of taking the pictures and for me, of getting out, trying to get more out of my comfort zone. but i'll never get as comfortable as my better half just chatting people up. my mouth freezes up, just like in high school, when we had to give a speech.

but it all depends on the person who wants to converse. personality trumps shy anytime. or, if you're a richard, i'll just stare at you in amazement and write about it later.

back to the car. clean, basic, classic. the guys were sitting on the curb behind it eating their mickey d. i was perfectly happy to just squeeze down nearby and shoot the car, but they politely moved their feast away from the car, happy to have someone taking a picture of it.

yes, my better half took a similar shot. his is better. my opinion.

only sometimes

i started out a small show in montebello, with the intention of going to work for a few hours to try and wrangle my deadlines to something slightly more bearable on monday. but no, someone at the show mentioned to me about a show over at legg lake going at that moment.

i dragged my feet. hung out at this show for the raffle [didn't win anything], stayed for the trophies, then left for lunch, still intending to go to work. making it more difficult, was the fact that i was literally eight minutes away from the lake. the lake was next to a freeway onramp, so if it sucked or if i really intended to go to work i could.

well, it was an ok show. loosely coordinated, more of a picnic with a bunch of car clubs. many cars i've seen before, but still took shots of. sort of an assortment of classics and low riders. i shot a few of the low riders, if i liked their paint jobs. i'll show you this one, because one of the guys from the club came over and talked to me and asked for a card.

oh, and after two shows under the hot sun, and it being almost four when i left, i didn't make it to work after all. the freeway also went too close to home, and thought i'd just download my pictures instead. maybe tomorrow.

aztechie

still a chevy, but one i don't normally post. i'll do something else next time. sheesh.

a ladder would have been good about now. your basic aztec and nekked girls scene.

backside story

found a group of impalas at san fernando in the new lot they opened this year. love the '59s. plain vanilla up front, party in the back.

so the owners are all sitting behind the cars, enjoying the shade and something that smells vaguely of skunk. i think they're feeling pretty relaxed by this time of day. 

so i'm trying to jam myself between them and the back of their cars, trying to get the best angles on the fins and stuff. i don't know if they're enjoying the show, because i'm crawling around down low and looking up into the viewfinder, so you know, my back end is behind their back end, and you know...

whatever. so i see this nice view of the car, and i really really want the shot. and as i'm setting it up and about to click the shutter, this lady walks over to talk to a couple of guys that are just out of the frame. so, okay. i'll wait. patience usually wins out in this situation. happens all the time. after a few minutes, i'll try the meaningful look at the interloper. if they continue to be clueless, i suppose i start glaring, but not going to ask them to move, as they have just as much right to be there as i do.

at some point after ten minutes of looking balefully at her, and chatting with the owners, i'm getting overheated, there are plenty of other cars to shoot, and she isn't budging, and probably never even noticed me sitting there.

usually, i wouldn't wait that long, but i like the car. usually, i'd just pick up my stuff and move along. but no, this was kinda starting to make me smile, so i shot it. if she can ignore me, i can ignore her. i like the car. i didn't like the skunk. the end.

free at last, free at last

i was going to post this picture yesterday, in between packing up my belongings and cleaning, as my son was returning home from his six weeks in europe yesterday evening. but of course, the internet decided not to work, so all i could do was unplug and pack up the computer to bring back home to whittier.

i'm pretty sure the dog did it. i mean, disabled the internet, so i'd have to pay attention to him. he already figured something was going on, with all the activity that was not normal for a weekend. probably just hit the cable with his tail while he was under the desk.

this buick was from last weekend's sultans show up at signal hill park. i thought the turnout was decent, though i did  hear some rumblings about not as many as were expected, blah, blah, blah. i think they always say that.

don't see many of these cars, and it was sitting up on a hill at the edge of the show, so fewer people in the way. took a bunch of shots, but on a quick glance through the pics, liked this one for the moment, so showing here. ask me again tomorrow, and i'd probably pick a different angle. i do like the shot from the tail end, because it has the swoopy fins that many cars of that year seem to have to some degree.

chatted a little with the owner and his buddy while i shot a few from the back. says he mostly goes to local shows and not all that often, so pretty sure he won't be at the uptown whittier show next week (i will be there, as usual, its my hood, so i can). he did say he was going to take it down to the belmont show whenever that is, but i've heard it gets pretty crowded, so i haven't made the time to go in previous years. who knows, maybe i will this year. depends on what i'm doing.

shot a panorama of his dashboard, because i'm always looking for a nice dashboard to update the one at the top of this page, but just can't seem to find a better one yet. i really liked his decoration hanging from the mirror. didn't ask him if there was a story behind it, as in did he recently get married, or did he just think it was cool.

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like i said previously, i've been able to get out to a few shows on the weekends and shoot, but have just been unable to do more than download and backup the pictures before the dog got impatient with me.

i'm just back from the unidos show this morning, which wasn't as busy as they'd have liked it to be. someone said it was because of the car parts show over at pomona fairgrounds, and some other show going on at the same time. so my better half has just got my computer going again, and i'm downloading pics from this morning while i post this picture intended for yesterday.

thanks to the guys who have been handing off flyers to my better half to give to me, at the couple of shows he went to without me. he thinks its pretty funny when they hand him a flyer for me, and i'm shooting a car nearby — apparently that happened today. i totally understand though, he's so much easier to talk to with his bubbly personality.

i'm blathering on, and i've got several weekends of car show pics to sort through for another post later today. hoping to get back to a more regular schedule of playing with my pictures now, so do check back again, if i talked to you recently.

spudnut racing

quick pic. already running late on somewhere i'm supposed to be. 

found this rat rod way out at the end of the street, on the other side of the railroad tracks, at the rialto run whatcha brung show. i think the owner next to him said they'd arrived late, so parked out there in the shade. they did also get out and drive the circuit once in a while. the other owner also said i'd made this guy's day because i bothered to take a picture of it. such small things can make people happy. don't think i gave him a card, so i suppose he'll never see it, but its here, hiding on the internet in plain sight. you never know.

ttfn

deep sadness

i just learned today that jae bueno had passed. i did not know him well, and had only spoken with him a few times at shows. he was always very nice, and i was always too shy to just go up and say hello, save one time in santa ana. i barely recognized him when i last saw him at a viejitos show several months ago.

he occasionally took the time to comment on my pictures, if he had a story to relate to whatever i'd said in my post. i admired his work through his blog, flickr pages and in low rider magazine. it is a great loss to car culture and photography.

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this was the first car i shot at the old memories show this past weekend. first of the the phalanx of old memories cars lining the entry to the show area. i preferred this view of it, rather than the other side, showing the line of cars and buildings and a billboard. just so cluttered. keep it simple, stupid, they always said in school; and i would say it worked best in this case, even if it is kind of a cliché image in front of a loading bay. it is such a nice turquoise, even in the morning shadow of the building.

i hadn't realized it, but the owner had been watching from not too far away. i'm not sure if he was waiting on me so he could get something from his car, but he did thank me for taking a picture of it. how could i not? thank you for bringing it out for me to shoot.

call it a day

going to be transporting my puter to another location tomorrow, so it will probably be a couple of days before i post again. but then again, maybe i'll post one more time before i move it. got one or two car shows to visit tomorrow, so you know, gotta back up my pictures and that usually leads to a post...

did three shows yesterday. well, only really shot anything at two. the one at the elks club didn't have anything i felt like shooting, and only made one loop through the show. usually i can find some viejitos there, but they were no where to be seen.

found this one at ruby's before getting some dinner. i've seen it before. i always love the hood ornaments on these.

anyway, i'm not feeling well, so i'm going to take it easy the rest of the day. ttfn.