tiki time

so i stopped at bob's last month and saw this woodie sitting there. usually don't care about them, but i liked the paint detail on the spare cover. so i just took this one shot of the car just to catch it. the coconuts in the trees are little tiki heads.

the owner came over and asked what i was doing. i'm up fairly close to the car with the wide angle, and they always think i'm just doing a detail shot. nope, when i want the detail, i use my other camera with the macro lens, like i did for the air filter cover here. he opened the hood, said i had to see it.

not sure if he knew about my aversion to what's under the hood, but he insisted i check it out, and i admit, this one was pretty cool. clean engine compartment too.

must have looked up my blog; he found me at the halloween show at ruby's the following week. wanted me to take pics of his car, but i got there too late and for some reason he didn't have it at the show or had already taken it home.

guess i'll try to get to bob's again sometime. better chance to get nice sunset shots since the time changed. just gotta start carrying my cameras with me again, and stopping at shows after work.

one little indian boy

i saw this hot rod several times at the pep boys show before they put an end to it. it was always parked too close to other cars and often the owners were all sitting around in front of it, so i never really got a shot i liked of it. i did get an ok shot of the hood ornament once.

found it this time over at the buena park elks lodge. i think the show only started a few weeks ago. i'd never been there, so i pulled into the lot and parked near the entrance in an unmarked spot. there were the typical reserved spots at an elks lodge, like one for "knights" and such.

i got out of my car, opened the trunk and started getting my camera set up. loading batteries and cards, cleaning the lenses. finally pulled my bag and tripod out, closed the trunk and was ready to go.

then from across the lot, one of the grand poobahs asked, "are you an elk?" took all that i had not to come back with a "do i look like an elk?" type answer. i told him no, and then he advised that the parking lot was for elks only, i'd have to move to the street. would help if they'd put up a sign at the driveway. way to roll out the welcome mat, oh holy moly one. might as well have told me to piss off.

so, i heaved all my gear back into my trunk and moved the car. almost considered giving this show the finger, but figured i'd already wasted time and gas finding it, so i might as well take a quick turn around the lot. fortunately, i got there early enough, there was plenty of space right across the street. unfortunately, i got there early enough, there wasn't much to see. kinda disappointing. several cars that used to go to the garden grove main street show, a couple i see at cypress, and only a few i've never seen. one guy i spoke to did say they usually get about 60 or 70 cars. i've heard that before, and i'll believe it when i see it.

i didn't stay long, as i was heading to ruby's halloween show right after.

wtf is an elk anyway, and why would anyone want to be one? do they wear the big hats with horns like fred flinstone and barney rubble? secret handshakes? what's with the silly names for the exulted leaders? guess i'm not old enough to want to be part of that club anyway. i'll stop now before i get into trouble.

sometimes, there are just too many people

i went to the last show of the year at ruby's yesterday. halloween show. didn't dress up this year, which disappointed reine, who asked where the leopard suit was. thanks dude. lol. she's locked in a box, and probably won't be let back out for a long time.

anyway, as i suspected, it was very busy, very packed with cars. so many that there were cars parked up the aisles. bummer for one lady, who i guess worked in one of the nearby stores, and had parked earlier within the boundaries of the show. she couldn't get her car out because of an old ford parked in the aisle behind her. she had to wait for more than an hour to go home from work; actually, she was still waiting when i left, so i assume she was there until after the raffle and trophies too. she even had them paging for the owner to move it, but i guess they were in ruby's and didn't hear the announcement.

i had stopped at the buena park elks club show right after work, which was disappointing, but that's a story for another post. so by the time i got to this show, the sun was already dropping. that makes for longer exposures. and there were so many people milling about.

i've been avoiding staying late at shows this year, just because i'm tired, but also because of the longer exposures. not saying the pictures can't turn out awesome, cause they do, but because people will walk right into the frame and just stand there. because i don't look like i'm doing anything while the camera does its thing.

well, anyway, this car was pristine. and that kind of car draws the people like a magnet. i'd tried taking some shots earlier, with the sun setting, and they're ok shots of the car, but the people are blurs walking around the car.

i came back to this one before i left, as it was getting closer to the time of the costume parade, and more people were herding toward the front of the show. still not perfect. i took a few points of view. he did close the hood, i have it in another shot, but it's pretty plain from the front view. right now, i kind of like this one. ask me again later, and i'll probably choose one of the other ones.

i do love the fins on these. that's why i have one on the front of my card.

wonka

so i got out shooting today, but already had this old picture ready to go, so you guys from today will just have to wait a few more days.

this was back in august, on the day of the uptown whittier car show. the one that allowed vintage and muscle cars, but no low riders. ya, you guys have to wait until may for your token show. thanks whittier.

don't know why, but this ford wasn't part of the show. he parked over by the coffee bean, i suppose to get his fix. did he get there too late? did he not register? did he just want to be noticed? well one out of three is sure.

the lack of people walking through the picture and the brilliant color of the car, made it an "ok, i'll take it" shot.

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...

sunderbird

found this tbird at the end of the row, edge of the show at ruby's last friday. was waiting for the sun to drop lower and had gone round to shoot the back end, hoping to catch the sky changing. instead i was still being blinded by the giant orange fireball in the sky, so was being forced to shoot real low.

the owners happened to be back there. they were curious about what i was doing. i handed them my book to look at while i stalled for time. at some point, some guy comes over and asks what they were doing with some other guy's car?

turns out there are apparently two almost identical tbirds, and that they also live quite close to each other. this owner pointed out his custom plate to the guy. i would have also pointed out the dent over the light.

or we could make up a story about how it got the dent, and the other car is the evil twin...or i could have just taken out the dent, but then how would you know which is which?

anyway, they asked me to take a few up front, so i did. hard to decide between this shot and another that had more of a light flare from the sun on the hood. finally picked this one because it showed more of the length of the car, and i liked seeing the hubcaps.

pug

this was a different truck. don't see too many of these around, though i did find other pics of this one on the web at other shows. apparently its a coe or cab over engine model, hence the shortened front end. but, to me, it reminds me of those purebred dogs or cats that look like they've run into a wall and have no nose. at least in a monster like this, you'd feel safer than driving in one of those "smart" cars; in an accident, i'd place my money on this one and still being able to walk.

the owner was a nice guy too. very happy to let you have a good look around the thing. thanks for moving out of the way, but i don't remember the guy standing next to me, if you can see me in the bumper. i think he owned the red muscle car you see reflected on the side. i didn't take any pictures of his car. psst. dude, close your hood – maybe i'd think about it.

squee

so shiny. i don't usually shoot these ’stangs. they don't usually do it for me, but this one was too nice to pass by. i am laughing now, because as i look at this shot all i can see is that this one really needs a car bra...a big grannie one...it apppears to be real cold out, if you know what i mean. but then i'm told i'm a bit twisted anyway.