the other danny

i know i shoot cars as i find them, but sometimes i have my doubts, especially when someone asks me to shoot their car. i know what they are expecting to see vs what makes me happy. i like this shot, again with the lens flares. but i think this danny (the owner) would have preferred a shot from the other side, pretty plain vanilla.

this is the second time i've taken pics of his car, and both times, i knew they wouldn't be what he is probably looking for. parking in the shade to keep the car and himself cool—good for him, but not for a clean shot of the car, with more accurate color.

this car is a dark blue, but shooting into the sun is effing with the color. from the other side on this, and a couple of shots of other cars in this club, the colors are more vibrant, mostly due to the time of the day and angle of the sun.

but they're also clustered around their club tent, or jammed next to each other, so aside from the shadows off the tent, the people in the tent end up in the shot too. from the other side, you'd see a little gangsta doll off the front bumper and the tent legs, as well as the empty chair that one of the guys jumped out of when he realized i was taking the picture. but the color would have been nice and deep blue if the tent hadn't been there.

my better half says i should ask them to move the car to get a better shot. but then they'd lose their spot, wouldn't they? you wouldn't ask a tiger to hold still in the jungle while you take a shot, so why should i bother to have them move it? if i wanted to control it that much, i'd open a studio and be a master of the universe.

i might be making a lot of assumptions, based on a few past experiences with car owners. forgot that i was just taking them for fun, and tried to let them tell me how to do the shot. basic tenet: don't let someone else art direct my hobby.

since i shoot mostly to make myself happy, i post the shots that i like, and if, by chance, danny likes a different point of view of his car, well then, he's found one.

there i go again, i've rambled on, with my thoughts not quite in order and too tired to rewrite it correctly. what would my professor think of that?

in the still of the night

so i made a quick stop at the show over in garden grove for the first time since last year, probably. a lot of people had split off and started other shows because of some dispute with the organizer and the shops over at this show.

considering it was a holiday weekend and i had arrived later than usual, there were a fair number of cars compared to the last few times i can remember being there. no where near what it was when i had started going to this show. and quite a bit dark, without a lot of street light, depending on what part of the street i was at.

i intended to only be there a short time, so did a quick walk thru before bothering to pull my camera out. i was stopped on the way back by a couple of people whom i've met before, who said they'd seen me go by; sorry if i didn't see you on the way in—i was seeing without seeing—looking at the cars, lighting and locations, not the people. i didn't really mean to be rude, just trying to maximize my time and figure if there was anything i wanted to shoot. but i did see you on the way back up the street, so sorry about that first trip.

i only shot a couple of cars. this one and a mercury monterey. and people were walking up to the monterey while i was shooting, and stood there arguing over what year it was and talking car geek talk. they finally went around to the back of the car, but made me wonder if they were obtuse or purposely standing there.

anyway, this one might be with the latin gents, who had their cars parked nearby. many with hoods up, so, so sorry, no shots of them tonight. no one seemed to be really looking at this one, so i took this shot. thinking the other side would have been more interesting with the nearby shop's neon signs, but that side of the car was pretty dark, so this is the one.

hoping to hit three shows tomorrow, but my shoulder is hurting, so i don't know if i will be able to lift my bag. we'll see.

took a shine to it

this car caught my attention. off at the end of the lot, the sun just starting to go down, light hitting it just so. the pinstripes and chrome just begged to be looked at, just had to get past a handful of hydraulicly-endowed cadillacs.

i like that the fuzzy dice match the color of the roof and interior. i'd lose that antenna ball if it were mine, but i ain't so nevermind.