blue 88

i took it easy this weekend. had intended to go to an early show in riverside saturday, but didn't hear from my son out there to meet up for lunch after, so didn't get up early and go. he's a busy college boy with his own schedule. no big, i'll catch up with him another time.

then today, had intentions of getting up early and hitting the enderle show in tustin...again was persuaded to “sleep in,” in spite of the time change. anyway, i'd read about the 2nd annual platinum custom car & bike show up at bob's in downey, which fit better into my schedule, and headed up there with my better half. this was a treat, as he's kinda burned out on car shows, and it was a rare occasion to get him to go. now i wish we'd have gone to the enderle show...always lots of cars to choose from...

so when we got to the broiler i was kinda bummed at the turn out and selection. sponsored by elite corvettes, i had expected a lot of those anyway. well, there were about half corvettes, and half mostly older chevys of various makes, with a few other manufacturer's older models thrown in. and the ever insistent raised hoods. ugh. and i don't recall seeing any bikes at all.

i like the older cars, so i didn't mind passing up all the newer model corvettes lined up along the main viewing area. but it bugs me to no end when the owner is nowhere in sight on a car i want to shoot, and the hood is up. don't mind shooting 50's chevys, bel airs in particular from the back, they have cool fins and lights, but come on.

my husband had spoken to the owner of this olds 88 and shot from this same corner of the car before i got over to it. i'm curious to see what he got, but after seeing mine, he's thinking of deleting his memory card. i hope he doesn't mean it.

anyway, said owner told him he drove 60 miles to be at this show. doesn't usually drive to many shows down here, and i'm not clear on why he made the exception for this one. hubbie hinted that the owner should close the hood, but clearly, the guy didn't understand, or just didn't want to move out of his chair.

love this weather – makes for awesome skies. supposedly going to rain tomorrow, but not scary enough to bug out the car owners from the show.

it was a cool car, intensely reflective, as i hope you can tell here.

yolk's on you

finally got back over to the show at garden grove's main street the other day. since a lot of the summer shows have now ended, this one was overflowing with goodness. shame to see many cars having to leave, being that the main strip and small side lot were full, and no more were able to get in. used to be a much larger show, but some of the guys were doing bad things in the college lots they used to overflow into, so they had to shut those down, and visitors can't even park there, at least they're not supposed to.

the owner of this ford (that's him in the dark blue shirt) told me several months earlier that he'd traded his old car for this one. i think he got the better deal, don't you? i hadn't taken a shot of it until this night because he's always got the damn hood up, and i've mentioned before that i generally don't bother with them. he enquired whether i'd taken any, and when i told him why i hadn't he immediately got out of the chair and closed it up. so i happily got to work.

at one point he must have thought i was done, but no, i was down low on the ground where he couldn't see me. i thanked him when i was done, and he promptly opened it again. do they get judged on the engines too? or do guys just get really excited about headers, car innards and stuff? 

it's in spectacular shape, by the way, and polished up like a new penny.

shout out to redd (blue shirt, next to the car), who owns this plymouth. maybe someday you'll actually buy a print. lol. maybe you just haven't seen a shot of it you like. i have a few more...maybe i'll post another sometime. maybe i just like hassling you.

red hots

this trio of rolling red metal was at bob's back in september. of course i was mainly interested in the old ford here in the front. the lights hitting it's shiny paint made it just seem to glow. problem was trying to catch it long enough when there weren't many people walking through my exposures. guess i got lucky here, didn't have to kill any ghosts.

happy bday to my better half. i got something for you...

la chona

so i'm in a rough and dirty mood. been too long since i threw a beater up here. a nice rat rod made of bits and pieces of various years. i'm tired and don't feel like spit-shining pixels tonight.

this assembly seems to be based on a ford body of some sort. i like the unfinished surfaces, with the engine compartment a matte black with pinstriping. interesting to the spend the time and money for a touch like that, or even for the dice on the tire valve stem, when the rest of it seems destined to remain “aged.”

at least it doesn't have a huge, obnoxious engine, which in a chop top would inhibit the view from the driver's seat. i don't believe i've seen it back again since then, so maybe its been transformed into something more interesting by now...

pardon me, do you have any grey poupon?

also from the ruby's halloween show, this group of upper crust cars were clustered toward the front near the prize tables. don't think they usually drive these pampered puppies out and about on a daily basis, but it would be fun to go for a ride in one.

i've never seen a pierce arrow anywhere except in a museum or on film. of course the first shots i did of it were of the hood ornament; shooting the car itself was just an afterthought, since i didn't have one in my collection of shots.

my regrets to the owner of the yellow essex; i went back later to take a picture of your car, but you had already gone. but here's your hood ornament.

nice tail

well, it's halloween time. it had also been the day to dress up for prizes and what not at work. used to be one of my favorite holidays, but the last few years haven't really had the time or money to think about a costume. being that i've been at home sick, i've had plenty of time to consider things, but no energy to put something new together. so i dug into my box of old costumes.

one thing about being sick is that you have no appetite, so i've lost a few pounds, though not enough to get back to what i used to be. anyway, i got back into an old leopard costume i'd worn in high school, though i filled it out a bit more than i used to, it was still doable. 

went to work, where at first i didn't see anyone else dressed up. for some reason, they like to keep their costumes a secret until the competition begins, so i was the only one for a while. people were having a difficult time talking serious business with me, while looking at my cat face paint job. that was pretty funny.

no, i didn't win anything, mostly because i'm too shy to walk across the stage and strut about fabulously, so i didn't enter anyway. but lots of people liked that i had the nerve to dress up.

i drove straight to the ruby's show after work. it was the last show for the year, so i expected it would be very busy. i was not disappointed. lots of cars. at first i didn't see too many people dressed up, though it had been announced at previous shows that there would be prizes for costumes and decorations. took a bit of nerve for me to get out of my car, but i said screw it, and went about my business.

yes i did get stared at, and i really had to ignore that or i'd just turn around and leave. funny how juvenile some of the guys are – one guy pretended he couldn't read something on the hood of a car, wanting me to bend over for a closer look. nah, didn't give him the satisfaction, but he did have the balls to try asking me again, even after i told him from where i was what the thing said. nice try, little boy.

whatever, get your jollies my friends. at least other people started showing up, and i wasn't the only one in costume.

i delivered a couple of prints at the show, so i really did have a reason to be there anyway. the owner of this black chevy saw one of the prints his friend bought, and i guess he liked what he saw. he asked me to take a picture of his car. here it is...what do you think?

there were guys with cameras there, of course, so i suppose a picture of me will pop up somewhere eventually, or maybe i'll post one here after i'm over the trauma. you can always squint real hard at the front bumper and see me behind the tripod, as always.

reflection

here's another car from the duke's show. i forget which car club (my bad). one of the many jammed in the back lot, this one up against the wall. this was a more typical model chevy there in abundance, but no two were exactly alike.

i liked the two-tone paint on this one, but especially liked the reflection of the sky in the fender. don't forget the hood ornament — don't know why i love those things. didn't notice the broiler sign in the shot until i got home and downloaded the pictures from the camera, so bonus. too bad downey still uses overhead lines...stupid telephone pole right in the way. oh well.

gypsy rose

i attended the duke's show & shine over at bob's in downey this past weekend. incredible congregation of car clubs, lots of representation from each. really for me, it was chevy overload...it was a plethora, yes a plethora of chevys of many years, mainly 1939s–1950s, with some odd years and some impalas thrown in, and this one opened its petals to me.

so many to choose from, so many similar cars all jammed into the entire parking lot. i even had to park a few blocks away, since there was no parking nearby. i didn't know where to start, or what to shoot, much less, i'd been away from shooting for a couple of weeks and was a little out of sorts, so i did my usual. i started by walking around the entire show, seeing what's there. then sat down and took out my cameras. then went back through and just picked random cars—they were all so delicious, but so crowded together, as well as being overrun with people, i could only really do a few.

by the time i got there, they were already doing raffles and giving out trophies. really big, tall trophies. i saw many cars stuffed full of plaques and trophies from prior shows. these guys really know how to do a show right.

anyway, i am rambling. this car has a remarkable paint job. lots of detail. real crowd stopper. parked right up by the trophy table. perhaps you know it? according to my flickr friend, kid deuce, it's known as the gypsy rose. he was there the same day, but i don't know if at the same time. i've never met him, so if i walked past without saying hello, i'm really sorry i didn't recognize you without your western attire. :) he's posted lots of shots from that afternoon, so check them out.

also, thanks to jae bueno for posting the notice about the show, or i would have missed it. he takes really good shots of cars as well, and again, if he was there, i did not recognize him, or i would have thanked him in person. waiting to see what pictures he got of the show.

ketchup and mustard

i'm practically psychic...i know i won't be posting tomorrow...so i figured i would just post another one. hoping it won't rain tomorrow; i want to go to the last foothill show for the year.

these two were over in the corner at enderle plaza last month. the red one is owned by a guy that looks like santa, if i remember correctly, only skinny, but with a white beard. at least the plate names it santa56. the owner of the yellow one moved it in next to the red one, and the owners walked off together, so i suppose they're buddies.

i think the yellow chevy might be this same car from the garden grove friday show. nice neutral flames on the yellow, not overpowering and in your face, so much the better. sometimes you gotta let the classic car be the show stopper, not the paint choice. both very clean.

<deleted some snarky stuff here...wouldn't you like to know...?> gotta edit myself sometimes. my mother-in-law reads this once in a while. lol.

lead sled

this merc custom, also from the whittier uptown show, is seemingly the companion piece to this one. this was the second of three similar vehicles parked on this corner. maybe it was just a coinkydink that they were clustered in the same area. i don't think i bothered with the other, as i remember it was just painted in primer gray and not too dazzling or remarkable.

i remember this being a spectacular, deep blue, but i think maybe i've made it too dark here. the time of day made for an uncontrasty, flat shot, so i had to jack it up a bit. but that's the point of my tweaking, now isn't it?