same car, different place

ya, i thought i'd seen this one before. and it is a nice car. probably would have kept on going, but it does pick up the sun so nicely with the lightest dusting of glitter or sparkle in the flames. plus the owner busted me taking a picture of it and jokingly asked what i was doing. said he expected a snapshot of it. 

well, i don't give those out for free, but i'll show him the shot of it, since he said hello.

found it this time at silverado days in buena park. didn't expect it to be as busy as it was, but there were about a hundred cars, including a few of my favorite clubs, so it was all good. and a carnival to boot, in the shadow of knott's berry farm, was a bonus.

too bad so many cars had the hoods up...

testing testing

took me two hours to drive home yesterday. sure it was friday, but seriously, i leave work at four most every day, and the traffic is just getting worse and worse. wtf. do i just get up at three am so i can try leaving at three in the afternoon??? efffff.

i got home in a not so happy mood. already was tired from not getting enough sleep for three days running. felt like a zombie driving on the freeway, i'm glad i made it home. told my better half, either we get going to a car show, or i'm just gonna lay down for a bit, which would turn into several hours. 

i knew the ruby's show only runs for a couple more fridays, and figured i would skip this one, knowing its the first and last show of the season that really gets a lot of cars anymore. but then i remembered seeing mention of a show out at the broiler, and had to double check on the date. yep, friday evening, same as ruby's only it runs until ten. hosted by the vintage bombs south side, it promised to be just what i was looking for.

pleasantly surprised when we got there, because the last few wednesday night shows i've been to have been so disappointing. while there only seemed to be about twenty cars, they were the right kind for me.

i mentioned before that i had to buy a newer version of my camera a couple of months ago. i've shot so many pictures, mostly of your cars, that the old ones are starting to be unreliable. so i've been mainly using the new one at the few shows i've made it out to. i'm still getting used to it, and it's ok, just not in love with it yet. more buttons and fine tuning required, it's a higher maintenance bitch than the old one.

here's the thing: i hadn't taken it out late, after sunset yet. was't a problem with the old one—got very nice night time shots even in dark corners—but here we arrive at basically a chevy bomb show, sun already set, and i'm not sure i can get the shots i want. so i'm experiementing with the settings.

didn't know my better half had updated the firmware, when i'd only asked him to clean the sensor. so right off the bat, my settings had been reset. wondered what the hell was going on with the first bunch of shots i was taking, then noticed a few things set wrong, and knowing i hadn't left them that way. finally had to go ask him why my camera was tweaking.

there were a few additional settings he found that needed to be changed back, then i got going again. had to reshoot a couple of cars. went to the back lot, where it is much more dark without the lights on and shot over there too. there were a few more in the dark, i really would have liked to take, but there were a lot of guys hanging around behind those cars, and i don't care for the smell of what they might or might not have been smoking. i'm sure there was just a skunk walking by, right?

we packed up about eightish, as neither of us had eaten dinner yet. spoke to a couple of the vintage club guys on the way out. very nice. said they were doing only one more show next friday for halloween, and that was it for the season. costume contests and candy for the kids. said this was a pretty small show because of the dodger game, but they'd been getting more than a hundred cars on other nights. 

we're already talking about just driving straight there from work next week; sorry ruby's—see you in april.

so here's a couple of shots of the same car. one from when we got there, with the screwy settings, and the other from later on. i think they're kind of both ok, but still not quite the same as i could squeeze out of my old camera. guess i'll have to keep trying. 

impala this

i've got so many pictures of cars, sometimes its just hard to pick one. finally settled on an old standby...a '59 impala. just love the curves from the back end of these cars. i can't help it. 

i have shot this same car a lot the past few years at various shows. this was at the unidos show at walnut high school. was hot out. low turn out because of a parts show out at pomona fairgrounds the same day and time. here because one of their guys had sent a flyer to me via my better half, as often happens. i do try to make it to the shows when they go out of their way to get me a flyer.

have really had a crazy couple of weeks work and family wise, so haven't been able to post so much. it's my zen time to take and play with my pictures, and i do miss it when i can't do it. i gotta try and get out to more shows like i used to, but there has just been so little free time lately...

scratcher

i missed a chevy show in tustin for the dia de los muertos show down the street from the house here in whittier. sure i probably could have had a lot more cars to choose from, but probably not many as interesting as the dozen or so that turned up here.

i'd been to the show a couple of years ago, and only the showlows and some arbitrary cars had shown up, and maybe a couple of blocks of vendors. 

this time, several blocks of vendors and food peddlers shutdown the main street and a couple of side streets. we found some cars as we entered the closed off main street and shot those. then i noticed further down, what appeared to be a few more. seems that a new store on the corner, which will be selling t-shirts and other low rider themed accessories, is associated with a car club and some of their cars showed up, as well a few of their friends. 

they had about five cars parked on the street by the store, so we busily got to shooting them. then this puppy, which we'd seen a few nights previously, drove up and dropped down on the corner here. i mean down, scrape the bumper on the street low. heard it loud and clear.

flipping through my collection, i found i've seen it a few times in various places, but only really shot it from the front. wasn't until we passed it uptown that we noticed this funky pinstripe job on the back. who knew you could make praying hands with rosary beads kinda cool. so lemme hear a hallelujah.

found more cars at the other end of the street by the movie theatre and cigar bar, including the usual suspect, whom i am not stalking. at least he'd put a cover back on the spare wheel thing on the back of his chevy, just not the fancy pinstriped one.

on the way home

i won't bore you with vacation pics. good to be home. not looking forward to monday. i've enjoyed a week of sleeping in and not looking forward to waking up at 4 am again.

i did find a car show on our trip, but it kinda sucked donkey balls, so i don't feel like posting any pics yet. there were a few cars to salvage the show, i would otherwise not bother with. there was another show i thought about going to, but it got rained out in the middle of the week, and then on the way home, i decided not to stop at another between there and here. 

ahh, but we did stop briefly at the garden grove elks lodge show, for a shot of the latin gents chevy goodness. parking was hard to come by, as there was another event going on at the lodge. always warmly welcomed by ernie and his wife, we set about taking some shots.

it is difficult to choose which of their cars to show. my better half seemed to really like this one. hard to argue with that. the paint job is great, with a shine to die for. 

true, there were other cars at the show. but i do like to start with my favs.

ernie said he's now not only running their monthly show, but will be in charge of the annual show next august, so there's that to look forward to on the calendar. and we did enjoy the musical selection he was spinning for this show too.

emerald city

way back in april, found this at chicano park. what a great show that was. looking forward to the next one. and i love love love the back end of these impalas.

while i didn't find jesus or ol' blue eyes, i really liked the pinstriping back here.

yay! it's friday. time to look up some car shows. busy week ahead. sorry, latin gents, already know i'm gonna miss your show...

winning

my work days are so long, even the eight hour days. too much work, too little time; you know the saying. i'm on the verge of burning out, so i'll take a long overdue vacay soon.

meanwhile, i get home and then don't feel like going out to car shows i used to enjoy. been only hitting a few here and there on weekends.

i thought about going to the broiler this evening; my better half said he was working late anyway, so why not? about the time i was going to pack stuff up to go, he let me know he was on the way home. so nix that idea.

he got called in to work last night, and said he only got about three hours of sleep, so that's where he is right now, making those zeebers.

this chevy was from a show in montebello. the one i hung around for instead of going to work. this one got the "best bomb" trophy. it was next to a similar one, a 1936, that was equally nice. how they ever decide which cars get trophies i'll never understand, though they did say the kids at the show made a lot of the decisions themselves.

ok, my legs are tired of sitting. too many hours in front of a computer, then driving over an hour home, and sitting in front of a computer for another couple of hours can't be good.

caught a raynbow

ya, i posted earlier. i ran too late for the viejitos show. drove over there only to find them cleaning up the lot, maybe a dozen cars sitting around, according to my better half, who urged me to stop anyway. told him i didn't want to get in the way now that it was over.

instead drove up to a show in lakewood, intending to stop at the costco there anyway. that one was as he expected it to be, not that busy, really only one or two cars i'd bother to shoot. i didn't feel like breaking out the camera for that. i think probably because i hadn't really eaten all day, and maybe was a little loopy. i didn't feel hungry, but figured i might as well get something.

so we went over to the mall behind the costco, found where they hide the food and was satisfied with a salad. by then my better half started feeling dizzy, probably because he waited too long to eat, so after all that, we didn't go shopping either.

so, broke my own rule to at least take one picture to make it worth the trip. two car shows, no pictures. no groceries. and i'm ok with that.

here's raynbow's pretty pontiac from the show last friday. saw it today, right at the front, but since we didn't stop, didn't get it. kinda like this better anyway. mid afternoon light would have just made it average.

not so sure i'm digging the painted hood ornament. but it's his car, so he can do what he wants, right?

down in flames

so i'm running late already today. on my way to the viejitos show and lunch. you know what? decided not to go to work this weekend at all. i'll work late all week. i wanted my weekend too much. and my better half is also so persuasive. :)

i noticed at the legg lake show yesterday, that the tribe was there, even had their tent up. but i didn't see this one. and not even his lincoln. he's a busy guy i guess.

i stayed out among the cars, didn't go up on the grass and talk to anyone. they knew i was there, good enough. i was trying to hurry to go to work, remember?

anyway, this one from the whittier show in august was ready, so i'll just post it now and be done with it. the flames, the flames, the cursed flames. guess the early light was good enough to pop the ghost flames off the hood.

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.