side effect

guess i'm looking for something different. been taking more of these side views lately. at least it hides most of the stuff or people walking around behind it, shooting from a low angle. 

i should be happy when there's extra space to maneuver around, especially at an otherwise crowded show. maybe it depends on the profile, same as some cars i prefer the front or back ends. depends on the car.

red is difficult to take pics of because it oversaturates and loses definition. not sure i'm getting it quite right here, but i still like the car.

ludacrous speed

yay! friday! 6.25 years with my better half—happy anniversary d. went out to dinner, which he doesn't do so much since he started a diet. so that was nice. even better, he took me along.

watching spaceballs on netfilx. haven't watched that in a long time. a classic.

neighbor upstairs is a single guy. no carpeting. sounds like he is strutting around in heels again. it could happen. might be my imagination. previous residents always sounded like they were rolling bowling balls around and dropping them. this is why i prefer my own two-story place. shhhiiit. sounds like he's skipping now. lol lol lol.

looks like another slow weekend for car shows. might try one of the small local shows i haven't been to in a while. see if they're still running.

quick post. i really liked the paint job on this chevy. shine. pinstripes. glitter. airbrush. this time, all working well together.

that is all.

impala heaven

i don't know where my time goes after the drive home from work. my better half just gave up, and has headed off for bed. it's almost ten, so i best be getting there myself.

true, the majestics show was mostly bouncy low riders, but there was a healthy helping of my favorite classics. there were pods of impalas here and there. my favorite pieces of tail, if you know what i mean. tsk tsk, such dirty minds.

enlightening

i spent a lot of time in the car today. drove out to ontario airport to pick up my daughter...yay no more feeding her tarantulas, etc...drove her home to oc. then out to south coast plaza to exchange the last camera i bought because it had a minor defect. then drove back to whittier. 

happened to decide to slap a battery into the new camera to change it to my preferred settings, only to find the "new" camera was more effed up than the one i had taken back. so drove all the way back to get another. took my camera bag with me and tried the next one out in the store with one of my lenses and my battery, to be sure it at least worked correctly.

seems to, but i won't know until i get out to a show.

then my computer was being quirky, and finally shot me a blue screen of death. seems to have booted back up ok, so i don't know what that was about.

i suppose i'll go to sleep now. why push my luck?

this was a beautiful impala from the other day. it happened to have been the first car i shot when we arrived, and i spent quite a bit of time shooting it from the front and back. the back has a big airbrush image of three mostly nekked chicks with bandeleros, and the detail and pinstriping is exquisite all over. but i liked this one, from just before we left, that i liked the most. 

had looped back around to where we started, and retook some of the cars from the morning. the light changes, the cars change moods, a different personality comes out. maybe i have just spent to much time staring at cars in the hot sun.

better than the other anyway

end of the week, glad of it. and now i've nothing to say. so i'll just throw more pics from the new year's show out here.

found this in a small cluster of harleys. moved to this one after some dude interrupted me shooting another bike, so he could throw down some signs for someone else to take a pic of him in front of it. maybe it was his bike—that would be one thing; if he was just a rude dickhead, well that'd be another. i'll never know, and i won't post that bike. didn't get a shot i liked because of him.

dam fine

stayed up late last night, slept in a bit this morning. my better half assumed we weren't going anywhere and was settling in to watch the idiotic rose parade on tv. he was laughing because channel 5 had missed the thunderbird flyover and only caught the contrails. can't stand the talking heads with their milquetoast voiceover.

when i said i was going to go to the majestics show at the santa fe dam, he got moving. we've never been there, and i figured it would be mostly low riders and jumpers, but also a bit of the stuff we like. flickr contacts are good references when trying to judge going to new shows by looking at past shows images. and mentioning flickr...hey to rudy and to luis...a couple of contacts who have introduced themselves and were at the show today. also, hey to steven, who ran into my better half, but i was off in another parking lot at the time.

needless to say, it was an incredibly well attended show. didn't realize that it continued from parking lot to parking lot, and we only got around to about five of them. also didn't expect to stay very long. we got there about ten in the morning and didn't leave until three-thirty, and still didn't take all the pictures that i could have if i wasn't worrying about my better half and taking up his day off. he had been bored early, but then got over it. said it was because he had gotten something to eat.

anyway. i know we both shot pictures of this car. i can't quite figure out what it is...to me, the body looks like a '39 chevy, but the front looks like a '34. i dunno, and i guess it doesn't really matter much. it was pretty detailed all over. it had airbrushed girls on the visor and in the engine space. can't quite remember if they were also in the trunk, but that was full of engraved hydraulics, if i'm not confusing it with another car. i gotta re-sync my two cameras, so the pictures are sorted by time...the detail shots start getting separated from the car i'm shooting too often.

it also had pinstriping on the hood and about the headlights and such. the grille was so gold, it seems to be throwing off the sensor in my camera trying to catch both the brilliance of the gold and the brightness of the red paint.

really amazing car. the owner lost interest in me after he asked if i was with a magazine. i threw my card on the seat, so maybe he'll enjoy the picture anyway.

long day, but so worth the time. extra glad it wasn't a summer show, as it did get warm, but not the hell hole it must be down in the ditch as during the summer would be.

enjoyed watching the cars hop for a bit in a different lot, though i don't think i can understand why you guys spend so much time and money fixing up the cars to look good and then bounce the hell out of the chassis. i suppose its just because you can.

i would go again next year.

misty morning

this chevy was from the old memories show out at st hilary's in october. the misty morning sprinkled the cars with dew. i liked it best on the hood reflector thing. what is it properly called?

i wanna say it is an originals car, as it is parked next to others, but i can't find the plaque or other note saying for sure. my apologies, if not.

only remember that while taking some pics of it, some dude was busy pacing in front of it on a probably unimportant phone call. i don't think this one was his, but he did get in the way.

i am loving cars parked next to large overhanging trees, for the framing quality, as well as the reflections. best to be a car that i really like, not just the tree, because that's just sad when the foliage makes the picture rather than the other way 'round.

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so we come to the end of the year. and again i've run out things to say.

can i complain about advertised shows that upon arriving, i and several hapless others find that the hosts have canceled and not bothered to remove the advertised date. unfortunately, they do not stay long enough for me to get my cameras out, so i've nothing to show for it.

though, it's happened before in previous years, so i am not that surprised. holidays always make shows and/or attendance spotty if anything. i enjoy the drive, investigate different ways around cities i know nothing about, and make the best of it, and take a turn around the local mall.

oh, how i hate shopping. i enjoy the exercise, and leave empty handed. a fine reason to get out of the house before i become a hermit. meh.

is it just me, or does anyone else find the orange chicken at panda express to typically taste of dessicated cat scraps dipped in a tangy sauce?

we're thinking of going to the majestics show tomorrow. earlyish. we'll see.

up and coming

not much to say today, and it's late.

one from dia de los muertos show here in whittier. usually pass these kind of cars by, but the little blue bottle caught my eye. gives it that extra "get up" and go i guess.

i see what i see

finally, the weekend. not too much going on car show-wise. some standard weekly shows. not sure if i'll go. probably should, as i'm out of practice again. can feel myself closing into my shell again. gotta get out to shows frequently to feel like i'm getting any better in my photography and/or getting out of that comfort zone they talk about.

got netflix playing in the background. watched a couple of stephen hawking shows, which were kind of interesting. how he explains the world and how we see things. we all see things differently. just ask my better half, he'll tell you about going out on photo shoots when we travel, and how i'll see stuff he just never noticed. is it his height, or just that he doesn't notice things i don't know. is it the difference between boys and girls and what catches our attention? don't know. just know it's fun to compare what we take when we go shooting in the same places.

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saw this bomb at the latin gents show. i don't think my pictures have captured what i saw. i'll have to try again if i see it. 

loved the details—the engraved scrolling on the metal trim, the pinstriping, the paint—all good. not quite loving the window etching. did he do it himself? kinda ruins the perfection of the rest of it, but maybe it balances it out as well.

have a happy whatever

to each his own.

been too busy to think much about it. getting overworked and burning out.

had an opportunity to do a long weekend trip to san francisco, and unexpectedly, also yosemite, but backed out because i'd been sick, and just didn't feel i had enough energy to enjoy it. ended up dog sitting instead. yes, the beast thing. oh, and i'm stuck with feeding over a dozen tarantulas, two gecko things, a disgusting millipede, two cornsnakes, a beta fish, and some kind of carnivorous frog with teeth—my daughter's strange zoo, while she's traveling for the holidays. all creepy and mesmerizing at the same time. hoping she gets home sooner, rather than later.

got arm twisted into attending the annual holiday lunch and gift exchange at work. i've managed to miss the last few, as i go on auto-pilot and head to lunch...they schedule the thing to start while i'm out usually. not this year. secretary wrangled me earlier in the week, asking if i was going to be there.

so i brought a gift for the exchange. something with my sense of humor. consider it a gag gift. but something i would have bought for myself.

so we were treated to a fairly good meal, but the host was big into singing christmas carols. so they'd have everyone singing songs every once in a while. i just don't sing. at least in front of anyone. didn't in elementary school, ain't going to start now. 

one coworker offered up cash to hear me sing. no thanks. i just can't do it. won't do it.

after a food and a nice speech, the gift game got underway.

among all the obvious bagged bottles of booze, the thing i brought was the first gift chosen by the first person up to bat. is it that she wanted something more festive? or did she really dislike it? i dunno. she just seemed so disappointed.

then another seven or eight people, being ever so polite, passed on stealing anything from anyone, and pick gifts from the pile.

so my turn comes, and i take back my gift, telling her to go find something she'll like better. and she did. then someone stole that gift from her and she had to go steal another from someone else.

got better from there on out, as everyone started stealing gifts from each other. no one was ever gonna take mine from me, and i was fine with that.

but you know what? after it was all done and back at our desks, most every single person stopped by my desk to see the thing. even had an offer to trade for it.

that's ok. i wanted it anyway.

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been sick with a cold, so i haven't really been out and about much. this impala was from the old memories toy drive over at bruce's. not overtly christmasy, but there's a big bow on the back, so that will do for me.

see you all around some time. looking forward to some good shows in the coming year.