is it fair?

there are old things we should keep around. like this old truck. a new coat of paint, shiny chrome, new wheels, and you have a keeper. it has value to the owner, and all us poor plebes can only admire from afar and appreciate the hard work. yep this one got put almost in the center intersection of the whittier uptown car show this year.

feeling philosophical tonight. i have a house filled with boxes of stuff from an earlier life. boxes of memories, toys, junk. all have value to me, or i would have gotten rid of them long ago. i used to have it all in storage, then decided i didn't want to pay the storage fees anymore. thought it would be easier to go through it all if i actually had it around...

thing is, i think i'm ready to let go of some of the stuff. i'm sick of looking at the boxes. if i can find someone to cart off a lightly used electric clothes dryer from my garage, i could move some of said stuff out there, so it can play with the other boxes out there, out of sight, out of mind...except everytime i park my car there.

if i had the time, i'd go through the boxes and filter out the old photos, and absolutely sentimental stuff to keep forever, then decide what to do with the rest of it. i should have a garage sale, but i hate them, especially since the last time i had one, some bunghole actually paid for my junk with a counterfeit $20. thanks for nuthin.

it is a lot easier to just shove the stuff in the corners and ignore it, but i'm getting to the point where i don't want to think about them anymore. i suspect this is why i got custody of all this stuff, so that i would have to face it one day. i think he would have just thrown it all away and be done with it. 

i could post stuff on ebay, or take it to goodwill, but that would take time, which i don't have a lot of lately. i'd like to clean the slate, so to speak. someone could make use of it. i've gone through it all a few times over the years, but this last bit is just hard to let go of.

easier to play with my pictures, go to a car show, go to work, watch netflix, travel, do almost anything than to deal with the past. 

the sky’s the limit

another late night, spent pondering a graphic i have to do tomorrow at work. thought i could come up with an idea while shooting a car show...you know, when your best ideas appear when you aren't even thinking about them. no luck. guess i'll sleep on it.

well there wasn't much out at cypress today, but not disappointed that i left work on time; i needed the break. actually, the few local shows i've been to have been pretty sparse. is it the price of gas, or is everyone just selling off their cars?

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getting back to this picture...another from henderson lincoln. didn't realize the clouds looked so awesome at the time. i was just trying to get the front of the car and the reflections in the hood. this thing was so shiny. interesting hood ornament thingy too. i'll have to post the close up another time. i'm running on fumes right now, so best get meself to bed.

el camino real

quick post then off to bedski...another long day; another long week...

another from yesterday's show in pasadena. was going to walk by this one because the hood was up, and they're just kind of ho-hum up front, then remembered it's the back end that makes this car nice. took a few shots down low just to catch the curves. got a lens flare on this shot, but it doesn't bother me.

noticed after i was done that it belongs to my friend reine's so cal tribe car club...had one of their logos in the window. seems a long way from home, but nice to see this one represent.

ready for take off

one of my better half's coworkers told him about this show in south pasadena, cruz'n for roses. guess it was a fundraiser-type thing to help make money for the rose parade float, which is just a hunk of metal right now, as it was sitting there looking all pathetic and hoping for some help to make it all purrty. eff that, i don't watch the silly parade anyway.

so there were maybe two city blocks closed off for this show, maybe 150–200 cars. got there about an hour after it officially started, which sucks, because most of the hoods were already up. hubbie asked a few to close the hood for a picture, and actually got turned down by many. even just for a few minutes. their damn stupid engines might get passed by in the judging if they did that, and so, so many guys just have to see the engines. well, the usual rule applies: hood open, no picture. so there.

found this and the other cadillac in an overflow lot toward the end of the street. some of you know how much i love the fins on older cars. i did get quite a few stares as i shot low to the ground, up at the tail lights, on a lot of cars. did that with this one as well, but i really liked the reflections of this angle for the time being.

would have shot the front end, but by this time, it was very hot, and hubbie had already called and said he was waiting up the street for me. i could have took my time, but i was really getting hungry and thirsty after only having a donut for bfast.

wished we had arrived early, when the sky was still overcast, but he had errands to run for his mom, and cars can always wait until later.

“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...

cardinal

a quick search on the web finds this car, or one amazingly similar, parked down in balboa park in san diego. it is also on a cars for sale site. is it the self-same car? i don't know. it didn't have a sign on it.

i found it up in the "look at me" row, up front of ruby's. once in a while they are actually worth a bother. this one is almost too perfect to be driven much. i should have peeked at the mileage.

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.

charge it

i'll throw this one in, though it's not my typical, and it's not my fav. and i won't even mention what the paint color reminds me of, you can form your own opinion.

but sometimes, i feel that maybe i'm in a rut, or just getting jaded, so i thought maybe once in a while i'll shoot something different. different is usually a landscape or flowers, but they don't really fit in here, so here's the something different for my virtual parking garage.

there were a few other chargers on the other side of the street, but i didn't like the way the light was hitting them, and a couple had the hoods up, so no go on those.

i think it was the length of the front end on this and the reflection of the trees and sky that made me pick this particular something else. i know it isn't starsky and hutch's ride, but definitely getting into that time period.

imp

i stopped by the broiler the other day. was a bit more lively than on recent visits, yet still pallid compared to last summer.

as always, i find more interesting cars hiding in the back for whatever reason. this impala was one of those. on first look, it was an eye catcher, with it's shiny paint, glitter and all. but on closer inspection, there are a few imperfections on the pinstriping/airbrushing, but maybe it was just because i was getting up close and personal with the thing. still, it's a pretty thing just the same.