aztechie

still a chevy, but one i don't normally post. i'll do something else next time. sheesh.

a ladder would have been good about now. your basic aztec and nekked girls scene.

backside story

found a group of impalas at san fernando in the new lot they opened this year. love the '59s. plain vanilla up front, party in the back.

so the owners are all sitting behind the cars, enjoying the shade and something that smells vaguely of skunk. i think they're feeling pretty relaxed by this time of day. 

so i'm trying to jam myself between them and the back of their cars, trying to get the best angles on the fins and stuff. i don't know if they're enjoying the show, because i'm crawling around down low and looking up into the viewfinder, so you know, my back end is behind their back end, and you know...

whatever. so i see this nice view of the car, and i really really want the shot. and as i'm setting it up and about to click the shutter, this lady walks over to talk to a couple of guys that are just out of the frame. so, okay. i'll wait. patience usually wins out in this situation. happens all the time. after a few minutes, i'll try the meaningful look at the interloper. if they continue to be clueless, i suppose i start glaring, but not going to ask them to move, as they have just as much right to be there as i do.

at some point after ten minutes of looking balefully at her, and chatting with the owners, i'm getting overheated, there are plenty of other cars to shoot, and she isn't budging, and probably never even noticed me sitting there.

usually, i wouldn't wait that long, but i like the car. usually, i'd just pick up my stuff and move along. but no, this was kinda starting to make me smile, so i shot it. if she can ignore me, i can ignore her. i like the car. i didn't like the skunk. the end.

free at last, free at last

i was going to post this picture yesterday, in between packing up my belongings and cleaning, as my son was returning home from his six weeks in europe yesterday evening. but of course, the internet decided not to work, so all i could do was unplug and pack up the computer to bring back home to whittier.

i'm pretty sure the dog did it. i mean, disabled the internet, so i'd have to pay attention to him. he already figured something was going on, with all the activity that was not normal for a weekend. probably just hit the cable with his tail while he was under the desk.

this buick was from last weekend's sultans show up at signal hill park. i thought the turnout was decent, though i did  hear some rumblings about not as many as were expected, blah, blah, blah. i think they always say that.

don't see many of these cars, and it was sitting up on a hill at the edge of the show, so fewer people in the way. took a bunch of shots, but on a quick glance through the pics, liked this one for the moment, so showing here. ask me again tomorrow, and i'd probably pick a different angle. i do like the shot from the tail end, because it has the swoopy fins that many cars of that year seem to have to some degree.

chatted a little with the owner and his buddy while i shot a few from the back. says he mostly goes to local shows and not all that often, so pretty sure he won't be at the uptown whittier show next week (i will be there, as usual, its my hood, so i can). he did say he was going to take it down to the belmont show whenever that is, but i've heard it gets pretty crowded, so i haven't made the time to go in previous years. who knows, maybe i will this year. depends on what i'm doing.

shot a panorama of his dashboard, because i'm always looking for a nice dashboard to update the one at the top of this page, but just can't seem to find a better one yet. i really liked his decoration hanging from the mirror. didn't ask him if there was a story behind it, as in did he recently get married, or did he just think it was cool.

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like i said previously, i've been able to get out to a few shows on the weekends and shoot, but have just been unable to do more than download and backup the pictures before the dog got impatient with me.

i'm just back from the unidos show this morning, which wasn't as busy as they'd have liked it to be. someone said it was because of the car parts show over at pomona fairgrounds, and some other show going on at the same time. so my better half has just got my computer going again, and i'm downloading pics from this morning while i post this picture intended for yesterday.

thanks to the guys who have been handing off flyers to my better half to give to me, at the couple of shows he went to without me. he thinks its pretty funny when they hand him a flyer for me, and i'm shooting a car nearby — apparently that happened today. i totally understand though, he's so much easier to talk to with his bubbly personality.

i'm blathering on, and i've got several weekends of car show pics to sort through for another post later today. hoping to get back to a more regular schedule of playing with my pictures now, so do check back again, if i talked to you recently.

spudnut racing

quick pic. already running late on somewhere i'm supposed to be. 

found this rat rod way out at the end of the street, on the other side of the railroad tracks, at the rialto run whatcha brung show. i think the owner next to him said they'd arrived late, so parked out there in the shade. they did also get out and drive the circuit once in a while. the other owner also said i'd made this guy's day because i bothered to take a picture of it. such small things can make people happy. don't think i gave him a card, so i suppose he'll never see it, but its here, hiding on the internet in plain sight. you never know.

ttfn

deep sadness

i just learned today that jae bueno had passed. i did not know him well, and had only spoken with him a few times at shows. he was always very nice, and i was always too shy to just go up and say hello, save one time in santa ana. i barely recognized him when i last saw him at a viejitos show several months ago.

he occasionally took the time to comment on my pictures, if he had a story to relate to whatever i'd said in my post. i admired his work through his blog, flickr pages and in low rider magazine. it is a great loss to car culture and photography.

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this was the first car i shot at the old memories show this past weekend. first of the the phalanx of old memories cars lining the entry to the show area. i preferred this view of it, rather than the other side, showing the line of cars and buildings and a billboard. just so cluttered. keep it simple, stupid, they always said in school; and i would say it worked best in this case, even if it is kind of a cliché image in front of a loading bay. it is such a nice turquoise, even in the morning shadow of the building.

i hadn't realized it, but the owner had been watching from not too far away. i'm not sure if he was waiting on me so he could get something from his car, but he did thank me for taking a picture of it. how could i not? thank you for bringing it out for me to shoot.

call it a day

going to be transporting my puter to another location tomorrow, so it will probably be a couple of days before i post again. but then again, maybe i'll post one more time before i move it. got one or two car shows to visit tomorrow, so you know, gotta back up my pictures and that usually leads to a post...

did three shows yesterday. well, only really shot anything at two. the one at the elks club didn't have anything i felt like shooting, and only made one loop through the show. usually i can find some viejitos there, but they were no where to be seen.

found this one at ruby's before getting some dinner. i've seen it before. i always love the hood ornaments on these.

anyway, i'm not feeling well, so i'm going to take it easy the rest of the day. ttfn.

feeling old

i think i can almost see my mom in the mirror. eh, probably just the invite for another high school reunion i got the other day. thinking about skipping it. no one will miss me anyway. i can spend that money on a date out with my better half instead and have more fun.

i'm tired. wasn't as busily stressed at work today. short reprieve before another storm there. they're rethinking one of my projects and will combine it with another, so it's just a bit delayed is all. no worries, there's another rush job coming in tomorrow.

thinking about going to the broiler on wednesday. wonder if it will be worth the drive? i know i'm getting burnt out at work, when all i can do is count down the days until the next weekend before the weekend is over.

i suppose we're late deciding on doing a vacation this year, so i don't have that to look forward to yet. i do get to go to vegas in september, but by myself, and i don't gamble, drink or smoke, so what do i do? same as last time i went...look up some car shows, though i probably will only stop at the one on the way home. hate to lose my parking place once i'm in the garage.

i get to take care of my son's dog while he goes off to england to study law for a month. i guess i can pretend that's a vacation, though it will force me to cut back on going to most car shows until he gets home.

i will definitely make an exception and go to the san fernando high school show at the end of july though. didn't even get through half the cars there before we had to leave last year. too hot for my better half's nephew.

all right. i'm just rambling now, so i guess i'll call it a night. what a geez.

low-n-kool

what a day i had. and can only expect the same tomorrow. and traffic. just loving the evening drive. not. 

and now its 10:30 at night...why the h am i still awake??? oh ya, cuz my better half is doing work for work in the other room. i suppose i'm tired enough i won't hear the fans running on the puter.

anyway, here's a nice pontiac from chicano park. never seen one like it, and it was just hard not to notice it.

flamed and a little grumpy

the lovely couple that own this hot rod have been waiting a month to see a new picture of their baby. they thought they'd been going crazy and missed it, but no. i just don't post everything, especially if i'm not satisfied with it. i suppose i have an old email from them somewhere, so i could have let them know. or i guess i could have written something here. but then i wonder if they're just looking for the picture and not reading it, they wouldn't know then either.

i had been having an internal arguement over a couple of shots of it from a show out in riverside, but there was something in each that was just not doing it for me.

then this weekend, a couple of local shows i'd heard about and planned to attend, just simply didn't happen. so having awakened at an ungodly hour for a saturday, took my better half along for the ride out to rialto, promising him that i don't drive out there anymore if it isn't worth it. i'd scoped out a few while my son went to ucr, so i knew this would be ok.

and i kinda guessed they'd be there too. i saw them drive in as we walked over the train tracks to the main strip. we didn't actually get there until after 8am, so the sun was already past the sunrise we were looking for, but not so high as to be irritating.

i took a few shots early, then wound back around and took these two before i left. i think either one looks better than the shot with gary's favorite outhouses.

my better half went to the car show with me, so afterwards, we went out to chino planes of fame for him. he had fun...hardly anyone there, and a nice breeze for a change.

thanks for telling about another show the next day, but i just couldn't do another whole day in riverside.

oh ya, and there's the little grumpy on the back of the other car. didn't notice him last year, when i was just all about the skulls.

oh, and buy a print here

leadrag

i've seen this one many times. i thought i'd posted it at some point, but i'm not finding it right now. well, i know i have other shots, but not very satisfying ones.

this is the first time i've seen it with the top up. i suppose because it's next to those trees, those lovely, drippy, sappy trees. and the birds.

i'm not saying it's my favorite car, but i do just like the challenge of trying to get a good shot of cars i see far too often. usually solved by a change in location. like this one; they killed off the fuddrucker's show in el toro...all that construction had pushed it too far from the main drag, and no one knew it was there. here it is at chik-fil-a, where you are separated from the main street by a few feet of concrete, dirt, trees and flowers.