what the hell am i doing?

i am sometimes asked this question when people see me down on the ground, right up next to a car with my camera. the answer is obviously, taking some pictures. really. lots of them. i think this year so far, i have taken over 10,000 images, and of that, several thousand are just from car shows. i easily take more than 300 a show, and that is not even taking pictures of every car there.

so then, you may wonder why i do not have that many cars posted here or on my flickr site. i want them to look better than your typical snapshot. if that's what you want, there are other websites to visit where people just basically upload their camera cards.

these cars are rolling pieces of art and history, and i dig them. so i try to capture what i saw, which one exposure just can't do. (exception: the close up macro images i usually don't do a thing to — nothing beats a prime lens, baby.) this takes disc space, time and some work. but i think it's worth it. contrary to what some may think, i'm not adding anything to the images, though i do sometimes get rid of a shadow or a light pole, and i will touch up your paint chips. i'm combining multiple exposures into one image, to get all the detail i can, to match what my eye sees at that moment.

let me show you this average shot of a car:

before

it's just kind of...a car. and a shot you see every day, albeit, i took it from down low, which isn't the average point of view. now here is what i get from doing my thing, and more interesting, thanks to the sunset:

after

some may wonder how i choose what i put up here on tweakedpixels.

• i have to like your car; mostly like them older than 1970. it doesn't even have to be perfect; some of my favs are all dinged up and rusty; somehow they have more character sometimes.


• have to have the hood closed—it ruins the lines of the car for me, and i don't need to see what you've done to the engine, though it may be very impressive (i think its a guy thing). i don't know what the parts are, and as long as a car runs, i'm happy for you. if i'm tired or already have a similar car in my collection, i'll probably just walk on by it; if i'm not, i'll ask if you could close it for a few minutes.


• the shot has to be interesting; i take a lot of angles, try to catch the car at different times of day, to find the shot that just makes the car look good

couple of other reasons a car makes it here or on flickr:

• you said hello. and i like your car. i'm shy by nature, and i am really trying to be more open. this hobby is really forcing me to get out of my shell, which i guess is a good thing, but it's difficult.


• you want to buy/bought a print.

so what the hell am i doing? i'm having fun. and now i'm off to the broiler for even more fun... :)

that's hot

this 1932 roadster was at the dove canyon show, at the 'friends' sports bar back in march. i've also seen it at fuddruckers. took this shot right before the owners called it a day. looks like it would be fun to drive, but what a mess it would make of your hair. lol.

thinking about going to pal joey's dream car revue tomorrow in santa ana. took quite a few pictures while i was there last time, and have bumped in to more than a few of those cars at other shows (not literally). nice people too. i'm so tired today...been a long week at work...just looking through some of my older pics. nice to have so many to choose from, and so many waiting for processing...sometimes i wish it would rain more often.

fabulous thunderbird?

check out this awesome 1958 thunderbird from tonight's downey show at the broiler. it was pretty clean, if you didn't look too long at the bumpers. had a little gnarly rust going on, but nothing that took away from the lines of the car. got a shot of the back end as well...maybe some other day.

not a lot of variety or cars i like to shoot tonight. figure between the rain last night and the chill in the air, a lot of people stayed home. still nice to get out after sitting in front of my computer all day at work.

that guy on the left thought i wanted a picture of his butt, since i was on the ground. no thanks. lol.

oldies but goodies

finally made it out to the foothill ranch show yesterday. quite a few cars that i've seen before, more that i haven't. overall not that big of a showing for a once-a-month thing. anyway, i enjoyed myself and everyone was either friendly or indifferent.

the couple that owned this car came right over to talk with me. they'd seen me before at a couple of other shows, and had lost the scrap of paper that had the link to my website on it. damn, i really need to spend an afternoon setting up a business card and ordering them...i'd just rather spend the time working on a picture. :)

i admit, you'd have to introduce yourself to me a couple of times before i remember you—i'm more likely to remember your car and which show i saw it at if i took a picture of it.

well, since they asked and were very enthusiastic about my portfolio, and apparently i had shown them the previous shots in the camera, here is the shot from yesterday, and what do you two think? i do have a couple of other shots from a previous show, just haven't gotten around to doing anything with them yet, and thought maybe this one was more interesting anyway.

oh how does it get so late...i stayed at work too late today. night!

let's go to the hop

i think this is a 1949 ford, but i'm not sure. this one got one of the primo spaces, at least for a while.

i think i've done enough of these for the day–i'm spent. back to work tomorrow, and expecting a long day...and a long week. why do they put weekends so far apart?

pink when i turn out the light

this 1957 thunderbird was hiding in the back lot of the broiler. sun setting making the paint go salmon color. hope the owner enjoyed the show while i enjoyed their car.

ford flamer

check out the flame job on this puppy. owner corrected me: 1950 businessman's coupe [thanks!] i think its a 1949 ford custom...i hate when all the identity stuff is removed and have to guess at what a car used to be. not that i know car models anyway, but i like to have some way of tagging my pictures. this was at the main street show in garden grove this past friday evening. not as many cars as there was when i visited in march. i suspect i didn't stay late enough, though i was there for 2 hours, shooting and waiting to see what other surprises would drive up.

not too many people on the side lots, nor even that many on the main street to get in the pictures. i think they were still hanging out in the restaurants or quenching their thirst while i was there. more room for me to get the shots i wanted, so much the better. i figure the more pictures i take, the better they will get. oh and you should see some of the prints i have of these cars. i just got a batch of 8x10s printed on a metallic finish paper...wow! ask to see them if you catch me at a show.

got a woody

this one courtesy of the garden grove main street show back in march. i really liked this show, as i mentioned before. so many cars, not enough light. i haven't had time to go back yet. friday nights are always so busy for me...juggling priorities.

a lot of the cars were parked close together, making them more difficult to get a clean shot. this woody kinda had made it's own space on the sidewalk, near the entrance to another parking area. i had to patiently wait for people to move out of the way, since it was a high traffic crossing. could barely get my tripod set up without worrying about people tripping, so i had to do this quickly. wish i could have gotten a little more to the right to show more of the siding. oh well.

well, i'm going to be very busy at work this week, probably working some overtime. probably a lot of overtime in the coming couple of months. will make it difficult to work on my cars here and/or attend shows. that sucks. especially when it's supposed to rain this week — time not at shows meant time to work on my pictures.

galaxie 500

this ‘64 ford galaxie 500 was from the first night i visited the downey bob's big boy broiler show in march. it's owned by a very nice couple, who chatted with me for a few minutes. i talked to the wife, who was saving the parking space, while her husband fetched the car from the back lot. mentioned that i'd eventually post it on my flickr site.

saw them the other day, parked in about the same spot. i know they've been patiently waiting to see their car here. so i figured i should go see what it looked like. turned out all right. even got the burger boy sign in there. hope you two like it :)

my older brother had a ‘66 galaxie 500 when he was in high school. fixed it up nice. can't remember whether he sold it or my sister crashed it. i'll have to ask.

Update on 2010-04-20 01:22 by kathy

so i asked my mom about my brother's galaxie. she said he'd seen the battered car sitting in an old neighbor's driveway forever, and finally got up the nerve to ask about it. the old man sold it to him for $1. he spent a year fixing it up, even painting it himself - i remember helping him sand it. he drove it for about a year and sold it to my sister's friend when he was going away to college. she promptly went out and crashed it in a ditch. so much for that.

ford flambé

ok, it was pretty, but a little over the top for a classic. but it made a nice picture. really didn't need to do much to it - really was this color. a real "look at me, look at me" car.