what's up?

bee

1950 oldsmobile

i made it out to ruby's for the first time this season, this weekend as well. happened to have friday afternoon off for a change, so waited to see if my better half to get home, to see if he wanted to join me.

dude needs to get his air conditioning fixed in his car. after his hellish drive home, with the trapped heat of the day and warm wind blowing in through the windows, he was in no mood to go back out. completely understandable. i hate friday evening traffic more than anything—well only slightly more than evening traffic any other day of the week.

anyway, it was about as expected, a month into the season. there were cars. just not a lot of what i like to shoot. there were a few of the old regulars, and a few old regulars, that were not there...hopefully, just because they didn't go that evening, but you never know...

i'd heard the first couple shows of the season had been jammed with cars i'd love, but i just couldn't work them into my schedule. now this thin showing i was experiencing was no suprise to me, and it was fine. i'm still kicking the tires on these new camera bodies, making sure they are working well enough.

in the few lanes of cars, were some cars i'd never seen before, so i started with them. this bright yellow olds, is one of those. well, i just don't see too many oldsmobiles, actually, and i don't recall seeing one of this model. 

curiousity brought out one of the owners...the lady of the couple, of course...to ask about my photography. she was delightful, and we had a quick chat. told her i'd post a picture, so here you go.

as she walked away, she brushed a bee off the hood. i hadn't noticed it before, but there it is on the hood in the picture. i'd have shot a close up of it, but too late, it was gone.

schwetty

1950 chevy deluxe

i know, i know. i owe some people pictures of their cars from the last few shows. patience grasshoppa.

got up early and headed over to the car show at the crossing / four square church. roll in wasn't until eight, but i was there at seven. hoped to at least shoot the host clubs' cars. was there early, also, hoping to get in and out before the temperatures rose too high. 

well, being a bright and mostly cloud free day, it was already warm at seven, and quickly heated up. quite a change from last weekend. i'll take overcast any day. 

i'm curious how this show is run. they said it was their tenth annual show. it's near home, so easy to leave and go back, if i fill up my memory cards.

i've been to at least three, and i think a different club has hosted each year. this year was hosted by kustom oldies. they seemed efficient enough, but while i was only there until about ten thirty, and the lot did mostly fill up, it lacked a lot of the cars and clubs that i'd expect to be there.

i wrote it off to people being at the la roadster show at pomona, or one of the other nearby shows. i briefly thought about going to one in la habra, then after chugging a bottle of water in the shade where my car was parked, called my better half, instead, to see if he'd been called in to work—no—and if he wanted to go get lunch. so i did that instead.

i went round the parking lot four or five times, following the changing light and shooting new arrivals.

saw this chevy there. loved the color. the owners stopped me for a moment, wondering what i do with the pictures. the wife seemed interested in getting a t-shirt or something with a picture on it. sure i know a vendor that does shirts, mugs, stamps, lots of junk. as usual, told them to wait and see if they like the picture first. i liked this one best.

oh, better half reminded that i should mention that i got another five pictures in the oc fair again. two cars, a hood ornament, a portrait, and a landscape. i try to mix it up sometimes. and again, he says, i'm already a winner, just to have something to hang at the fair; a ribbon is just icing.

fine

1963 chevy impala

i'm back. i did finally leave the house, and go to my mom's.

better half started blasting the room i was in with lysol, while i was trying to eat dinner. sense of smell is intricately locked in with sense of taste, and since i think lysol reeks of vomit, it was going to ruin my dinner, that he had so graciously walked uptown to get me. i was afraid the next step was that he was going to go stand behind his mother's wheelchair, with her in it, and draw a circle of salt around them, and start shouting, "thou shall not pass!"

seems the only thing we ever have difficulty with is coping with germs around his mother when we're ill and who would kick the other's ass—underdog vs mighty mouse.

everyone's fine, btw.

loved the color of this car, and how the light was hitting it.

countdown

ford hot rod

saw a couple of these hot rods down the street earlier. the lady directing staging made them move before i could set up a shot, then they moved again.

found them here on my way back up the street. not my typical car to shoot, but sometimes, i just do. maybe it was just the light.

do you think this looks ok? i think the last few pictures might need to be reworked. i've been experimenting with my process, and they've been a little too dark for my taste. pushed this one more toward what i used to do, and i like it a bit better.

less than an hour until game of thrones...eeeeee!

i wandered uptown to get lunch. figured if i got too out of it, i could just uber back the few blocks to the house. i was ok. hardly coughed at all. sun came out on the way back, so had to take off my jacket.

figured i'd get the work out before i play. got something ready for work, washed some laundry. watched some videos...educational, and youtube...wasting time. better half and his mom got home.

better half treating me like i'm deathly ill, but i feel fine, just sound like i'm possessed just a tad. now i'm slathered with icky sticky vicks goo. smells great, but it makes you chilly, like a cool breeze blowing across my chest, and my shirt is stuck to me. so gross.

sick

1936 oldsmobile

ugh. perfect weekend overcast, lots of car shows running today, and here i sit, coughing up a lung. oh well.

better half took his mom out to downtown disney. don't have passes anymore, but it has been a long time for a disney fan to be away, and she wanted to go shopping. probably better to keep her away from me. lol.

i'm hungry, so i'll probably put on a jacket and zombie walk uptown to find something to eat. don't feel like calling dominos or cooking whatever might be in the fridge or pantry.

feels better to sit up rather than lay down, so i'll probably type up notes from my classes or work on some more pictures. take a wild guess what i'll probably do...killing time until game of thrones is on...

this pic has been sitting here for a while, so i'll just post it now, then get back to the whittier car show shots.

chicano park show, barrio logan. should they just call it the pachuco car club show? the last few years, they seem to line up all of their cars down this side of the street. it's their hood. they can.

havana house

1948 chevy fleetline

i used a couple of new camera bodies at this show. still judging how they perform. the pictures seem a little dark to me, but that could just be my eyes or my monitors.

i've posted a couple of the promised pic already today, so i'll throw up one that i just like. shocker it's a fleetline, right?

guys seem to like parking anywhere near the cigar shop here. it's a popular hangout any night of the week. i think it just stanks—i'm not a smoker—but i'd equivalate it to the smell of starbucks too—i'm not a coffee drinker either.

in this case, i just like how the colors in the morning light all play well together.

i really meant to go to a carshow this morning. i was going to get up and go to rialto at five in the morning. or any of the other shows that were closer, whose flyers i had started seeing pop up yesterday on other photographers' instagrams.

i had an alarm set for four-thirty. thing of it is, i think i may have brought home a cold from san diego, and after arriving home thursday, rapidly got ill, and have been a bit wobbly since then. it's evolved through having a sore throat, runny nose, and sneezing. the usual. but no fever. hardly ever get a fever anymore.

about one in the morning, i woke up and just shut off the alarm. i know my better half; while he would not prevent me from going out, would strongly discourage me from going anywhere this weekend. and i have a busy week waiting for me at work, to make up for being out of the office for a week.

just as well i didn't get up early, since when i did wake up, it was lightly raining outside, which continued most of the morning. so most likely, it would have rained on my parade at any show i might have chosen to go to. so i'm kinda disappointed, but i do like the overcast and the rain.

mother-in-law said there had been a storm off the coast, that unexpectedly decided to blow inland. 

if this cold progresses any further, i'll have to leave this house, and go stay at my mother's, lock myself in the back bedroom, or hide out in a hotel. apart from a stuffy nose, i feel fine, but i shouldn't stay here, with my elderly mother-in-law too much longer. just have to decide when to leave, or wait to be told to get out...

better leather

harley davidson heritage softail

ahem. let's get to last week's whirlwind through the whittier uptown carshow. i've got several to prepare for those few people who asked me to post pictures of their cars.

as i mentioned before, i only had six hours out there, and i still didn't get around to everything. had to get to the train station, and i've been gone most of the week.

it seemed mostly organized this year, though i don't remember checking what time they started rolling the cars in from staging. i was busy, going from flower to flower to flower...i mean car to car to car, trying to shoot as many as i could in my short amount of time.

was out there at five-thirtyish a.m. where were you?

found this motorcycle down in the rick's parking lot, the owner nearby keeping an eye on his bike. he offered to move it, nah, i'd find it later for other shots. this is how i found it, so leave it be.

there was so much detail on this bike, that it seems to be less about the harley itself—which is pretty nice, shiny and pinstriped—and more about the leather.

everything decorated in an aztec theme, with the usual characters and patterns you'd expect. skillfully done and fitted, i asked the owner about it. 

he said he'd save himself a buttload (he didn't exactly use that word, my edit) of cash by taking it down to mexico himself versus paying a guy here, to basically do the same thing.

he had to point out that there was a little felix the cat medal/figure on the side. probably thought i'd appreciate that since i was wearing my felix the cat chevrolet shirt. if he hadn't mentioned it, i wouldn't have noticed it, it was low, on the side next to the wall, and there was so much other detail to look at.

anyway, really nice work here.

and the skies opened

1929 ford

yo, gary! here's your car!

i met gary several years ago, when i was first out shooting cars. he had a bel air back then. i think he said he still has it, but now i only see him once a year, maybe, and at the last couple shows, he's been putting around in this emerald ford. it's a jewel. but it ain't a chevy.

took a few shots of it here, at the chino corn feed run, not long before the rain started. ya, gary, i think someone up there was targeting your car.

the other shots were so similar to what i shot at another show, that you might think i masked it out and dropped it on this street.

i like the distortion of this shot; the car just seems more threatened by whatever that wormhole in the clouds might be.

----

one more day in sd. classes all day today, followed by a few hours at petco park. my friend was unable to join me, but i have no problem watching baseball in a stadium on my own. i like to sit way up at the top, as close to behind home plate as possible. just more fun up there, and climbing all those stairs is just good for buns and thighs, right?

on track

1962 chevrolet impala

sucks. whittier uptown car show is today.

and i had to leave.

we got out there about five-fifteenish and started shooting right away.

it was all about right away. i had set my alarm for ten, to head back home and have some time to download pics, take a quick shower, and have lunch before heading to the train station.

as my better half expected, i started negotiating with myself as it got closer to ten. reset the alarm for ten-thirty, then eleven. gave up the downloading of pics, to get a little more time in. finally did pack it up at eleven, though i did also consider catching the next train, three hours later.

walked back to the house, got my not cold shower--it was hot out and it seemed unable to make anything cooler than lukewarm--but was better than nothing. ran around and grabbed the last items i needed to pack, and headed out the door.

didn't even open the camera bag, pictures will have to keep until i get back. it says the card is almost full, and i burned through one battery in about three hours, and some percentage of another. so either, i really did move hella fast between shots, each shot is a really big file, or i forgot to reformat the card last night. i know i reformatted, so i'll just hope that i just took a lot of pictures.

pretty much had used my main camera until it died last summer, and the twin to that one is on it's last legs, so i switched out and used two new camera bodies i earned with the chucky cheese point program we have at work. i call it that; its their reward thing they use instead of just giving cash or bonuses. the atta boy program.

saved up enough points and fortuitously, the cameras were on sale. hoping the shots came out all right. i'm sure they did. i think i got some good ones too.

better half dropped me off at the station, bought us a quick lunch in the little cafe, and he's heading back home, and back uptown to take more pictures. so say hey to him if you see him, and know that i'm so jealous.

found this impala at the vfw a few months ago. it's much too nice to be stuck here in the corner by the storage container and/or trash bins, but they do provide a nice color and texture contrast, i thought.

©2025 kathy gonzalez