CLASSIC CARS MACC FUND SHOW, PART 4

For the fourth and final post of my visit to the MACC Fund Car Show on Sunday, September 9th, I thought I would include a few of the more "artsy" shots that I took.  These were potentially instructive in that I wish that more of the photos that I took had been of this nature, and I am trying to analyze how they were different from some of the others that I took.

One of the cars that caught my eye had grille that was heavily laden with extremely highly polished chrome.

What I liked about it was the abstract pattern that the chrome made in the center of the grille.  Here is a close up of that feature.

And here is another shot of the passenger side of the grille.

Again, what I liked were the abstract patterns that the chrome was making.

I also liked the hood ornament on this Ford.

What made this shot work was the shallow depth of field, with crisp definition in the foreground fading out of focus toward the back.  This was taken at a mid-range aperture of f/9, like most of the other shots that I took.  The difference here was that I had positioned the camera very close to the ornament, and that served effectively to reduce the depth of field.

Here is another shot that I liked on a compositional basis.

It helped that I had included the radio antenna in the shot.

Then there was the 1953 Studebaker.  This car had a streamlined design that was probably many years ahead of its time.  It was too radical to be popular in its day.  The key was to choose an angle that would emphasize that design.  Straight-on shots didn't seem to show off the design as well as this, taken at an angle.

Finally, I have included a couple of shots of rearview mirrors.  What made these shots was not that the mirrors were particularly special--although their polished chrome was pretty nice--but that I was able to isolate them from the background by reducing the depth of field.

Both of these were shot at an aperture of f/4.

Taken with my Nikon D7000 with Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4 lens.

CLASSIC CARS MACC FUND SHOW, PART 3

For the third post of the photos I took at the MACC Fund Car Show, I am focusing on some of the more whimsical aspects of the show.  This was a show where attendees were encouraged to vote for favorites in various categories, and a lot of the entrants used various tactics in an attempt, I assume, to garner votes.  One example was this mid-1950s Chevy decked out with drive-in tray.

There was also a 1951 Willys that was decorated with machine gun shells, both projecting from the back of the cab, as well as draped across the top.

I think this is the most bullets I have seen in one location.

One of the cars that I enjoyed was actually a truck, a 1950 Ford pickup that did not appear to have had any sort of restoration, at least a far as its body was concerned.  My father used to drive a 1950 Ford pickup, and seeing this truck gave me a chance to reminisce a bit.

I particularly liked the truck's "patina."

Here was a fun jalopy, with an interesting stated function.

And here is a more serious 1929 Model A jalopy . . .

. . . with an appropriate license plate.

Then there was the guy with a cockatoo.  He was pleased to have me take a photo of him and his bird.

This was his entry, a 1959 Mercury.

I liked the angle I took on this shot, though I wish I had captured all of the taillight in the image.

OK, so the following was not part of the car show, but I liked the simplicity of this shot, which I turned into a B&W.

Taken with my Nikon D7000 with Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4 lens.

CLASSIC CARS MACC FUND SHOW, PART 2

This is the second post from my visit to the MACC Fund Car Show on Sunday, September 9.  The MACC Fund is short for Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer and was founded in Milwaukee in 1976.  It has been a major sponsor for fundraising efforts since that time.

In this post I want to focus on a few of the wild cars, both in terms of style and color, that were featured at the show.  Let's face it, this first car was not normal.  The colors would never have been imagined when this car was first conceived.

But I liked it anyway.  Here is a closeup of a headlight.

The same could be said for the following car.

And here is what appeared to be a cousin of the above two.

I particularly liked some of the details on this car.

But my favorite of this group was a beautifully finished coupe painted in an iridescent burnt orange.  Gorgeous.

Here is a closeup of the wheel.  There was a minor problem with the wheel (a scrape), but the design was still impressive.

I only wish I had taken photos of the car as a whole, but the details were really impressive.

Even the license plate was fun.

More to follow.

Taken with my Nikon D7000 with Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4 lens.

CLASSIC CARS MACC FUND SHOW, PART 1

On Sunday, September 9th, I went to the third annual MACC Fund car show in Franklin, Wisconsin, along with my camera.  This was my fourth experience photographing classic car events, and, considering that there would be 400-500 classic cars, hot rods, jalopies, etc., I knew I would be taking a lot of photos.  I wound up taking well over 200 shots about half of which I have kept, at least for now.  I decided that I would break up the event into a number of posts, perhaps focusing on a limited number of cars in each post.

Although I brought all of my lenses, I only used my trusty Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4 lens.  There was bright sunshine for the event, so shutter speed was not really a problem, even though everything was handheld.  Nevertheless, for the most part I kept the aperture at a mid-range of f/9.  I probably could have narrowed the aperture to f/22, but I felt that for most of the shots a little shallower depth of field would provide a better sense of depth to the shots.

To get things started, here are a couple of shots of the general scene.

These really do not do justice to the wealth of cars at the show, although they do indicate the wild colors of some of the cars in the show.  Interestingly, few of the cars were from the pre-1930s.  A great number were from the 1950s and 1960s, with a fair number more muscle cars from the 1970s.  I really didn't seem to have much interest in the 1970s cars.  Rather, I found myself concentrating on the cars from the 1950s.  I really had not been aware of styling in cars until the 1957 model year when almost every car received a major make-over and massive tail fins came into vogue.

One of the primo classic cars from that period was the 1957 Chevrolet, which sported definite but refined tail fins that included a load of chrome.  Those fins were the defining styling component and I took shots of a few.

I think the first of these shots--sighting down the fin--worked the best, even though one of the spectators was reflected in the shot, along with a neighboring car.

Going to the show gave me a chance to meet an old friend, who I knew would be at the show.  In fact, he had two of his cars there, a 1932 coupe and a very special 1956 Chrysler.  As usual, I found myself taking shots of only some small portion of the cars, including the taillight of his 1956 Chrysler, and the hood ornaments of each car.

I particularly like the shot of the Chrysler ornament, in part because of the contrast in color between the brown-orange of the hood and the blue of the sky reflected in the chrome ornament itself.  The Chrysler, which was impeccably restored (more recreated than restored, in truth), was huge.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the DeSoto was one notch down from the Chrysler in Chrysler Corp.'s lineup, and there was a 1957 or 1958 Desoto at the show.  The 1950s cars featured a lot of chrome, especially on the grille, and I took a shot of the DeSoto's grille and headlight area.

Note the half-chroming of the headlights.  Not sure what the benefit of that could be, but it had the effect of mirroring my image, something I generally try to avoid, when possible.

But the defining features of the Chrysler Corp. lineup, beginning in the 1957 model year, were their massive tail fins, and the DeSoto was no exception. So I tried to take some shots that would accentuate that feature.  To exaggerate the fins, I moved in close with the lens set at its widest angle to create some distortion.

I particularly like this last shot, as it features the car's nameplate as well as the fin.

More posts of the car show to follow.

Taken with my Nikon D7000 with Nikkor 24-120 mm f/4 lens.

NEW AT THE DOMES

I found myself back at the Mitchell Park Domes on Saturday, the 8th, and actually found some new things to shoot.  The first plant that caught my eye was one with heavily serrated leaves located in the Show Dome.  I took a number of shots, varying the number of leaves visible in the image and the depth of field.  I finally settled on a shot that revealed two separate leaves at differing distances from the lens.

I liked this shot the best because it shows off the serration and includes leaves of different colors.  I toyed with different depths of field but liked this one best, taken at an extremely narrow f/57, because it shows good detail in the middle leaf.

This second photo is one of a plant that I have shot before.

There's really not a lot going on in this shot.  This relatively large flower had almost pure white petals which, at best, served as a background for the stamen, which has an unusual structure, including a little green knob at the top.  Even though the stamen was leaning toward the camera, I was able to keep it in good focus at an aperture of f/6.3.  But because I was so close to the flower, the petals behind the stamen were totally out of focus.  I had taken another shot from a lower angle so that the petals behind had filled the image.  However, I liked this shot better because the dark space at the top provides some context.

Lately, I have been trying to take advantage of backlighting when shooting leaves.  The leaf in the photo below was quite large, 8-10 inches high, and was nicely backlit by the sunlight streaming through the glass of the Show Dome.

A new leaf, still all curled up, was sitting in front and I wanted to feature both in the shot.  My first few attempts positioned the curled leaf directly in front of the mature one, and I finally decided it would be better to put both the new leaf and the middle of the mature one off-center.  There is a softness to the texture of the leaf that I find interesting, even though a close examination reveals fine "grain" in that texture.  Here is another, close-up shot of the leaf that shows more of that grain texture.

And here is another plant in the Tropical Dome whose leaves were being backlit by the sun.

This was actually two separate leaves, which explains why the leaf on the right is somewhat out of focus, even though the shot was taken at an aperture of f/45.  Looks like a green pinstriped suit.

And, finally, here is a shot of another new flower located in the Show Dome.

The blossoms on this plant were about 1 to 1-1/2 inches across and had very interesting purple rays with light colored tips.  I was able to position the flower against a dark background that I darkened further in post processing.  The key here was to try to keep in focus as many of the ray tips as possible. The above shot was at an aperture of f/10, and I was pleased how good the focus was, although it was taken reasonably far from the subject flower.  Here is another shot from much closer, taken at an aperture of f/57.