Artistic Vehicles
Or, what I do when I get bored...
This is after the deadline for Car Week with Josh Weinberg, but I searched out these images and thought I’d share them today anyway.
I go to a lot of car shows and/or car museums when I get the chance. I grew up watching Indy and Stock car racing, so I have always had an interest in cars. As I got more into photography, my interest in cars became more about the aesthetics of the vehicles themselves.
When I first started photographing cars, I shot wide, mostly using a 17-40mm lens (in the past 15 years, anyway). I would do what I could to get the entire car in the frame. At car shows, that meant there were almost always people somewhere in the frame or in a reflection on the car.
I started taking my 70-300mm lens, and then when I got a new 100-400mm lens, I used that. Mind you, at this moment I have three lenses, 17-40mm, 100-400mm and a 100mm. That’s all I need for what I do. There are times when I only take the 100mm with me to a show.
More and more, I began to focus on the details. Using the 100-400mm allowed me to ‘remove’ the people from the frame quite easily.
I grew tired (I get bored easily) of photographing the hood ornaments, especially the ‘57 Chevys; there are almost always a row or two of them, it seems. I joke that I don’t need more photos of the ‘57 Chevy hood ornament. But if there is something unique about it, I’ll still grab a shot.
Now, when I’m wandering the aisles of a car show, I seek out the rare and/or unusual hood ornaments. If I can’t find them, I push myself to find new ways to photograph them and the other details of the car. Like in this image of the 1937 Packard, I saw the ball of bokeh light and moved myself around until it framed her head.
Another thing I’ve started trying to do is photograph the hood from the rear of the car. I used the roof of the vehicle to create a smoky/dreamy/foggy effect. It’s quite interesting when it works.
When I get really bored at car shows, I start playing around with the in-camera multiple-exposure function to see what I can create. This is fun and shakes up my creative brain. I use this method a lot to get me out of a rut with nature and architecture as well.
The last piece of this, trying to create unique automotive images, is processing. I will experiment with presets, filters, textures and anything else I can find to see what might happen when applied to automotive images. It’s hit or miss but fun to see different results.
I wrote about photographing cars in a prior post:
And included a review of my 2024 automotive images here:
Getting ‘geared-up’ for this coming car show season!
Much of my photography is for sale. I’m working on new galleries here.
Have I inspired you in some way? I love a good cup of tea or a glass of wine.
Fun for sure!! 😍
I'll tell you what, after this week of your notes, and now this post, I'm definitely going to start pay more attention to hood ornaments on cars.