Exotics Car Show – Redmond

19. June 2013 · Comments Off on Exotics Car Show – Redmond · Categories: Photography · Tags: ,

I’ve been pretty bad over the last month or two and not posted that much on my blog.  I could tell you that I’ve been super busy at work (which is true) but the reality is I just needed a break.

Having said that the time eventually come around where I really missed going out with the camera and taking some pictures.  This is where I am now and I’m itching to go to the Olympic State Park for a day and see what I can shoot.  But that takes some organization so in the interim I hit Redmond for the Saturday Exotics Car show.

This week was “British Car Week” and there were loads of great cars to see.  To make things even better (or worse depending on your point of view) it was a brilliantly sunny day.  So while it was fun walking around in shorts taking pictures, I wasn’t alone!  Also really direct sunlight in the middle of the day doesn’t produce the most flattering pictures.

But I went for it anyway.

I really love the cars at these events but the people just get in the way.  I’m sure you know what I mean, I get all ready for that awesome shot, position myself at the right angle for a great composition, and some fat old dude and his wife walk in front of me and stop.  Very frustrating.

Anyway I took a LOAD of pictures of both Brit cars and others and decided to post my favorites here today.

In the British section they had everything from old Triumphs, Lotus, Minis, Jaguars, Aston Martins, Morgans, Bentleys and even a couple of McLarens.  They were really beautiful and if I had a spare couple of hundred thousand dollars I know what I’d spend it on.  (Actually that’s crap coz if had that much money lying around Lisa would grab it – but you know what I mean).

Hope you like the pictures.

Chevrolet Truck – Redmond

18. October 2012 · Comments Off on Chevrolet Truck – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

I went to the movies tonight after work (went to see Argo, it was really good I can definitely recommend it) and got home pretty late.  So I had to hit my backlog store for an image for the day.  (I still found time to shoot my Halo dudes but the serious picture is from earlier this year.)

I actually have a pretty large collection of backlog images and ended up selecting this view of a yellow Chevy Truck that I shot on August 12th.  This was shot at one of the Redmond Exotics car shows which don’t usually have trucks so it was a bit of a novelty.  The owner had opened up the truck hood and it looked all clean and shiny inside (nothing like my car) and there was so much chrome on the front it was well worth shooting from this perspective.

I find the best pictures for vehicles are taken low down on the ground.  It gives you a different perspective of the car or truck and usually looks cool.  This picture was no exception and think it came out well.

Carter found Lisa’s stash of English candy today and we caught him eating a “Pear Drop”.

Silver Cloud II – Redmond

10. October 2012 · Comments Off on Silver Cloud II – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

Those of you who visit my blog know I like to photograph cars.  Every week over summer Redmond would hold the “Redmond Exotics Car Show” and you’d get the chance to shoot loads of different types of cars – ranging from modern super cars to really old classics.  One weekend I came across this beautifully maintained 1961 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II.  It was quite something, the paintwork was in great condition and the black bodywork and silver chrome worked really well together.

When the owner came over he started the engine and considering this was a V8 engine it was amazingly quiet, they really don’t make cars like this anymore.  The interior was all real wood and leather and was probably more comfortable than my sofa at home.  The owner was so proud of his car he was literally preening.  Mind you I would have been the same if this was mine.

What was odd was seeing this amazing old car next to modern exotics like Lamborghini’s and Ferrari’s.  Given the choice I’d pick the Rolls any day.

I suggested to Carter that he and Master Chief needed to make some new friends, so they met up with Marcus Fenix for a chat.

Cars – Seattle Art Museum

22. September 2012 · Comments Off on Cars – Seattle Art Museum · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

Today was a really good day, I’m totally exhausted now of course but wait till you hear what I did.

This morning I got up at 8am (it was raining, so I guess summer is now over) and I headed out to pick up Chris Pearson (my photo buddy).  We hit the road and headed to Seattle (still raining – and the 520 bridge was closed for the weekend so we had to go the long way across the I90).

We arrived in Seattle at 9am and went to Pike Place Market to go on a Photography Walking Tour.  The tour lasted around 3 hours and we had a blast.  I’ve lived here 10 years but still learnt some new stuff about the city.  Our guide took us through the Market, past the “Gum Wall” (more on that in another posting), down Post Alley to the Art Museum, then down to the water front, and finally along the water then back up to the market.  It was fabulous and I too over 500 pictures.  (I bracketed a lot so really it was around 200 images).

Chris and I grabbed some lunch in Seattle and then headed home.  I then loaded the car with LOADS of camera gear and went off to shoot my first High School Senior photo shoot (more on that in the future too).  2 Hours later I was all done and headed home totally knackered!

Got in at 6:30pm – What a day!

I should say here that while the weather started off wet, once the walking tour started everything dried up and even the sun came out.  So it was a complete success.  I have loads of cool images to post, but Abi selected tonight’s shot.  We checked out the entrance of the city Art Museum while on the tour and they had these amazing cars hanging from the ceiling with neon (or LED, not sure) lights coming out of the cars.  It was very “arty” and looked fantastic!  I took loads of shots and selected this one as my favorite to post.  I think there were five cars in total, here I’m catching two of them.  The problem was, the lights kept blinking on and off and timing it right to get the picture below took a long time.  In the end I just held the shutter down to get the lights right and the result was great.

Really good day, love using Shutter Tours (here is their website, check them out: http://www.shuttertours.com/), and got some great shots.

The guys are getting stressed out waiting for the new Halo game to come out.  So they decided to try some Yoga to relax.

Alfa Romeo 8C Superleggera – Redmond

16. September 2012 · Comments Off on Alfa Romeo 8C Superleggera – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

I thought I’d take a break from Las Vegas today, you really can have too much of a good thing.  So I decided to post a car instead.  Yesterday I visited the Exotic’s Car Show in Redmond and saw some pretty cool cars.  One of my favorites was this Alfa Romeo 8C Superleggera.  Now I’ll be honest I have never seen one of these before.  At first I thought it was some sort or “bat mobile” rip off, but once I got close it was very obvious that this was a real car.

The owner of the car was demoing some of the cars features.  As the car came out in the 1930’s it didn’t have any turn singles on it.  Instead it had these little arms that popped out on either side when the driver pulled a lever.  The car has amazing lines (the front engine compartment and wings being I thin the most impressive) and a beast of an engine.  It has a V8 3.8 liter engine and when the owner fired it up it really did sound like the bat mobile.

Obviously being something very different the car had people round it all the time.  I was pretty patient and waited and waited but I really wasn’t going to get a shot without spectators.  So I decided to cut my losses and do some magic in Photoshop.  So you can’t see them now but there were people all around the back of the car, and all along the other side.  It took me a couple of hours to remove them but you really didn’t want to see loads of people standing around the car.

To hide some of the “Photoshop” work I applied a heavy vignette too, that also had the benefit of drawing you in to the car.  I think the end result is pretty good and the car was amazing.  I really wouldn’t be surprised if this was the inspiration for Tim Burton’s bat mobile car, to me it looks pretty similar.

Carter was on candle duty tonight, this time to put them out.  Master Chief just watched.

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