For regular readers of this photography website, I often say when I go to car shows I usually focus on detail shots of cars because getting good, full shots are nearly impossible due to lots of people around, other cars parked too closely, and often bad light. There were not so many people around this classic Cadillac Coupe deVille, but I still mostly focused on the details because they were so interesting to me. What kind of car has two hood emblems? When is the B-pillar all the was in the back and emblazoned with yet another badge? Then what I am pretty sure did not come from the factory, how often do you see a skull floating in the cabin?
This is an unusual blog post or me as I do not usually post much personal content on this, my business website. It is also extremely rare that I have an entire weekend off, and even rarer that it is spent out of town on an overnight trip that was not part of a photo job. Then also I have not really talked about realizing a life long dream a few months ago of owning a proper sports car. However, a weekend trip to Las Vegas, New Mexico with Jessica and our dogs Kiki and Artie was that good I decided to share. This all came about because of the RSW Cruise 2019, otherwise it would never of happened!
Going for details with car show photography in Albuquerque
To my surprise the car show featured at Albuquerque Summerfest 2019 was much bigger than I expected. As with most car shows, get photos of entire cars is a challenge due to people walking all around the cars, so as is my usual custom, I focus on getting detail shots, this time with my trusty 50mm f/1.8 lens. In the lead photo I cleaned up the background removing a few people to leave a clean shot of the front of a powerful yellow 427 balanced by the double center white line passing through the bottom of the frame. I look for contrasting lines, with the double white and then the black stripe on the car.
On a recent rural land real estate photo trip to Las Cruces I returned to an area I was in just six weeks earlier. Reaching that rural land property was some of the hardest offroad driving I have had to do in New Mexico. Checking the maps I knew the recent property would require the exact same troublesome washed out, dirt road. However, the desert is an ever changing landscape and this time the road was totally different. Gone were the washed out foot wide gaps, filled in by a chalky sand. This became its own hazard as the chalky sand was inches deep and I had to switch to “sand” traction mode to get through the deeper sections!
First time shooting for Bonhams Auction House in Santa Fe
I got a sudden call from Bonhams Auction House to photograph a beautiful Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce up in Santa Fe this week. This was a very nice surprise! I contacted the owner and arranged a time to bring my camera and tripod to make auction style photographs of the car. Shooting a car for auction photographs means shooting it from every single angle to start, then if it is a convertible like this Alfa Romeo is, repeating that with the top down! My favorite part of the shoot is being freed from the tripod to walk around the car with my macro lens on looking for unique details of the car. I finish with using off camera flash to make the interior shots.
At car shows it is hard to get a great shot of a complete car due to lack of space, lots of people, and lots of reflections in the sparkling paint jobs on display. That’s why I often focus on details and bring either my macro lens or my 50mm lens to show off one particular feature of a car that catches my eye. I really like the dashboards of classic cars so I always get some of those shots. This time what stood out to me most was the largest convertible hard top I have ever seen frozen in motion (see above). Or maybe it was the 1950s car seat??? (see below) What stands out the most to you from the 35th Annual NMCCC Museum Car Show?
I have now had my Jeep Renegade Trailhawk for one year. It has become as integral a part of my photography business as anything in my camera bag. I put almost exactly 20,000 miles on it in that year’s time! I regularly travel to all corners of New Mexico for photography work, often with the last few miles of each of those trips being off road. Switching from a compact sedan to a Jeep has allowed me to do more photo work without having to rush to get a rental vehicle back so when I am at these remote places, I can add on a visit to places like City of Rocks. In this past year the Jeep has also taken me through Monument Valley, Durango, Colorado, Phoenix, Arizona, and more! No matter where I have driven it, and what I have driven it over and through, the Renegade has not let me down!
