Car Photo of the Day: Galería de los Pícaros

This La Carrera Panamerica car was photographed on the Going to the Sun Rally a few years ago. One of those sort of shots I love to make over and over again because they just look… awesome.

This one is badly lit we were northbound mid-morning, so the sun was in the wrong spot. It is also just a bit off to the left side of the frame, losing just enough of the car off the right side to annoy the hell out of me. Still, it is a wild looking car, and the image has a sort of je ne sais quoi quality to it… let’s call it “roguish.”

Making these sorts of photos involves setting up a camera for mid-fast shooting (fast enough to keep the car sharp, slow enough to blur the background just a bit), then holding the camera as low as I dare, with an outstretched arm, out the open passenger door of the E-type. I hold down the shutter and fire four frames per-second or so and pan the camera to (hopefully) keep the subject car in-frame as my driver blows by in a roar of hot metal and burning hydrocarbons. One of these days I’m going to lose a camera, or maybe finger.

It will be for me like van Gogh’s ear; a willing sacrifice for my art.

For all you car-spotters: recognize the rig?

Car Photo of the Day: Stalking Big Cats at Night.

Digital cameras seem to have the ability to shoot just a bit better in low light than film cameras ever did. (Leica excepted of course!) With flexible and higher ISOs available in the film days, you can generally get shots on chip that would have been fruitless on film. My old Olympus camera was pretty darn good in low light, with a fairly fast f1.8 lens. It is what I used to shoot this image.

This was shot at an informal Jaguar owners’ get together in San Francisco a few years back. Several E-types were parked in a row, and after the dinner was over, as guys were standing around chatting, I wandered about taking photos. Grabbed a few good ones, but this is one of my favorites of the bunch. Car spotters can shout out the differences between each car.

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My new camera’s fastest lens is f3.5, which isn’t going to cut it for me long term. This is why I’m looking around for a fast lens at the moment. I have an amazing “photo assignment” coming up that will require a lot of night shooting. (More news on that as it develops… pardon the pun!)

Car Photo of the Day: It’s Red … and Weird.

When topless this car is truly elegant in appearance (though apparently not in performance), and in an odd bit of connectivity I owe my very existence to this car. However, much like the Jaguar XK 120, when fitted with a hard top or in Coupe form it is as if Venus herself has been transformed into a hunchback.

Can you name the car?

Car Photo of the Day: Where’s my cloning tool?

And I’m not talking about the car! To me this is just such a nice shot. Taken at the Annie & Steve Norman Classic Motorcar Rally a few years back. The classic BMW Coupe and the Port Gamble water towers look great. The dumpster and crane in the background? Not so much. In cases like these I usually reach for the cloning tool in Photoshop and start removing such minor eyesores from my backgrounds. Not today though, too busy. Sorry!

Early Spring

A Bloomin' Early Spring

We’ve had an exceptionally mild winter this year. Very little rain, even less snow, and since the new year, very warm temperatures. This tree usually blooms in late March, or early April. Here it is February 28th and it has burst out with color.

This is a shot from the G1, captured in camera raw format, with mild edits made in Aperture, then saved to JPEG using Photoshop’s “save for web” feature.

What. A. Game.

Excited Wil (Wheaton) is excited. on Twitpic

This photo (of and by my fellow Goaltender Wil Wheaton) best represents today’s Olympic Gold Medal game in Men’s Ice Hockey that wraped up the 2010 Winter Games just over the border from me in Vancouver, B.C. If you missed it, you missed an epic game, filled with more thrills and excitement than can be described. Team USA came back from a 2-0 deficit and tied the game with 24 seconds to play. This forced the game into overtime.

Overtime. Sudden Death. It is how the ultimate games should always finish. Play until you score. None of this shoot-out stuff. The 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway ended their Gold Medal game with a shoot-out after overtime expired, with Sweden edging Canada for the Gold. As a hockey fan it was awful to watch, as games should be played to win, not forced into an artificial conclusion via a shoot-out. Overtime play however is never artificial. It is thrilling beyond belief because it is real, it is intense, and the end can come at any moment. Some of the best games ever were decided in overtime. Many have become legend: The Easter Epic. Bobby Orr’s flying goal on May 10, 1970. The Miracle on Manchester. The “Monday Night Miracle” in game 6 of the ’86 Conference Finals. The epic goaltending battle between Hasek & Brodeur in the ’94 Playoffs (both had shutouts going, and Buffalo won in the second overtime 1-0 over the New Jersey Devils.) The five overtime Flyers-Penguins game of the ’00 Playoffs. The Canucks quadruple-overtime win over Dallas in ’07.

Nothing is more thrilling than overtime hockey.

Team USA played very well today. Our Goaltender Ryan Miller won a well-deserved tournament MVP award. They put on a show that nobody expected, and that delighted everyone who watched. They played their game, and took the heavily-favored Team Canada right to the very brink. Thank you Team USA. You earned every ounce of the silver around your necks, and then some.

Photo: E-type Tach

Speaking of photography… Here is a shot I just snapped off with the G1, right here on my desk. This is raw, and unedited, exported out of Aperture 3, just to show how nice this camera & lens combo is (14-45, at 45mm here, manual focus.)

The tach is out of the 65E for a refurb and upgrade. It has been inaccurate for a while and that will be fixed soon. It took me several hours of work to get the bezel removed!