(Nikon D700, 70-300mm at 112mm, ISO 250, Exposure 1/60 sec @f/11)

I like to take pictures of classic automobiles but dealing with lighting conditions that you can’t control, reflections of cars and people, etc. can make it difficult to get a nice final image. I like to focus on the details which make these cars so interesting and sometimes the reflections are really a distraction. In the image above, I actually liked the reflections. The picture shows a 1932 Packard Stationery Coupe on display at the Classic Car Club of America (CCCA) show held at the Gilmore Car Musuem near Kalamazoo, Michigan. I took the shot primarily because I liked the way the reflections looked in the curve of the spare tire holder and other places on the car.

There is much debate among photographers about whether to get the image right ‘in camera’ or ‘fix it later’. My feeling has always been that for many images getting it right ‘in camera’ simply means getting the composition and exposure that will allow you to develop the image in later steps, whether that be in a wet darkroom or a digital darkroom. In the case of this image, I knew that I liked the reflections and when I saw the image I imagined more of a painting than a photograph. I had a good idea of the processing that I would use on this. In this case, I chose the Topaz Simplify filter. I looked at some of the presets including BuzSim, Painting – Oil and Painting – Watercolor and decided that the Watercolor came closest to what I had in mind. I tweaked some of the settings and saved the image. The original image was a bit washed out and I wanted a bit more color so I then applied a curves layer to give the image some more color and contrast. If you compare the completed image above to the raw image below, I think you will see the difference it made.

Someday, of course, I really should learn how to paint and create a real watercolor, but for now this will do.

As always, comments are welcome and encouraged.

Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.

(Nikon D700, 28-80mm at 68mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/125 sec @f/8.0)

One of my favorite subjects to shoot are classic automobiles. In the past I’ve focused on exterior details, but after a while you need a break from taking another fender shot. As a result, I’ve started spending some more time trying to get some interior shots to go along with the exterior shots. Interiors are harder because the lighting is generally bad, particularly for coupes and sedans. Also, most owners don’t let you climb in the car so you have to find a way to get your camera in a position which will take a nicely composed shot.

The image above is of a 1958 Corvette which was on display at the first ever “Cars R Stars” car show held at the Packard Proving Grounds in Shelby Township, Michigan. I like this shot because of all the circles and curves. There is the curve of the steering wheel, the semi-circular speedometer, the circular gauges, etc. The lighting isn’t great, but you work with what you have when you shoot at an outdoor show.

Processing included some preliminary work in Lightroom where I brought up the blacks and brought down the exposure a bit. I then took the image into Photoshop where I used Topaz Simplify to smooth out some of the less attractive elements. I reduced the opacity of that layer and then painted on a layer mask over the numbers on the speedometer to keep them clear.

I’d be interested in hearing what you think. Feel free to leave comments on the image below.

Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.

(Nikon D700, 28-80 at 56mm, ISO 250, Exposure 1/125 sec @f/11)

It’s almost summer so that must mean its time for classic car shows! I recently attended the Classic Car Club of America Museum ‘Experience’ show, held annually at the Gilmore Car Museum in Western Michigan. The show always has a great collection of classic automobiles, all of which have been beautifully maintained and/or restored.

The image above shows some of the spare tire detail from a 1929 Sport Phaeton Cadillac which was on display. For some reason, I found the combination of the leather straps against the black and white of the tire to be visually appealing and I tried to capture that feeling in this shot. The original shot was just a little bit larger, but I decided to crop it down to focus on the elements which caught my eye originally.

Processing was fairly minimal. Aside from a minor crop, I used an Hue-Saturation layer to remove a blue cast which came from the overcast skies. I also increased the contrast and bumped the saturation of the reds to bring back some color to the leather which I felt was lacking in the raw image. Some final sharpening and you have the final image.

I took several shots at this show and I suspect they will be appearing in this blog over the next few days!

Comments?

Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.

Mercedes 540K Sport Tourer

(Nikon D700, 35mm, ISO 500, Exposure 1/125 sec @f/8.0)

This image shows a portion a 1938 Mercedes 540K Sport Tourer automobile. This particularl automobile is on display at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan. If you love cars, the Gilmore Car Museum is a great place to visit. They have a couple hundred classic automobiles on display in various barns located on the premises.

The car itself has a very interesting story. According to the information displayed at the museum the car was stored by an enthusiast in Dresden after WWII to hide it from Soviet officials. The man’s house had a basement garage and after securing the car in it, he bricked up the entrance and filled the driveway with topsoil, planting a rose garden above it. With the fall of the Berlin wall, he felt it was safe to bring the car out and sell it to earn badly needed retirement funds. At the time, the car was highly original, but significantly deteriorated by age. The restoration of the car was completed in 2005. Some other images of the car (not taken by me) can be seen here.

The image took a bit of work to create. The car is on display in an old barn. The lighting is typical museum lighting, mostly dark. The front of the car was primarily lit from light from the open barn door which is near where the car is parked. The side of the car that I was shooting was mostly in shade. I had a flash with me and I experimented with hand holding the flash in various positions to put light on the car.

I was using a higher ISO and although the grain wasn’t really a problem, I didn’t like the overall sharpness of the image. I did like the basic lighting and shapes created by the lines and the shadows, however. I decided to use Topaz Simplify to create something which looks like it belongs on a poster. I used that filter and some curves to darken some areas. I also used the new Content Aware feature of the healing brush in Photoshop CS5 to eliminate some of the lights which were reflecting in the car.

Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 23mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/320 sec @ f/8.0)

This shot shows a 1936 Cord 810 S/C Phaeton which was on display at the 2009 Concours d’Elegance car show held at Meadowbrook Hall in Rochester Hills, Michigan. I’ve always been attracted to the Cord, particularly those from the mid 1930′s. I love the design elements, particularly the ‘coffin’ nose and the exposed exhaust pipes. The car just has great lines and exudes class.

I originally posted this image on Flickr shortly after the event. A couple weeks later I was surprised to receive an e-mail from the owner! His daughter had seen the picture on Flickr and had told her dad. One of the highlights for me about this car was the unique color. Most Cords that I have seen are black, brown, cream, but this one had a very interesting green metallic color, very sharp. He gave me some additional backstory on the color used for the car:

I picked up this Cord as a severely butchered rear-drive hot rod in 1959. It took me until 1967 to get it all back to original and I enjoyed driving it almost daily until 2005. By then it was a very tired dark green driver with many scratches, mis-matched paint repairs etc A close friend offered to spend the weekend painting it all one colour so it would be a bit closer to presentable. The weekend turned into three years and a month with both of us working every spare moment on it. The colour was being considered by a self appointed committee of about six. I wanted a lime green like Duesenberg engines are, they were coming up with black cherry, copper, multi colour chamelion, and then we hit upon the pearlessence type light green. A very possible but unknown original colour! Without the experimental pearlessence it would be “Ganges Green” I believe, it is the fish scales that make it “glow”.

Another interesting bit of information that I learned from the owner was that this car was the inspiration for a painting by noted automobile artist Tom Hale. The rights to the painting were purchased by Kruse and used on a poster promoting a show at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg museum in 2008, seen here:

I’ve always admired the work of Tom Hale, even though I didn’t really know much about the artist. I really like the strong graphical quality of his work.

My finished image is a combination of the raw image with a contrast adjustment combined with some ‘simplification and blurring’ over the front fender. It was a bright, sunny day and it was hard to control reflections. I first used the Topaz Simplify filter in Photoshop CS4 to de-emphasize the people in the reflection. I masked out the parts of the car that I wanted to remain sharp. I then used the blur tool to smooth out the image a bit more.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Image and text Copyright © 2009 James W. Howe – All rights reserved

This image, and others, can be purchased from my gallery at jameshowephotography.imagekind.com.