With springtime comes the opening of the Gilmore Car Museum, a great car museum located between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, Michigan. The museum has a great collection of automobiles from virtually any time period. In addition to their regular displays, they also hold various car shows on their grounds. This shot was taken late last spring at the 2010 Classic Car Collectors of America (CCCA) show. This show features a wonderful collection of wonderfully restored classic automobiles. This particular image shows the interior of a 1940 Packard Touring Sedan.

In my previous post I mentioned that the image I posted was not the one I was originally planning on posting. My original thought was to post this shot of the grille of the 1932 Bucciali TAV 12 and include the shot of the full car as additional reference to let the viewer see what the entire car looked like. Since I posted the full view, I figured it was time to post the detail shot.

As you can see, processing was fairly simple. Some minor cropping and a conversion to black and white to emphasize the look of the chrome on black.

Today’s image was not the image that I was planning on posting today. I have another shot of this car, a detail shot of this 1932 Bucciali TAV 12, which I was going to post. I was simply going to clean up the full length shot of the car to give viewers an opportunity to see what the entire car looked like. The picture was taken at the 2010 Concours d’Elegance held at Meadowbrook Hall in Rochester Hills, Michigan. The show always features a terrific collection of classic automobiles both common and rare. This car was parked under a tree and was the first car people saw when the entered the grounds. Lots of people were surrounding the car so it was difficult to get a clean shot. I never really thought I would do anything with this picture, but as I started to make changes, I started to like it more and more.

This is a shot of a 1956 Thunderbird Convertible taken at the 2010 Motor Muster held annually at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. Processing on the image was fairly minimal. I created more of a square crop to focus on the window ports and I used a curves layer to darken the image a bit and add some additional contrast. I used a HSL layer to remove the blue sky reflection from the chrome and then applied a little vignette in Lightroom.

This image is a bit of an experiment. I shot this at the 2011 North American International Auto Show held at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan. The show always has one day where photographers can get in early. This image was show in the Audi booth using my Sigma 15mm fisheye lens. The man in blue is one of many workers whose job it is to keep the cars clean. I was trying to get a shot without him in the picture, but I finally just went ahead and took a few shots since he wasn’t moving. When I was looking overmy images I selected this one because I liked the way the car fit under the white arc of the show booth.

One of my favorite automobiles is the Auburn Boattail Speedster manufactured by the Auburn Automobile Company of Auburn, Indiana. The Auburn company was sold to E.L. Cord who merged it with Duesenberg to create a company which manufactured Auburns, Cords and Duesenbergs. Their main facility was housed in an Art Deco building in Auburn, Indiana which now houses the Auburn-Cord-Dusesenberg museum. This shot shows the showroom of the Museum, displaying an array of vintage Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg automobiles (big surprise). The showroom has some great Art Deco touches such as the chandeliers, and detail work in the ceiling, flooring and main staircase. The museum is a great place to visit if you love vintage automobiles or enjoy Deco design.

I seem to be in a black and white mood of late. This is a picture of one of my favorite cars at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corner, Michigan (between Battle Creek and Kalamazoon) This picture was taken at the 2010 Classic Car Club of America show held at the Gilmore. The car is a 1935 Dusenberg SJ564 Convertible Couple. I’ve always been fond of mid-30′s automobiles, particularly those with the exposed chrome exhausts. Duesenbergs have them as well as some model Auburns and Cords. All great designs.

One of the nicest classic car shows in Michigan is the annual Eyes on Design show held at the estate of Edsel and Eleanor Ford. They always have an interesting theme and a great collection of cars spanning old to new. This particular shot was taken at this years show and shows a collection of 50′s era automobiles. I believe the car in the foreground is a 1950 Oldsmobile 88 Holiday Coupe. Very little processing was done on this image with the exception of the square crop.

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.

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.