Little Red Corvette
by James Howe on Jul.02, 2011, under Automotive
(Olympus E3, 14-54mm at 37mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, Exposure 1/200 sec @ f/7.1)
I’ve been posting so many black and white images of late I decided I wanted something more colorful. I was perusing my Lightroom catalog today and ran across this shot I took a couple years ago at a show at the Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan. I called this post ‘Little Red Corvette’, but actually the car was white, with a red interior. The car was built in 1954, the first year the Corvette was manufactured.
I did some experimentation when I processed this shot. First, I cropped the image just a bit to remove some parts of the image which weren’t really needed. I then used the Photoshop Cutout filter to create the choppy color effect. I selectively applied the filter, masking the effect from the center of the steering wheel and a bit of the dashboard, place that I wanted the lettering and numbering to appear normal.
Copyright © 2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
‘Fire’
by James Howe on Jul.01, 2011, under black and white
(Olympus E3, 50mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, Exposure 1/4000 sec @ f/2.8)
As I’ve mentioned before, one of the cool things about the Gilmore Car Museum is their replica Shell gas station. They’ve done a nice job outfitting the building with vintage signage and contents (tools, oil cans, etc.) Just outside of the building is a rack of old tires. I liked the character of the old tires and tried to capture the feeling. I was using my Olympus E3 with the 50mm macro lens (equivalent to a 100mm full frame) which gave me a nice crisp shot of the tire. My only regret is that I should have closed the aperture down a bit more. I think part of the raised lettering is a bit out of focus and I think I would have preferred it to be as sharp as the cracks in the tire. Oh well, maybe next time.
The out of camera image is a bit flat so I tweaked the black settings and increased the clarity to increase the contrast and bring back the cracked character of the tire. I also felt that a square crop was more suited to the image than the 4/3 ratio of the original. A simple conversion to black and white using Silver Efex Pro 2 completed the processing.
Thoughts or comments? Leave them below!
Copyright © 2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
1930 Cadillac Hood Ornament
by James Howe on Jun.28, 2011, under Automotive
(Nikon D700, 105mm, ISO 250, Exposure 1/500 sec @ f/8.0)
Every time I visit a classic car show I try to get some shots of the ‘mascots’ which were used to adorn the radiator cap. Most of the time when I review the final image I’m not happy. What I want to get is a shot which is sharp for the ornament, but without a distracting background. In a controlled setting you could control the background, but at an outdoor show it’s hard. I have seen photographers set up their tripod, set up the shot and then get behind the ornament with a black cloth to create a better background, but I’ve never been quite that ambitious. What I try to do instead is find an angle which finds a neutral background. Sometimes the car next door works well, sometimes it’s the trees. The really tricky part is getting the sharpness right. For this shot I used the Nikon 105mm macro and I’m quite pleased with how it came out. At f8, I was able to keep most of the foreground sharp, but get a nice blurry background. For you car fans out there, this ornament was on a 1930 Cadillac V-16 Fleetwood Cabriolet. The car was one of many fine automobiles on display at the 2011 Eyes on Design car show held at the Edsel and Eleanor Ford mansion in Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan.
This image was another one in which I liked the color version but also liked the black and white. The problem I had with the color is that I thought the blue car in the background somewhat distracted from the hood ornament. The problem with the black and white was that it somewhat diminished the beauty of the Cadillac medallion. So, I compromised. I converted the image to black and white but masked out the medallion. I also reduced the opacity of the black and white layer just a bit, so there is still a hint of color in the image. It may not show up in the photo, but the color in the background of the final image is a very dark blue. I did one other thing to the image as well. In the color version, I believe there is just a portion of a person’s arm in the upper left. For the finished version, I rescaled the image slightly to move it mostly out of the frame. That, combined with the conversion to black and white eliminated what I considered to be a distracting element in the color version.
I would be happy if you would let me know what you think, good or bad. Thanks for looking in!
Copyright © 2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
Gold – 1933 Plymouth PC Sedan Hood Ornament
by James Howe on Jun.27, 2011, under Automobiles
(Nikon D700, 105mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/60 sec @ f/16)
I took this picture of a 1933 Plymouth hood ornament during the 2011 Motor Muster held at Greenfield Village. The gentleman who owned the car gave me some information on the history and evolution of Plymouth hood ornaments. The 1933 had the flying figure and by 1934 they had switched to a stylized sailing ship. The key bit of information was that the 1933 ornament actually used gold in the medallion. True or not I thought the ornament was pretty cool. I took the shot with a 105mm macro lens that I had rented. I have a couple other shots which used a more open aperture, but the field of focus was too thin. I closed it down to f16 for this shot and managed to get more of the ornament in focus. Sometimes razor thin DOF looks cool, but for this sort of shot I prefer to see more detail.
Processing of the image was fairly simple. The first thing I did was give the image more of a square crop. There was too much dark space at the top of the image which didn’t really add anything of value. Similarly there was a dark corner in the bottom right that also didn’t really add anything. After cropping I used a HSL layer in Photoshop to remove some of the green and blue from the reflections of the trees and sky on the hood and used a layer mask to restore the color to the medallion. In general when I’m shooting cars outside, I’ll try to remove some of the color from any chrome. I prefer that my chrome be more silver than whatever color is being reflected in it.
Copyright © 2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
Tail Fin
by James Howe on Jun.23, 2011, under Automotive
(Nikon D700, 105mm, ISO 250, Exposure 1/2000 sec @ f/3)
I’ve never been a big fan of 1950’s automobiles, but I am fascinated with their design elements, particularly the chrome and the obsession with tail fins. At the 2011 Eyes on Design car show, they had a whole row of ‘finned’ automobiles. The shot above shows the tail fin of a 1957 DeSoto Adventurer. The car was pretty stunning with its black paint job and polished chrome. On of the features that I found interesting about this car was that it had an under-dash ‘sound system’ (aka record player). I’m sure this wasn’t meant to be used while driving!
FYI, there is no ‘before’ shot for the top image because I did no processing on the image. I thought it looked good the way it was. A black and white conversion would have lost the terrific look of the red lights against the chrome, and would also have lost the nice turquoise color of the DeSoto automobile in the background.
Copyright © 2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.