Images and Notes » Gilmore Car Museum

’32 Lincoln

James Howe — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 23:12:06 +0000

(Nikon D700,70-300mm at 145mm, ISO 250, Exposure 1/500 @ f/8.0)

I was going through my Lightroom catalog spending some time adding keywords and looking at images that I had ignored in the past when I came across this shot I took of a 1932 Lincoln. The car was part of the Classic Car Club of America show held at the Gilmore Car Museum. I really like the look of some of these old cars, especially the swooping lines of the fenders over the wheels. When I saw the image in the catalog, I immediately thought it would look good with a more painted look. The way the clouds were reflecting on the fender already had a sort of painted look so I enhanced it by applying some Topaz Simplify to the entire image. Just for kicks I wondered how the image might look with a bit more contrast, so I took the image into Silver Efex Pro2 and choose one of the darker presets which added just the contrast that I wanted. The black and white conversion made the tail light too dark, so I masked out the conversion, and applied a separate black and white layer which made the red color lighter, not darker.

As always, your feedback, comments and questions are appreciated.

Buick Roadmaster

James Howe — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:33:45 +0000

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 27mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100 Exposure 1/160th @ f/7.1)

I’ve been going through my Lightroom catalog looking for interesting things to post to my Google + account and I came across this shot that I took at the Gilmore Car Museum in 2008. The car is a Buick Skylark Roadmaster, but I don’t know the year. I’ve just always liked this shot, the combination of red, black and chrome.

The image didn’t quite start out with such a nice background. As seen below, the car was sitting on a driveway and you can see grass and pavement. The shape of the car was pretty easy to mask around, so basically I just blacked out all the parts that I didn’t like. I finished things up by desaturating some of the colors in the chrome on the bumper, especially to remove the green from the surrounding area. I think it makes the chrome stand out better.

Please feel free to leave any comments, questions or feedback below.

Gas Pump

James Howe — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:36:43 +0000

(Olympus E3, 50mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, Exposure 1/2000 sec @ f/2.8)

I took this shot of an old gas pump when I visited the Gilmore Car Museum a few weeks ago. Out in front of their vintage Shell gas station they have 3 or 4 vintage gas pumps. I was using my Olympus E-3 with an old Zuiko 50mm macro lens at the time which helped get a nice crisp close up. I especially like the pile of dead bugs at the bottom.

Processing was pretty minimal so the end shot looked pretty much like the out of camera shot.

Thoughts or comments? Leave them below!

‘Warhol’esque

James Howe — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:29:13 +0000

(Nikon D700, 50mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/1000 sec @ f/4.0)

At the Gilmore Car Museum they’ve built a replica of an early 30′s vintage Shell gas station. Many of the items inside and outside of the museum came from a Shell station which was located in Hickory Corners, just a couple miles away from the museum. More information about the building itself can be found here

This image shows one of the vintage signs which they have set up outside of the museum. I liked the look of it with the cracked paint. I think my 50mm did a nice job capturing the old character of the sign. As I was looking through my images after the show, I saw this one and immediately thought of the Campbell’s Soup Can picture done by Andy Warhol. If only this image were worth as much!

No ‘as shot’ version since this is pretty much the out of camera shot other than a little sharpening and a slight adjustment to the exposure.

I welcome your comments and feedback below.

1931 Studebaker Hood Ornament

James Howe — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 12:03:33 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 300mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/500 sec @ f/8.0)

When I think of a ‘Studebaker’, I think of the funky looking cars that were made in the 50′s and 60′s not a stately automobile on par with Duesenberg, Packard, etc., so I was somewhat surprised to find that the car belonging to this hood ornament was a Studebaker. I took this shot at the Classic Car Collectors of America show at the Gilmore Car Museum. When I go to these shows, I generally find some aspect of the car that looks interesting and I might not even know who made the car. As a way of keeping a record of what shots belong to what cars, I’ll take a picture of the identification sign that is usually posted in front of the car. So with this one, I saw the hood ornament and thought it look interesting, and after I took a few shots, I took a picture of the identification sign and at that point found out that it was a Studebaker. This years show had a special emphasis on cars manufactured in Indiana. Studebakers were manufactured in South Bend.

I initially wasn’t going to do any real processing on this image, perhaps just some sharpening, but in the end I decided to go with a very simple black and white conversion. I’m actually slightly surprised at the quality of this image as it was shot with my Nikon 28-300 lens. While I like the range of this lens for ‘walking around’, I haven’t been thrilled with the quality of some of my shots with it. This one, however, came out quite well I think.

Please leave comments or questions below and thanks for looking in!

Supercharged – 1935 Auburn Speedster

James Howe — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:51:03 +0000

(Nikon D700, 50mm f1.8, ISO 200, Exposure 1/250 sec @ f/16)

No moody black and white image today, just a simple color shot of a wonderful automobile. This shot shows the exhaust pipes of a 1935 Auburn Speedster. The Auburn was manufactured in Auburn, Indiana and was noted in its day for being a high performance automobile. Before a customer received their automobile, it was certified to have been tested to 100.8 Miles Per Hour by Ab Jenkins a professional race car driver known for setting speed records at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. I’ve always liked the look of the Auburn Speedster. There is something about the chrome pipes coming out of the engine that just looks cool and exudes speed.

Here is a full body shot of the Auburn. I screwed up when I took this shot because I had my aperture set to f1.8 which meant that much of the car was out of focus.

There wasn’t much processing done to the finished image. I made some minor exposure tweaks in Lightroom and used Topaz Adjust to pull out a little bit more of the fine details in the image.

Hope you enjoy it!

Stick Shift – 1937 Cord Phaeton Interior

James Howe — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 11:50:33 +0000

(Olympus E-3, 50mm Macro Zuiko (2x crop factor), ISO 100, Exposure 1/800 sec @ f/2.8)

When I went to the Classic Car Club of American car show at the Gilmore Car Museum I took both of my camera bodies. I’ve been using primarily my Nikon D700, but I still use my Olympus E3 on occasion. I had equipped the E3 with my 50mm F2 Zuiko Macro lens, an old manual lens that I used to use with my Olympus OM4 back in my film days. It was a nice change to use a completely manual set up. Focusing was manual, as was setting the aperture. When I changed aperture, the lens closed down and made the viewfinder darker, which made focusing a little more challenging. I like this 50 macro on the E3 because at the 2x crop factor its like using a 100mm lens. This lens also takes really nice images.

The shot itself shows the interior of a 1937 Cord 812 Phaeton, the same car that was the subject ofyesterday’sposting. I had made the rounds of the show using the wider zoom on my Nikon and switched to the Oly to make another pass to get some closer shots at large aperture. The window of the car was open so I was able to carefully lean in to the car to get the shot, making sure not to actually touch the car. I really like the interiors of these cars as the had some great details. This one has a wonderful metal dashboard with great chrome details.

There isn’t too much difference between the as shot image and the final image. I wanted to go for a very contrasty shot, but something with a film noir feeling to it. I liked the way the shaft of light illuminated the dashboard and the chrome of the shifter. Conversion was done in Silver Efex Pro 2 and I applied a light selenium toning to the final image.

Hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to leave feedback below.

Smooth Lines – 1937 Cord Phaeton

James Howe — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:47:34 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 122mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/500 sec @ f/11)

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit the Gilmore Car Museum for the annual Classic Car Club of America show. This year the show highlighted cars manufactured in Indiana. One of the key companies in Indiana was the Auburn Cord Duesenberg automobile company which manufactured cars in Auburn, Indiana. These cars are some of my favorite because they had such interesting designs. I particularly like Auburns and Cords. At the show, this car was referred to as a ’1937 Auburn Phaeton’, but the car is actually a Cord, probably a model 812 (although I suppose it is possible that it was marketed as an ‘Auburn’, some car buff will certainly correct me if I’m wrong) Late model Cords have a distinctive design created by legendary automobile designer Gordon Buehrig. The front end has a shape somewhat like that of a coffin so these cars are sometimes referred to as ‘coffin nosed Cords’. Anyway, I love the design and I love to take pictures of this line of cars.

Initially my thought was to simply do minimal processing on this image. I like the color version. I think the car has a nice color and I think the image highlights the elements that make the car so distinctive. However, I also wanted to see if I could produce an image which emphasized the lines in a stronger fashion. Naturally I thought of converting to black and white. I used Silver Efex Pro 2 and flipped through some of the presets until I found one that I thought came close to what I wanted. I was looking for something with high contrast but done in a clean manner. The conversion to black and white really highlighted some dust and other paint imperfections on the surface of the car, so I actually used Topaz Simplify along with the healing brush to smooth these out.

Which do you prefer? The black and white, or the color version? Let me know what you think.

Shell Service Station – Gilmore Car Museum

James Howe — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 12:53:59 +0000

(Olympus E3, 7-14mm at 14mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, Exposure 1/6 sec @ f/4)

This picture was taken a couple of years ago at the Gilmore Car Museum near Kalamazoo, Michigan. The museum is a great place to see cars throughout the ages. The museum sits on a large piece of farmland and has several barns which house the cars. They have been adding to the museum over the years. Last year they opened a new building dedicated to Franklin automobiles. The Classic Car Club of America has a barn as well. The museum continues to expand it’s collection and is a great place to visit if you like automobiles and automobile history.

I took this shot when I visited the museum for one of their car shows. The museum has a replica of an old Shell gas station and they’ve stocked it with vintage service station objects. I have a thing for old stuff, so I just had to get some shots from inside the service station. I took this picture with my Olympus E3 and one of my favorite Zuiko lenses, the 7-14mm. I think this shot shows the usefulness of in camera stabilization. I took the shot at 1/6 sec handheld, but the image is still sharp. I don’t shoot much with my Oly any more since I switched to Nikon. Had to sell the 7-14mm as well to help fund other purchases.

Processing was fairly straight-forward. I knew from the start that I wanted to create a black and white image, so I immediately took the image into Silver Efex Pro2. The neutral conversion made areas too dark so I increased the brightness of some of the darker areas. I also wanted to see the fine details in the shot, so I increased the structure as well. I selected the blue filter option to make the reds a bit darker and then I adjusted the strength of the filter. I also selectively tweaked the color sensitivities until things like the red label on the ‘Oilzum’ can came out the way I wanted. I finished the image off with a cyanotype toning.

This weekend the Classic Car Club of America is hosting an event on Sunday and, weather permitting, I plan on heading over to the museum to check out the show and to see what’s new at the museum. I expect that I’ll be posting some shots from that trip next week.

Got comments or questions? Feel free to leave them below.

Packard Steering Wheel

James Howe — Thu, 05 May 2011 12:27:55 +0000

(Nikon D700, 70-300mm at 230mmmm, ISO 320, Exposure 1/125 sec @f/8.0)

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 processing this shot I wanted to focus on the graphical elements and less on the specific details of the interior. I liked the look of the circles created by the steering wheel, as well as the design of the spokes. After some minor corrections, I used Silver Efex Pro 2 to create a darker image which highlighted the graphical elements. I used one of the preset borders to give the image the finished edge.

Let me know what you think. Feel free to leave comments or questions below.