I was in New York on business recently, and early one morning I took a look out of my hotel window to check on the weather. Snow had been predicted and I wanted to see if it was snowing yet. When I looked out, I was captivated by the color and geometry of the skyscrapers, particularly the way the windows were lit. Since it was early, only a handful of lights were on and it created an interesting pattern. As I looked further, I could see the Empire State Building in the haze, a haze created by a light snowfall. I really liked the combination of the strong, modern geometric shapes in the foreground combined with the older architecture of the Empire State Building fading into the background.

I took this shot of a classic diner at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan. The museum is a great place to view classic automobiles and if you like cars from almost any era, I highly recommend making a visit. The image itself was created from a digital photograph that I took while I was there. I modified the image to black out the sky and then I applied a Cutout filter in Photoshop to give the image a posterized look. I really liked how these changes brought out the color and design character of the building.

This shot was taken at the 2008 North American International Auto Show. The Mazda display had a video screen which showed a variety of images and I thought the juxtaposition of the mother/child as a backdrop to a high speed sports car was an interesting mix. Afterwards I noticed the gentlemen on the left side which I also think add something to the shot. The original was color and I converted it to black & white using Photoshop.

This is a fairly standard shot of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. This is a shot of one of the towers that I took as I was walking from Manhattan to Brooklyn. This was the first time I had walked on the bridge and it was an interesting experience. I think the thing that struck me the most was the geometric patterns created by all the suspension wires. I tried to capture that in this shot. In processing, I converted from color to black and white and then added a sepia tone. I also added a bit of simulated film grain to give a more vintage feeling to the image.

This is a shot of the Clocktower area in Chelsea, Michigan. I’ve been to Chelsea many times to take pictures of the Clocktower. I’ve tried HDR, night shots, etc. For this shot, I went wide, trying to capture more context, in this case the railroad cars and railroad tracks. The original image was in color, but I particularly liked the look of the sky when I converted the image to black and white.

This is a processed digital photograph of a 1934 Vauxhall BX Roadster. The car was part of “The GM Century” auto show held at the Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan. In the past I had passed this image by because of the background, the reflections on the bumper and other elements that I thought distracted from the car itself. Still, I liked the composition and so today I played around with it a little bit to see if I could get a finished image that I liked. I initially thought of trying to black out the grass and background, but that seemed like too much work. I decided to try my ‘cutout’ technique, combined with a conversion to sepia and I like how it came out.

This is a shot of the Detroit, Toledo and Milwaukee roundhouse currently located at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. The roundhouse was built in 1884 in Marshall, Michigan. The roundhouse is still used to maintain the historic engines that are owned by The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village.

This shot of a P-51 Mustang was taken at the 2007 Thunder Over Michigan Air Show held at Willow Run Airport near Ypsilanti, Michigan. Each year the Yankee Air Museum hosts an air show featuring various military aircraft as a fund raiser for their museum. In 2007 the show featured B-25 bombers and the headline act was the Blue Angels.<

A few month ago I took a trip to the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Museum in Auburn, Indiana. The museum has a great collection of vintage automobiles, not surprisingly Auburns, Cords and Duesenbergs. I love these cars for their interesting details. This particular image was created from a digital photograph of a 1931 Cord convertible. This is a detail shot of the front fender area. I liked the various shapes in the image and I wanted to make the image less about the car and more about the shapes so I did some tweaking of the image in Photoshop. I played with the colors and used some artistic filters to create the image you see above.

This is a shot of the front end of a 1939 3/4 Ton Chevy Truck. The truck was part of the 2008 Automotive Hall of Fame Classic Car Show held on the grounds of the Automotive Hall of Fame. The Automotive Hall of Fame is located next to The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Each year the Hall holds a classic car show centered around a common theme. This year the theme was GM Century – The Men, The Machines.