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.

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.

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.

This shot of a 1933 Lincoln was taken at the Classic Car Club of America (CCCA) car show held at the Gilmore Car Museum in early June. The cars were displayed around a big oval track and I had already made a pass around to see all the cars. I was walking behind the cars to head over to another spot when I noticed this Lincoln. For some reason, the license plate in conjunction with the other elements of the car really caught my eye. The raw shot out of the camera didn’t convey the strong graphic nature that I had felt when I took the shot, so I used a combination of Topaz Adjust and Topaz Simplify to create a image with a stronger graphical feeling (at least to my eye).

This shot shows the drivers side engine ports of a 1937 Cord Beverly Sedan. The car was part of the Classic Car Club of American (CCCA) automobile show held at the Gilmore Car Museum near Kalamazoo, Michigan. I’ve always been a big fan of Cord automobiles. They have wonderful interior and exterior details that are fun to explore, but sometimes difficult to capture in a photograph. When shooting at car shows, it is sometimes difficult to get a good shot without annoying reflections, harsh lighting, etc.

This last weekend I went to the Classic Car Club of America (CCCA) car show held at the Gilmore Car Museum near Kalamazoo, Michigan. There were some terrific old cars at the show (and I’ll likely post some shots of those as well), but the museum itself is worth the trip. It’s set on 90+ acres and houses hundreds of cars in various barns. They also have a recreation of a 1930’s era Shell service station, which is where this shot was taken. I was walking through the station and I really liked the look of all the old tools, manuals, and other service station materials. My grandfather owned a station years ago and it brought back pleasant memories.

I love taking pictures of classic automobiles and so I took a short road trip to the Gilmore Car Museum to attend one of their outdoor classic car shows. This shot shows the hood ornament, or ‘mascot’, of a Pierce Arrow automobile. I was lucky that the car was parked next to another car with such an interesting color, since it gave me a nice background. I think the blue goes quite well with the chrome of the figure and the gold of the arrow. I used a long lens to get a very narrow field of focus, but my preference would be for more of the figure to be in sharp focus. Maybe this year…

This is a close-up of the hood ornament of a 1952 Pontiac Chieftain automobile. This car was at the Gilmore Car Museum for a car show. I used my 70-300mm (2x crop factor) lens and a small aperture to make sure the background was blurred out. Processing was minimal, although I tried to bring out the head and downplay the color of the car itself.

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.

The image above shows the interior of a 1920 Pierce Arrow automobile. The car was one of many on display at an event held at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan (near Kalamazoo). What I find most interesting about this shot is the speedometer. If you look closely, the speedometer is more like an odometer and appears to max out at 75 MPH before returning to 0 again.