I usually prefer classic cars in Concours condition but this beauty was too much to pass up; candy purple with pinstriping, chrome rims with baby moons, blackwalls and custom tail lights. Whoa!! And the surrounding area at Laclede’s Landing in St. Louis, Missouri made for a perfect environmental portrait.
This was at one of the many classic car shows that are held in St. Louis. When I lived there, I made sure to attend every show. I’m still looking for the shows here on the East Coast. I would really appreciate any suggestions
Processing: I used Nik HDR Efex Pro for full out, single shot tone mapping to produce a strong pseudo-HDR, a little over the edge image and then used Adobe Photoshop to tone down the surrounding areas. This made the car really stand out.
As an after thought, I decided to process this second photo of the tail light using just HDR Toning and got a very good, matching shot. These images were taken with a Nikon N90s and 28-70mm f/2.8 lens using Fuji Velvia slide film. Those were my main tools before digital along.
Sweet shot Mark! Love the colors and lighting in these!
Thanks, Rich. I couldn’t resist punching the color just a little.
Mark, great looking car and shot. Nice processing.
I have found that once you have been to the first show in an area, you come away with dates for many more. A good one to start with might be on Fathers Day at the Sully Historic Site near Dulles Airport (you can make a weekend of it and visit the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum annex at the Udvar-Hazy center which is very close by). There are usually 400 antique cars on show. This is a show for restored vehicles rather than custom but when I was there this year there were leaflets left on the exhibits seats for a custom & hot rod show (I just don’t remember where).
This is a great idea, Mark. Perhaps some of us east coast photogs could do a meetup.
This is an awesome image of a classic car, Mark. Love the color and composition.
There are many car shows here in the east, I’ll keep you in mind after finding some upcoming events.
Here is a great resource >> http://www.carshownews.com/national/MD.htm
This is awesome, Mark! Love the backdrop in the first shot, and the second on here is FULL of great character! Way to bring the true spirit of this gorgeous rod to life for everyone!