May 14, 2009

Friendswood Car Show #1

I am just not a car guy.  I never have been, probably never will be.  I see cars as way to get from point A to point B.  Now, don’t get me wrong; I am not going to drive a Smart Car—in my opinion, that may be the greatest oxymoron ever!  I do like my comfort and I just do not see comfort and Smart Car being used in the same sentence very often.

I went to the Friendswood car show because I have a friend that loves cars and often shows a few of his restored cars in small car shows.  He decided to show a 1964 red and white Corvette in the show.  So, I agreed to tag along and take a few photos of his car and some of his friends.

Photographing the cars was very hard—poor backgrounds (buildings, trees, people, just lots of clutter everywhere), cars parked right next to each other, light being filtered through trees, thus casting shadows here and there.  In short, not a photographer’s dream set-up.

I decided that I would not try to photograph the whole car; rather, I would concentrate on the details.

What says Ferrari more than red?  In fact do you know of another car that has a color named after it like "Ferrari Red."  I wanted this photo to be all about all the details that are in the headlights.  As I looked at the headlight, I was somewhat amazed at how many different things were included in “just” a light.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, 28-70mm f/2.8 at 65mm, shot at ISO 200, f/13 and 1/180th of a second.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast.

Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast filter to add local contrast to highlights, mid-tone and shadow areas of just the light area and then sharpened image using the high pass filter method in soft light mode.

3 comments:

  1. Love the subtle reflections in the paint and headlight cover. Nice job controlling light.

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  2. I am a car guy and this is a really cool pix. It is pretty amazing all the details there are in head lights.
    Charles M

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  3. As another car guy, I like the shot. You showed me things about the car that I had never looked at and I have looked very closely at all the high priced sports cars.
    Ted

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