Sunday, June 30, 2013

Yellow Corvette

I thought this Corvette was interesting because of the lambo doors (scissor doors) I thought it made the car look futuristic. I tried to capture it from an angle to emphasize the unusual doors.


Thursday, June 27, 2013

Mrs Z's

This is a house in my neighborhood that I have enjoyed passing since I moved in. I swore I would take a photo of it. It took about eleven or twelve years or so, but I finally got the shot. My daughter has got a chance to swim in the pool they have.


The Golden Gate Bridge from Marin Headlands

Here are a couple shots from Marin Headlands and Kirby Cove.



Tuesday, June 25, 2013

The Better Half (1954 Corvette)

This 1954 Corvette is owned by Art Tweeten, I have another car owned by him in a previous post 1948 Pontiac Torpedo. This car is a bit unusual only the front half has been restored. Art had a clipboard on the back and was asking people to name the car. I voted for the better half. I liked the idea that his ex-wife took the other half with here. Corvette was introduced in late 1953, at the end of the post is a 1953 corvette commercial.




Sunday, June 23, 2013

Water Drainage Kirby Cove

This is a drainage tube at Battery Kirby in Kirby Cove. Imagine how much time it took to construct, Thank god for pipes, I assume this was constructed around 1900 when Battery Kirby was.


Monday, June 17, 2013

1948 Pontiac Torpedo

This is a 1948 Pontiac Torpedo I saw at Todos Santos Park in Concord (Concord was formerly Todos Santos) California on Fathers Day. The stacked air cleaners (tall or stacked air cleaners to get more air in as fast as you can) brought back memories of my 1973 Monte Carlo. The owner Art Tweeten had another car a Corvette that will be in a future post.




Old meets new all digital gauges.


Owner Art Tweeten likes to put an antique cow milking machine to make people wounder what it is.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Toppenish Salvage Yard

I was recently was in a Google + hangout with Keith Cuddeback and Georges Pauly. We talked about how we processed our HDR images and shared our work. We all had a different workflow and used different software. Seeing how others work gave me new ideas and it was great to get some feedback on what other people think good and bad. It caused me to think about how I process my images. Actually it caused me to download Adobe Lightroom and do some research on it so I could work on my HDR images that I create in HDR Efex Pro 2 in 32 bit file format. I have been using Adobe Photoshop CS6 Extended and I have to convert the files to 8 bit file format (loosing valuable data) so all the tools will work in Photoshop. I actually did not process any images for a while after I downloaded Lightroom I played with it. I have some research to do before I will feel completely comfortable with it. I remember the first time opened Photoshop 4 I could not get it to do anything not even make a mark and it involved a lot of reading and playing around before I felt comfortable altering images. There are people that make images from scratch with Photoshop like Bert Monroy, one of his most impressive works of art is Times Square. He always says it's not work it is play which is true if you enjoy the process. He approaches Photoshop from a totally different direction than I do. To see a short video of him at play click this link. I had the privilege to meet him, take a course for free and get my books signed. It was odd to see him walking down the street as I was arriving to take the course we met at a street corner and talked as we arrived at Keeble and Shuchat in Palo Alto. When the night ended we were still talking and they had to kick us out of the building. He is a really nice guy and loves to teach. I do not use Photoshop the same way as Bert Monroy but seeing how he uses it helps me get around problems when I am processing images. Getting back to the hangout I thought about what we had talked about and went back and reprocessed some images I had wrote off. Part of it was at the time I processed them I was new to HDR and treated all images the same and part of it was the advances in the software. Below are some of the images I reworked.

Ford



The second car in is a Dodge. I like the hand crank on the corrugated roofing material
where the hood should be on the first car.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

A Few Unidentified Autos

These are a few cars and trucks I could not identify. If you know I would appreciate if you let me know. Thanks they are located at an auto salvage yard just outside Toppenish Washington.





This reminds me of an ice cream truck

This kind of reminds me of a train

I wounder how many cars this tow truck towed here

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Old Red Dodge

When I saw this truck it kind of reminded me of my favorite truck a 1993 Dodge Dakota. It had 250,000 miles on it when I sold it and had only been towed three times. Once when I ran over a Honda parked on the freeway at night that was locked up like it was in a parking lot no lights. I tried to merge onto the freeway looked up and all I could do was spin the steering wheel to miss it as much as I could (the guy had an accident and walked away). The second was when the breaks went out and the third was when the water pump seized up. I still see it once in a while. This one was located in a salvage yard just outside Toppenish Washington.


Friday, June 7, 2013

Chevrolet

These are some old Chevrolet's that were at a salvage yard just outside Toppenish Washington, they are from two trips I took there. The second image has a Ford on the left. In the third image I am not completely happy with the composition, but I was fighting the vegetation. I would of liked to have lowered the tripod, if I would of done that the vegetation would of blocked my view. I was there in late August and the owner had brought in some goats to clear out the vegetation. To here more about my first trip there you can read more in my post Toppenish Junkyard (Garages)



Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Tea Pot Gas Station

This is the Tea Pot Gas Station in Zillah Washington. It was built as a political statement and operated at a different location then moved here. To find out more about it visit my post Teapot Gas Station @ Night.


Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Rim Shot (Rims and Tires)

These images are from two trips I took to a auto salvage yard near Toppenish Washington. The first trip was in late 2012 and the second trip was early 2013. The first two images are from 2012 and the third is from 2013. One thing I found interesting was the rims and tires, the rims some had wooden spokes and some of  the tires were solid rubber and some were all white rubber. In the first image you can still see the brand name Firestone on the tire that is in the bed of the truck on the top right of the image. In the first image of an older post Toppenish Junkyard you can get a good close up look at a wood spoked rim.




Monday, June 3, 2013

Another shot of the Golden Gate Bridge from Kirby Cove

This is another shot of the Golden Gate Bridge is from the beach in Kirby Cove. I wanted to emphasize the water so I had my tripod legs all the way down and splayed out so my camera was just 10 inches or so above the sand. For this image the tripod legs were actually in the water, but I was close and ready to snatch up the camera if a rogue wave decided to come in.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

International and a couple of Kenworth's

These shots are from a salvage yard just outside Toppenish Washington. In the first image there is an 1924 International truck just to the left and in the second image there are two 1923 Kenworth trucks.



1924 International truck ad

Tires For Le$$ Yakima Washington

When I was passing through Yakima Washington I saw this old Dodge truck and could not stop fast enough. While shooting the images, the business owner came out and put his hand over the lens and asked who I was. When I told him I was just a photographer he told me to take as many photos as I wanted. He was just relieved that I was not from the city.

UPDATE: I went past this store on August 8th 2013 the store is still there but no tires or truck.


Saturday, June 1, 2013

Ellensburg Washington

I almost gave up on this image, it had a red cow in the foreground that just would not cooperate. It hid its head behind the fence posts and when it emerged it show me its back side. I wanted the shot so bad I shot a great number of exposures. I layered two shots from each exposure and used a mask to remove the uncooperative cow and processed the bracketed files to make this HDR image. The barn is in Ellensburg Washington.