fourpointedstar

Maybe it’s that my eye is drawn to the red cars, or perhaps it’s that red is a favorite color for collector cars, but I have so many photos of red cars at car shows!  This classic Corvette at the monthly downtown Bartlett Car Show was is near perfect condition and absolutely gorgeous.

I find the tiny details fascinating; the bristling hairs, the delicate arms and toes, the color coordinating eyes, and even the mouth parts.  I suppose it will never stop amazing my that so many tiny things – insects & plants – have even tinier bristles, hairs, or peach fuzz.  Details so small that we could never see them, but so important to their existence, their safety, or even hunting.

This particular morning, I saw very few spiders. While I do enjoy capturing a bee in a flower, it’s more fun to photograph other insects as they pollenate.  Spiders are even more unique; typically they’re “hiding”, hunched in an area of the plant that is out of the way, but paying attention to YOU the photographer.  It’s a cat-and-mouse game, but for the spider, it’s a monster-and-mouse game.

I took a much closer photo of this tiny jumping spider but the photo lacked any sense of scale. While the photo doesn’t show nearly any detail for the spider, this photo gives a much better sense of scale and shows how hard it can be to see these spiders, let alone capture them.

I will never admit how many photos it took to get this particular image: the bee would fly off, the bee’s face would be too dark or too light, the focus wouldn’t be correct, etc. As it is, there are still elements that I wish I could fix; I dislike that the center is so out of focus, and I wish that the bee’s were just a little more in the sunlight. But I love that the image implies that the bees are circumnavigating the flower, an insect Juan Elcano if you will.

It’s amazing how the simple addition of the pointy tail on this insect makes it go from “cute, like a bee” to “terrifying and menacing”.  I love photos like this one; all the texture in the head and torso, the contrast in the vibrant flower and the insect body, and the hint of sunlight in the eye.

Any photographer knows that there are acceptable photos, there are good photos, and then there are photos that you feel lucky to capture; and you have to display all three types.  Bees rarely stay on a flower for longer than a few seconds, and this image took advantage of a flower’s askew petals; lining the two up wasn’t skill, it was luck.  But a good photographer knows that the more often you go out to take photos, the more likely you are to get lucky. 

I have attended a half dozen or more Wauconda Cruise Nights over the years, and every time at the north-west end of Main Street, there are two Duesenbergs – gorgeous cars from years ago. Each time that I attend, I make sure to walk past them; and after this past Cruise Night, I thought “they’d be a fun ’36 Apple’ challenge”. So, next time that I attend, my goal is to take as many unique photos of the car that I can possibly imagine.

This Packard was the first car that I saw as I walked into Wauconda’s Cruise Night in June. Packard’s are uncommon but have a wonderful 1950’s style; it was an easy photograph, even with the crowd that had gathered around it. It went on to win the award for the car show that evening too.

Let’s call this image a work-in-progress, ok? As photographers if we’re honest with ourselves, none of our images turn out EXACTLY how we want them to, especially when we’re trying something new. However, I am very happy with this composite. I wanted to do another multiple exposure this week, but this time with a lot more images – 50 is a lot, right?

I captured the same flag at roughly 1 second intervals for 2 minutes for this creation, and each flagpole is rotated exactly 1/50th of the circle. While the blending/opacity did not turn out with the effect that I wanted, I am exceedingly happy with the happy accidental bushes around the edge!

p.s. I’ll let you guys figure out why I chose 50 images. 😉

Doesn’t everyone lay down in the lawn of a random business’s lawn because their flag is waving in the correct direction for the image that you’d like to create? This is 5 exposures merged so that each images partly shows through, and I quite like it; if you look closely, you can see where the stars bleed through in some spots too.

Since we’re celebrating the July 4th holiday this week, I chose our flag as my subject for this week’s photos. While normally my photos are taken in the past and then I choose 7 images for the week from an event or along a theme, I’ve decided that this week’s photos should be taken daily and be relatively unique compositions.

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A few years back, I attended a camera club meeting about street photography. One of the attendees asked about the privacy of those that you photograph, and the speaker responded “as long as they are in public, there should be no expectation of privacy.” A drone blurs this line even further; while a photo taken 300 feet away will to show fantastic resolution, you can easily see my neighbors back yards in this photo. Anyway, as much as I enjoyed trying to create an interesting composition with my own neighborhood, I won’t fly the drone over residential property any longer.

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Now this is exactly why I wanted a drone. I hovered over this particular creek as it enters the Fox River for at least 5 minutes, flying the drone to different compositions and then taking a photo. I love the colors, textures, and the winding creek at it flows through the center of the image.

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It can often be difficult to convey a sense of scale, and while I love the pattern of this image, you can’t really tell the scale … until you notice the canoe in the lower right. And once you see the canoe, you can feel the power of a river that carried those logs downstream.

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Oh my goodness, this car’s plate made me laugh out loud at the show. And I think what made it funnier is the juxtaposition of the meme-worthy license plate and the 1930’s classic Ford Coupe. But, even without the plate, this car deserved to be captured as a monochrome.

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Speaking of cars at auto shows … it feels like the most common car at most community autoshows is the Ford Mustang. So in keeping with my theme of “the most common car show color is red”, here is a very red steering wheel and dash on a Ford Mustang.

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Well, I did mention that there are so many red cars at car shows, but there are also so many mid-50’s Chevy coupes. And while I love their style and beauty, it is definitely harder and harder to find that original and create photo.

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It’s the little details. This shimmering mirror’s tiny logo and the shimmering sun created wonderful shadows, accents, and reflections onto this white Chevy.

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My goodness, there are so many red cars at car shows, so this Purple Plymouth stood out from the crowd. In my ongoing effort to capture unique views at auto shows, I love this off balance scowling headlight, grill, and bumper.

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Since many of the cars were crowded or muddy, I had to come up with a different strategy for photographing at Sonny Acres Farm. So I turned to the iconic nameplates that showed up, including the embossed Porsche on this 928.

ChiTown Exotic Car Club hosted a car show at Sonny Acres Farm. It may have been the oddest site that I’ve been to for a car show; and it had been rainy recently, so it was very muddy. Overall, I did see quite a few rare cars, but it was very difficult to capture interesting photos due to the large crowd and the fact that the cars were so tightly packed.

I tend to capture the outside of cars at car shows; I’d say only 5% of my photos are of under the hood or inside the cabin. However, sometimes an engine is visually interesting – this engine is from a Cars & Coffee back in 2022.

Once you’ve gone to your third car show, you’ve seen the “normal” cars – the 1994 and newer Mustangs, the 57 Chevys, and the brand new Corvettes. But every once in a while you see an unusual car like this one. Did I keep track of what car this was? No, of course not.

I’m certain that the goddess is holding something from greek or roman legend, but to me it looks like a discus or a small tire and made me chuckle.

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Who decided that a flying bird was the best emblem for this Ford’s hood ornament? What person walked into a business meeting and said “Yeah, I think a chicken looking bird is perfect!”

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Every time that I have been to the Wauconda Cruise Night, there is at least one Duesenberg at the end of the main street. They’re absolutely spectacular cars, and I love photographing them!

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When I purchased my Sony camera, I knew that I would want a macro lens (since my old one was for Nikon). I settled on the Laona 100mm f2.8 with manual focus – mostly because it was the least expensive 2x macro (by far). It can be exhausting to get the focus correct, but when it’s right, it’s absolutely lovely!

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There’s a certain delight in seeing the shag carpet look of this moth in the daylight. This beautiful insect just hung there for the entire hour that we were inside the butterfly house at Peggy Notebaert.

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For the past few years, Sarah and I have visited Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in downtown Chicago; they have a wonderful year-round butterfly sanctuary/exhibit. In the winter, it’s a wonderful break from the cold and grey.
This winter it was way too busy, but we finally made it down there for our anniversary last weekend.

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