1948 Chevrolet Fleetline and Point Fermin Lighthouse

About 6 or 7 years ago during my vacation from work, I attended a car show at the seaside town of San Pedro, California. The Legends car club was hosting their yearly big event at Point Fermin park. Roll in was scheduled for 7am but we arrived around 5am and found about 50+ cars waiting in the dark to be admitted. The organizers recognized my wife from her attending other events and they kindly granted us both early admission. We walked around the park and found the host club member's cars parked in some prime spots. One of those was this pristine 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline located right in front of the historic Point Fermin Light house. With the moon rapidly setting and the blue hour fading more and more by the minute, Kathy and I didn't waste time. We setup our tripods, cameras, remote shutter releases and started shooting. Later that morning there were thousands of people walking around the park and taking photos the way we like to take them became impossible. That was ok because by that time we were packing up and making ready to leave with several hundred photos each saved on our memory cards.

Mission Inn Grand Courtyard Overview

Here's another old vacation image from one of my visits to the historic Mission Inn Hotel in Riverside, California. This hotel is very large and consists of one main multi-story building. The architecture is California mission style as established by the Franciscan Padres from Spain who founded 21 California missions in the mid to late 1700's with a goal of "pacifying" and bringing religion to the native Indians. Instead, their European diseases decimated the tribes who had no immunity.

Sunrise at the Mission Inn

I had just left my room at the historic Mission Inn and Spa in Riverside, California when I saw the sunrise looked like it was going to be spectacular. Althought it was still quite dark, the horizon was turning more orange by the minute. I went back to my room, grabbed my camera, tripod, expodisc white balancer, and off camera shutter release. I decided to shoot an 4 image wide x 3 image high HDR panorama. Each photo consisted of 10 exposures between -5ev and +5ev for a total of 120 individual exposures. The final panorama was more than 20,000 pixels wide and the color corrected file tipped the scales at 1.4GB in size. After taking this shot, I quietly walked around the property taking more photos until one of the security guards stopped me, asking if I was a registered guest. I produced my room key and gave him my name. He radioed the front desk. Once they confirmed my identity, I was allowed to continue taking photos so long as I didn't disturb any of the other guests.

Racing Along Southern California’s Coastline

This photo was taken from the observation car on the Amtrak Coast Starlight train. We were just passing through Vandenberg Air Force Base and I could clearly see the historic launch facilities now being used by SpaceX for their military payloads. This has been a great trip so far. Kathy and I are enjoying traveling by train. Taking a shower last night was a bit of an adventure since the shower stall is the size of a telephone booth. Later I was able to provide some entertainment for my wife as she watched me climb into the top bunk of our sleeping accommodations. 

How I took this photo:

This is a 3 shot HDR composite image. I brought my tripod with me on this trip but I'm sure the Amtrak employees would not appreciate me setting it up in the aisle way. Instead I held my camera steady by putting up against the side of the doorway. The train was rocking and rolling but I was able to hold it still so it was in sync with the movement. The longest exposure showed some motion blur out of the windows so I enhanced that.

1941 Pontiac Timelapse

Kathy and I drove out to the City of Chino car show this morning. She initially said she wasn't going to go since it was going to rain. It ended up raining but later in the day. The clouds were very impressive so after taking just a few photos (too many cars with their hoods up) I shot this short timelapse video:

Chicano Park Fleetline

The Chicano Park car show held in Barrio Logan, adjacent to downtown San Diego is an event that Kathy and I look forward to attending each year. The San Diego area was crowded in part because the Padres and the Dodgers were playing all weekend. We took the Amtrak Surfliner train into town and rode the San Diego Trolley train from downtown to Barrio Logan and avoided all of the traffic congestion.

The neighborhood of Barrio Logan is a historically Latino area of San Diego County and the park itself has a very interesting history. Located below the 5 freeway and the approaches to the Coronado Bay Bridge, it is home to many murals painted on the concrete highway supports.

I saw this beautiful 1948(?) Chevrolet Fleetline at the show. There seemed to be fewer cars in attendance this year. Kathy and I assumed it was because of the threat of rain. This car had some cool mini-murals on the front and back bumper areas. Not sure if the wood on the sides are original to the car or not.

Duty Now for the Future

Devo 2.0 holds down a thunderous bottom line while Nigel and Eugene respectively see to the vocal and guitar responsibilities. Disneyland park, tomorrowland terrace stage.

I've Got Me Surrounded

So this is where I spend my workdays. When working, I do best if my surroundings are creative and familiar. So here I have hung some of my photography on the walls along with some of my favorite skateboards and a few pieces of art that reflect my interest in aviation.  Although this panorama makes my office appear well lit, in reality I usually work in near darkness to eliminate glare and to minimize eye strain. I also like the uncluttered, quiet serene feel of this office. It allows me to focus, be more productive, minimize stress, and maximize energy. My job often involves responding to multiple and often changing deadlines so a Zen attitude and environment are big advantages. This 11 shot panorama was taken with my really right stuff, BH-55 ball head's precision panning base which is laser engraved at 2.5 degree intervals and allows me to perfectly align my camera's sensor to the nodal rotation point. This ensures that my panoramas are rotationally symmetric and are not affected by parallax errors.

Classic Fractures

Yesterdays post was of a perfect Pontiac Indian head hood ornament. This one, which was taken at the same show may be old and fractured but has a lot of character. I like it.

Top Notch Pontiac

Kathy and I went to the Majestic Car Club's New Years Day car show at the Santa Fe Dam in Irwindale. Having never been to the show or location before, we didn't know what to expect. The show was huge with what must have been a thousand cars on display in the various parking lots that surround the lake, which itself is encompassed by the dam. We were getting ready to leave when Kathy spotted this Pontiac from across the street. It was parked near the base of the dam's tall rock wall embankment. Regular readers of my blog and/or photostream know how much I love to photograph these iconic Pontiac hood ornaments. This one really stood out with the late afternoon sun streaming through it.  While many original Pontiac hood ornaments are lined with a multitude of internal cracks, this one looked factory fresh. I guess it's a reproduction. The owner mentioned that at night you can flip a switch inside the car and the amber colored Indian head glows. This was shot with a Minolta 100mm macro lens at f2.8 for a very shallow depth-of-field and enhanced bokeh.