1948 Pontiac Streamliner - Silver Streak

During an early April morning at the Pomona Auto Swap Meet, I encountered a remarkable automobile. Coincidentally, this discovery occurred just prior to the due date for taxes in the United States. Having filed my taxes several months earlier, I was able to devote my attention to this exquisite vehicle, which I believe to be a 1948 Pontiac Streamliner Silver Streak convertible. Notably, some early 1948 Pontiacs were equipped with engines and transmissions sourced from Italy. While I cannot ascertain whether this particular car possesses this type of engine or transmission, I surmise that convertibles were likely relatively uncommon. My research indicates that, in addition to the convertible model, buyers had the option of selecting a sport coupe with a rumble seat, a business coupe, or a touring sedan.

1951 Pontiac Chieftain

Kathy and I had a good time at the Pomona Auto Swap meet in late June. My nephew was in town and told me he and his significant other were planning to join us. Kathy and I arrived at the fairgrounds just after 5 am. It was a bit overcast and chilly, which was perfect for us. We usually steer clear of hot days when we’re out taking photos. We found a parking spot quickly and got our cameras out of the trunk. We made our way into the swap meet and even though it was still dark, we managed to spot around 20 cars of the type we’d like to take photos of. Many more cars arrived in the next two hours.

 I noticed this green 1951 Pontiac Chieftain right away. As always, classic Pontiacs are super attractive to me. At first, it was their beautiful hood ornaments that caught my eye, but as time went on, I started to appreciate the overall style of Pontiac vehicles. So, it’s no surprise that when my nephew arrived, I was taking photos of this stunning green Pontiac. In fact, I was just finishing up the 7th set of HDR images when he showed up. I had already taken over a dozen shots of the hood ornament alone!

 

Taking a New Lens for a Swirl

The Petzval lens design has been around since the 1840's and is best known for creating a crisp center area of focus while rendering the surrounding area with an out-of-focus swirly bokeh. Almost like the bokeh has decided to do a little pirouette. While the pursuit of perfect optics in modern lens design would seemingly have made this type of lens obsolete, I find it quite compelling even with it’s tendency to generate chromatic aberration and heavy vignetting. For this reason, when Lensbaby decided to release their own take on the Petzval lens, the Twist 60, I bought it the first time they offered it at a significant discount. While I'm still learning to this manual focus lens, if I continue to get good results, I’ll be posting more from this little lightweight optical wonder soon!

Ready for your closeup?

The Pontiac vehicle that was fortunate enough to have this beautiful ornament attached to it's hood was a beauty. I certainly took more than couple of sets of photos of the car, but as regular readers of this blog will know, I am just crazy for the classic Pontiac hood ornaments, and I was not about to pass up the chance to switch cameras to take this close up image. I'll admit that all the specular highlights I could see on the car right next to it, increased my interest. I expected those specular highlights to resolve themselves into round bokeh dots in the blurred background which they did so I was quite pleased with this shot.

One of the things that I really appreciate being able to do after decades of being a photographer is the ability to look at a scene and quickly identify an opportunity for a memorable photo. I guess I have developed the ability pre-visualize what I might be able to capture when certain individual elements exist that MIGHT result in something good.

Illuminated Pontiac

Kathy and I were walking into the Chicano park car show early in the morning and came across this Pontiac car backing into a parking place. The headlights were on as was the iconic hood ornament. The driver shut off the engine, lights and ornament and exited his car. I asked if he could turn them back on for a minute and he said “sure”. I took a few shots with my wide-angle lens. I normally would have preferred to use my macro lens but he was waiting to turn off the lights so I was pressed for time. 

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:

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.

Golden Hour

I had walked by this car earlier in the day and I liked the light then but now the sun was quickly giving way to evening and the light was very difussed and full of color so I decided to walk back to see if the owner had left yet. This is what I saw. So glad I went back.

Time Out for Some Bokeh

I found that taking photos of hood ornaments was a nice break from using my tripod to create HDR sequences at the Car Show by the Sea in San Pedro. While having so many cars packed closely together makes creating a nice HDR composition difficult, it makes macro photography of hood ornaments and emblems a joy. The cars surrounding the object being photographed are for the most part very reflective, with fantastic paint and lots of chrome. This means that when shooting with my macro lens using a very shallow depth-of-field, these reflective background objects are rendered out-of-focus very beautifully.