Attending a car show can be an overload of makes , models, beautiful paint , wheels and engines. It's pretty easy when you get home and down load your photos you have a lot of front 3/4 views from about 10 feet back. To me it's often the smaller details that tells the story of the vehicle more than the overview . Car people are all about the details.
One of my favorite details are the hood ornaments that are the symbol and often the history of the brand.
When you see an interesting hood ornament, resist the urge to take a quick picture. I like to walk around the car to find a simple uncluttered background to isolate the ornament. Sometimes this is best accomplished by shooting upward to use the sky as a background as shown with the purple Pontiac.
The lead photo of a 1932 Pontiac emblem was parked next to a black car giving me a perfect black background.
The Jaguar is a busier background, but I felt having the curve of the fender echoed the curve of the cat and tells you it is a Jaguar show.
It's good to look at the reflections in the hood. You don't want to see yourself and your camera staring back at you. Often if it's a nice sky with clouds as shown in the Plymouth Mayflower, it adds interest to the photograph.
Another approach I take is to shoot a range of exposures. This allows me to use these later in Light Room to pick the best overall shot to work with. Not every shot will work, but the main idea is to experiment and see what works for you.
Hood ornaments are a great conversation starter with the owner of the car. This is when you will really enjoy the show by connecting with the car owners and hearing the story of their car. That's often when you really get to know the story the hood ornament tells.
Check out other hood ornaments on my web site www.stillslife.net or StillsLife on Facebook.
Regards
Michael
We owned two Pontiacs, a 1947 and a 1953. I loved the '53, as it was the first new car we'd had: dark green with green wool broadcloth and nylon upholstery. I lobbied hard for the illuminate Indian-head hood ornament. No such luck. We then had several new cars, including a '63 Oldsmobile 88, a '66 Chrysler Newport, etc. I've owned a new 1963 Corvair Monza coupe, '70 VW bus, new Lincoln Mark VII, new Peugeot 505 and 604. Now own a 2011 MB GLK, which is a great vehicle. Thanks so much for your site!
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