Under the Hood, 4 of 7
August 21st, 2024
a daily photo from joshua l. smith
I love the fact that this car’s owner has chosen red accents for his engine but left the dipstick blue. It’s perfect.
This engine sits flat underneath the Corvair’s “pickup” bed; making it even more of an oddity, not simply because it’s a van front end with a pickup back end.
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.
When we visited St Louis with the marching band in 2022, this was the view out of our hotel room. The night before, I wandered around near the Arch, and captured some fantastic photos, but in the morning this was our view – absolutely spectacular!
Sure, if you go to a classic car show, the mid-50’s Chevy BelAirs are almost as popular as the late 60’s Mustangs, but it’s for a reason. The BelAirs are simply rolling works of art … absolutely stunning, eye catching, and head turning.
Another wonderful photo from the Elgin History Museum’s annual Classic Car Show. Everyone knows what a 1957 Chevy Belair looks like, so it’s always challenging to find a unique take on this incredibly classic of the classic cars. But, if there’s a late 60’s muscle car with awesome rims next to it? Well, now that’s kinda unique.
…someday I will learn to take a photo of the entire car, or at least of the tag with the car’s information at car shows, but the day that I photographed this car was not that day…
Earlier in the morning, before the Elgin History Museum’s Classic Car Show technically started, there were a few showers that rolled through. While most of the cars arrived after the rain or their owners cleaned the cars off, this dripping wet Thunderbird lent itself to some unique photos.
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.
Whenever I attend car shows, I try to take some time to walk through the spectator’s parking lot. This Mustang was just sitting there, looking angry, waiting for someone to take a photo.
While I was taking the photo, another Mustang owner parked right next to this car and asked me if it was my car – sadly no.
…view older images with the thumbnails below…
This was an interesting concept, but poor execution. The idea was that the sparks from the steel wool would look like they were coming out of the tailpipe, but – well, you gotta have your angles right. And since that’s me spinning the steel wool, well, my camera angle was all wrong. Oh well, I still think it’s a cool shot of Keith on his bike.
…view older images with the thumbnails below…
I alway enjoy finding new locations to photograph light trails, and I found this particular spot about 2 years before I finally got down to photograph it. Grand Avenue crosses I-90/94 with a perfect view of the Willis Tower, but there’s also a Metra track there too!
However, that Metra line is not used that often on the weekends, so I will have to go back to capture a better photo with the train light trails too. (Oh, and LED billboards are terrible…)
…view older images with the thumbnails below…