The early show …
Text and photos by Richard Bartholomew –
Starting the day before the sun is up allows you to catch some interesting photographs. You can see vintage cars on the streets and at car shows all over Southern California, and the US for that matter, this time of year but you don’t get to see them cruising with the lights on unless you catch the early show.
Depending on what kind of camera you use and it’s settings you can get some nice shots even in dim light.
Then there is the golden hour, just before and for almost an hour after the sun cracks over the horizon, bathing the cars and surroundings in a soft yellow light plus the shadows become very long. The light changes minute by minute usually ending in a normal bright day and washing out all the good reflections. Like seeing the Grand Canyon at noon, don’t do it, it’s just so much better at dawn or dusk.
These are the morning pictures from the last ‘Show and Go’ at Riverside California, put on by the Rotary Club of East Riverside, with bands and venders and ALWAYS a lot of cars, more every year it seems. And such a variety, I’m not sure how many car clubs meet up there every year but it’s a lot and I really liked seeing different versions and degrees of modification.
The sun didn’t come out in the five hours I was there but the changing grays brought out the best of some of the paint jobs. The way some of them pop it’s like the rest of the world is in black and white. I had the same spot that I had a couple years ago and took over a thousand pictures so there may be a midmorning follow up story.
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
Richard Bartholomew is an artist and photographer based in Southern California. Visit his Facebook page here. He is open to interesting consignments and can be reached at zeroagenow@aol.com
Speak Your Mind