Automotive & Event Photographer | Eric Mastrangelo » 2009

Grand Finale

emasterphoto — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 08:46:51 +0000

Completed the shots of the final round of the ’09 Lawrence County Fair demolition derby tonight. Since it was really just a “best of show” type round amongst the finalists from the prior rounds, the car count was fairly low and the action not as intense overall. Still, a few good hits here and there, but mostly just a good time for the victors. Here’s some highlights:

And finally, the slideshow for the complete gallery of images from the derby:

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Round 4

emasterphoto — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:24:43 +0000

Finished editing Round 4 from the ’09 Lawrence County Fair demolition derby tonight. This was the final round of the normal classes, with Round 5 being a “championship” round with the winners from the previous rounds all competing for the final prize. Here’s some of my favorites from the round:

It’s A Chebby!

emasterphoto — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:18:01 +0000

Here’s a new photo from the 2009 Back To The 50′s show I shot back in the summer. Nice classic Impala, and very clean.

Round 3

emasterphoto — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:51:34 +0000

Going through my backlog tonight and finished up Round 3 from the Lawrence County Fair demolition derby. This round featured full-sized cars as the main contestants and as a result the hits were harder and the action more frantic. Rounds 4 and 5 were the “playoffs” so to speak, so the cars were fewer and already half-dead by then, thus this round was probably the most exciting of the night. The latter rounds will get posted in a short while, and who will the champion be, I wonder?

And like before, here’s a slideshow of the full derby gallery up to this round:

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Hump Day

emasterphoto — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:54:42 +0000

Had this past Wednesday off. Nothing particularly stunning about that in itself as I have usually 2-3 a month off typically, but this week the weather was exceptionally nice and seeing that the Ape was driving us nuts at home, we decided to go to the local mall to help him blow off some energy. Why the mall when the weather was so sweet? Mostly because of the play area there and because the parks we usually attend are like ghost towns now with no kids for him to play with. Took the camera with for kicks. From past experience, the play area has a big skylight over it that lets in gobs of natural light, so armed with the 80-200 @f2.8 and 3200 ISO I knew I could get some nice snaps of him playing. Here’s the three I like best from the day:

I really like the first one because of the directional light coming from the big bank of side windows to the left of the play area and where he’s standing. His expression is also awesome as well — so full of confidence, I’m somewhat envious. The last one is a bit grainy because it was at 6400 ISO if I remember, but I just like his expression, so it’s OK. B&W works great for high ISO shots, very filmic, though the color originals actually were quite nice too.

Aside from the mall, took a few other snaps that day I liked. First is the grody Jack o’ Lantern from Halloween we still have out front. It’s just starting to turn and get interesting, but I snapped it anyways. I’m actually going to go back to it as time goes on because the mold, decay, shrinkage, etc. gets really interesting after a while and makes for some real horror shots if you’re patient. For now though, it’s a good start:

Played around with it in Photoshop and Lightroom a bit for fun and liked the results, so there you go.

Also took this shot of the antenna on our roof for the TV. We got cable actually, and digital TV makes this a bit of a moot point as well even if we didn’t have cable, but it still looks neat. One of these days we’ll get rid of it . . . In the meantime though, some PP in Photoshop for fun. Looks very Christopher Griffith, but in color. That’s OK, I was just playing around for fun.

Backcatalog

emasterphoto — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:22:26 +0000

Just spent a little time playing catch-up on my backcatalog of recent photos. Had some from the first or second time we went to Mill Creek Park a month or so back, and out of those, these three caught my eye:

This first one is a downstream shot from Lanterman Falls, taken from the deck at the mill. That bridge is so much more impressive looking from below. When you drive over it normally, you almost can’t even tell there’s anything significant below worth looking at — it just looks like an overpass in a normal residential neighborhood.

Next is a Monarch butterfly I found resting at the Fellows Riverside Gardens near the northern-most tip of the park.

And for last, this really cool scarified tree trunk also found at the Fellows Riverside Gardens. Interesting thing about it is, aside from the whole trunk being covered in grafitti, you’d never know it was even there unless you looked for it as the tree’s branches form a complete canopy over it, kinda like a weeping willow tree, and you have to go inside to see it. Very cool I think.

Round 2

emasterphoto — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 07:34:59 +0000

Had some more free time today to work on my editing backlog. This round I finished and posted the second round pictures from the recent demolition derby at the Lawrence County Fair last month. Below are some of my favorites from the batch.

Here’s a slideshow for the entire current gallery as well.

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Round 1

emasterphoto — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:38:16 +0000

Got a chance to cull through more of the photos from last weekend’s demolition derby at the Lawrence County Fair. They’re posted up to the gallery with the prior shots and are of the first round of cars, which was mainly 4-cylinder vehicles. I’ve included some shots below that I like best, and a slideshow of the current gallery follows.

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The Start Of Something Great

emasterphoto — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:29:27 +0000

Tonight I’ve been culling through the shots from this past Saturday’s demolition derby at the Lawrence County Fair. I’ve put up a gallery for it on my main home page, but here’s a few of my favorites from tonight. The derby was in five rounds, so I’ll post each round progressively as I get through them. To start with I’ve posted up some pre-race shots as an appetizer, and you can view them here. A derby is just pure chaos to shoot as there’s so much going on and the volume of shots is necessarily high, but I’m already seeing some standout shots that really capture the feel of the event, so those I’ll post here although the bulk of the shots will be in the main gallery. I hope you enjoy!