For those looking only for the photo gallery, you can reach it directly here: 2012 World of Wheels Show

It’s that time again, the first post of the new show season and as usual I’m going to start with the World of Wheels show at the David Lawrence Center in downtown Pittsburgh, PA.

This is the third year that I’ve shot the show, and as always it was brimming over with a large variety of cars and exhibits to enjoy. Last year, I only had a short amount of time to shoot due to the weather and the AFC Championship, but this year the weather was fantastic and the Steelers weren’t, so I was able to make it to both levels. Needless to say, the extra work was worth it.

With any show, there’s always a mix of old and new, and World of Wheels is no different. As you go through the photos, you’ll see more than a fair share of return vehicles on display. That’s OK I think; I like seeing the repeats and many times they’ve been updated in some form or another, so it can be fun to follow that progress. On the flipside, shows this early also have a higher chance of fresh metal showing up for their first outing, so it’s exciting and fun to see what projects were under wraps through the winter and are just now coming into the light. It’s also fun that people love to talk about said new projects. After all, they’ve put in a lot of time and sweat, so it’s only natural to be excited to share that with the world.

With that said, I’ve included below some of the new rides I came across from the first batch of photos uploaded tonight. With big shows like WOW and the Cleveland Autorama, it’s easier to upload photos in smaller batches as I process them than to wait and post them all at once. This way I can get photos up earlier to share than I could if I waited to post them all at once. That’s better for the viewers and fans of the show, and also for me as it takes some of the pressure off of getting images out in the public eye. In any case, definitely hop on over to the gallery to see this first batch, while in the meantime I’ll also post a few faves below just to whet your appetite in case you don’t have the time to view the gallery now. Thanks as always for looking, enjoy!

First up, this incredible Corvette-themed trike. Unlike a ‘Vette, no fiberglass was used – it’s all hand formed aluminum instead. Powered by a ’69 Camaro 6 cylinder engine, I think it’s an amazing scratch-built vehicle, and it’s owner/builder should be proud.

Adding to the fresh metal, how about this beautiful vintage Vega funny car? If you keep your eye out for it you may see it run at a track near you this year.

And for something really unique, check out this custom bike made entirely of Knex. Yeah, it’s not a legit ride, but the amount of time and design that went into it is pretty impressive. Plus, I’ve never seen anything like it before at any show ever. In fact, the whole display was a real standout.

Nice mini-mural on the tail of this very clean Mustang.

Speaking of Mustangs, how about this pink beauty? I was told by the owner that this was an original limited edition color given to Playboy Bunnies. Dealers only got six cars – 2 vinyl tops, 2 std. hardtops, and 2 convertibles, and that was it. This one has has been in the family since its purchase.

And finally, a nice 5.0, just because.

Some recent B&W images to share with you. Various cameras from iPhone to D200 add a little variety to the mix.

Wanted to show a few more recent photos from my 光 : Hikari project. The majority were taken at night and you can immediately see the dramatic difference it makes in the final images. Only wish it weren’t so cold so that I could go out and shoot some more night sets. In many respects, they could almost comprise a separate project on their own. Anyway, hope you enjoy these.

And one more based on daylight:

Moving along with my Out And About posts, I have a small batch of photos that were taken here and there with a couple of my film cameras, the Konica Auto-S and also the Canon Canonet QL17-GIII. These were from the summer, but the film sat for sometime before getting processed and scanned. I use an Epson V500 flatbed scanner and the results are nice for my purposes. Yes, there are much better and more expensive scanners available, but I don’t shoot the volume of film that I think would warrant their cost, and truth be told, reasonable-sized prints (8×10, 12×18 max.) look perfectly clear and clean from the scans I’m making, so I can’t find a reason to upgrade.

The photo above and the next few were mostly from a church festival here in town at St. Vitus Church we attended, and were shot with the Konica. Film was ISO400 Walgreen’s Color film (which is Fuji), though I converted most of them to B&W after scanning. The rest were with the Canon from various outings here and there, same film.

And now the Canonet:

Bonus Shot. This is from my G12 and not film at all, but take a look at how well the G12 does B&W compared to the film shots above. I find it very filmic in the way the images come out, at least with some massaging in Lightroom 3. If it only had a decent and usable optical viewfinder, it’d be a perfect substitute for the Canonet in many ways.

This is a follow-up to my prior post Out And About V.1. Finally got a chance to post as I’ve been sick for a bit and just felt too beat to work on much of anything. Good now though, so let’s get it on.

If you read the earlier post, I posted some photos I took a short while back from one of our trips to nearby Mill Creek State Park. Mostly it was of the wetlands and scenes from the Fellows Riverside Gardens area. Today’s photos are from an even more recent outing and are from the Lanterman’s Mill & Falls area of the park.

One thing I should point out is that often we go to the park on a whim without having planned to do so. That’s usually because we’re shopping in the area and have some time to kill so decide to get out in nature a bit. This time was no exception and so I had only had my G12 with me which is what I shot these with. Great little camera, the G12, and it’s more than capable of producing quality results as long as you know its limitations. The day these were shot was fairly warm, but quite overcast, so didn’t have to deal with the wide dynamic range that you’d get in full sunlight. You lose a bit of contrast and color saturation, but that’s natural and how the scene looked at the time, so it’s acceptable I feel. The G12 handles these kind of days nicely, and the proof is in the shots I’m posting here. Enjoy!

And for variety’s sake, an abstract taken on the same outing:

Haven’t posted much on personal activities lately, so today I’m going to start making up for that. With the weather having been reasonably decent over the last month or so, me and the fam made a few outings to our favorite spot, Mill Creek State Park in Youngstown, Ohio. As as a result, I have a few batches of photos to share which I’ll spread out over a few posts just to keep each one within a reasonable size.

Today’s batch was from a few weeks back. The weather was fairly comfy, but overcast, and I had the D3 w/ 80-200 f2.8 for the day. Unlike some photogs, I’m not one to carry a big kit with me when I shoot – at least not for unpaid, pleasure work. Instead, I’m usually one lens/one camera, and maybe a flash if I think I’ll be in a situation where I’ll need it. Any more than that and it becomes a hassle to me and also to my family as I’d be more worried about my gear than them or the outing. Besides, I’m lazy – shit gets heavy after 3-4 hours of traipsing around with my whole kit.

Anyway, like I said, this time out I had the long zoom on for a change because the reach is actually pretty handy when hiking near the river and also because I’m kind of bored shooting wide/normal all the time. Glad I made the choice because I had a few nice ops for candid shots that would have been impossible with the 24-70. I also processed the shots mostly as B&W as it was so cloudy the colors were crap anyway and B&W would let me get serious enough with the contrast to give them the pop they’d be missing otherwise because of the weather.

With that, here’s my faves from the day. Mostly landscapes, with a few candids thrown in for variety. But then, that’s pretty much Mill Creek in a nutshell, so there ya’ go. Enjoy!

October’s entry for free wallpaper is up. A little bit of texture and pattern with an organic touch for a unnaturally natural kind of feel. (Click the image to download. 1920×1200)

You may have seen this photo before – last year in March I posted it along with some others in a post about me trying film again after over 10 years of digital only photography. Unfortunately, since this was first posted I hadn’t touched the camera until just last week when I finally got a battery for it (odd size, but easy to find -> BatteryMart). I had bought film a bit earlier, but just never got around to the battery. In case you’re wondering, Fuji makes film for these in three flavors – FP-100c, FP-100b, and FP-3000b. That equates to one color film and two B&Ws to play with.

Of the film I bought, I already burned through one of the color packs. Results were pretty decent once I got a hang of where to set the exposure dial, though it’s a bit blurry. I won’t post any of the shots because they are really mundane and were taken just to get a feel for the camera/film combo. My first real outing with it though was earlier today when we went to the Franklin Applefest in Franklin, PA. I took a few different packs with me to try, but ended up shooting just one pack of FP-3000b, which is an ISO 3000 B&W film with an extremely fast develop and drying time.

Results were pretty good for the most part, and sharper than the color film, but it seems really sensitive as to how you pull the sheet when you develop the print. As you’ll see below, it has a high tendency to unevenly distribute the developer and thus you get some unevenness in the final prints. I could say it was my rusty technique or a malfunctioning camera that was the real issue, but I had no such problems at all with the color film, so I chalk it up to the ultra-fast develop time (15 secs.) that makes it so touchy. That’s my hunch at least. I’ll find out with more certainty in the near future when I try the FP-100b B&W film that has a much longer develop time. In any case, I shot all ten pics in about 2.5 hours, which if I had had my digital gear would have probably been ten times that amount. Can’t say that’s a benefit as I don’t mind shooting a large number of frames if warranted, but I wasn’t trying to rush it today, and unlike digital, each shot runs a little under $1.00 a pop.

And here’s the results, scanned on my Epson V500 scanner, with no adjustments other than dust and bubble removal, which is a necessity. First one is dark from trying to get a bearing on the exposure comp needed. You can easily see the development unevenness in most of the shots, but that’s life and just adds character I guess you could say. One shot was snapped by the Ape, I’ll leave it to you to decide which one.

A handful of new additions to my “光 : Hikari” project. Movin’, movin’, movin’ along.