What is was like judging the 2025 Pacific Grove Rotary Concours Auto Rally
This summer I have been an invited guest to the Pacific Grove Rotary Club luncheons. After getting to know what the club is more about, I have decided to join, and even before becoming an official member, the club asked me to be a judge for its annual Pacific Grove Rotary Concours Auto Rally during Monterey Car Week! I am a car enthusiast and know a lot about a lot of cars, but I have never judged a show before. Luckily, there were not that many criteria to judge each car on. Basically there were 17 categories, 13 specific ones, and 4 overall “grand prizes” to consider for each car. Of the 250+ entries, it was on me to judge the even numbered entries, along with one other judge doing evens, and two other judges doing odds, so that each car had two judges assessing it.
Ferrari Owners line up Ocean Ave in Carmel for Monterey Car Week 2025
Another car show event for Monterey Car Week 2025 today. This time I went to Carmel for Prancing Ponies on Ocean Ave. The main street down the heart of Carmel is Ocean Ave, and indeed ends right at the ocean. The beach was not the center of attention today though, it was a lineup of Ferrari cars from across the generations to the latest 12 cylinder GT car, to classic racing cars from the 50s. I even got to see my personal favorite, the 458 Speciale Aperta. None of the Ferrari Big 5 (now 6) nor the Daytona SP3 which was disappointing though. Still, the sun was out and it was a beautiful afternoon for viewing fast and beautiful Italian sports cars!
Pacific Grove annual The Little Car Show brings a big crowd in 2025
One of the benefits of living in downtown Pacific Grove is that many very cool events are just walking distance away. Such was the case today with The Little Car Show taking place just two blocks from both my photo studio and apartment. I really enjoyed this car show because it was not the usual kinds of cars you see at the average car show. Many cars I had never even heard of before, let alone have seen before. So many of the car owners started talking to me about their cars with such interesting stories and history with their cars. One person with a VW van took his now wife out on their first date in it. All these years later, he just finished restoring it with his daughter. What an amazing story it was! Thank you to all the car owners who came to Pacific Grove today!
Car event photography at Porsche of Monterey for Car Week 2025
This was my second time attending the car event held by Porsche of Monterey. For me, it kicks off Monterey Car Week 2025. This is a very large car event featuring Porsches from all eras and all generations. The event spreads out all over the dealership covering the entire lot, the service bays, and even closing a part of one of the main streets in town. It is a great event if you want to learn about the history of Porsche cars, or just walk around in the late afternoon sunshine daydreaming about driving one of these sports cars on the open road. Another first for me was getting to see a PTS Carrera GT!
I am a big fan of going to car shows, but they are always a challenge to photograph due to how close cars are parked together, and of course people walking all around them. For that reason, I usually bring a 50mm lens and focus on getting detail shots. This time, I decided to bring my new Sony 24mm f/1.4 G Master lens so I could still get wide shots, but also shallow depth of field to make the busy car show background start to disappear. Like everything I have used this lens for, I really liked the results. The Park in the Park Car Show in Rio Rancho was celebrating its 20th anniversary with over 300 cars, all of which had to be 35 years or older, which is just fine with me as anything newer than that is not classic in mind.
The BMW Car Club New Mexico Chapter got invited to a very unique car show right at the top of a mountain at Santa Fe Ski Resort! We actually drove from the Sanat Fe BMW dealership on to the foot of the ski slope itself! Yes, that means my M3 along with a host of other sports cars and classic cars actually went off road. This could not have been a more stunning setting and a fantastic day overall. It felt like a whole different world up there. We capped the day with a hike up to the summit of the mountain, some 11,000+ feet of elevation! To top it all off, they had great veggie burgers grilled right before us with green chili and homemade cookies. In a side note, from the photo below you can see that Jessica and I are living in two totally different temperature zones!
For regular readers of this photography website, I often say when I go to car shows I usually focus on detail shots of cars because getting good, full shots are nearly impossible due to lots of people around, other cars parked too closely, and often bad light. There were not so many people around this classic Cadillac Coupe deVille, but I still mostly focused on the details because they were so interesting to me. What kind of car has two hood emblems? When is the B-pillar all the was in the back and emblazoned with yet another badge? Then what I am pretty sure did not come from the factory, how often do you see a skull floating in the cabin?
