Classic convertible Mercedes photographed in ABQ for Bring A Trailer
If I could only photograph one thing the rest of my career, cars would be fine with me! The opportunities to professionally photograph cars in Albuquerque, New Mexico are not that often, so I am always glad to get to make professional car auctions photos for Bring A Trailer, this time of a 1966 Mercedes 230SL. This classic car had both a hard top and a soft top, meaning I had to get three different series of photos of the exterior, including the top down. This is the most time consuming part of a car shoot, especially a convertible car. Joanna and her family had the car ready to go from all angles, and chose a very nice location with minimal interference from traffic and passersby. Thank you Joanna for choosing me as your car photographer and good luck with it on Bring A Trailer!
Summerfest returns to Albuquerque with music, cars, and food
Summerfest 2022 Albuquerque returned for the first time in three years (last was in 2019, see car photos). Summerfest is a combination of multi-stage concerts, a car show, and street food. It was extremely hot this year, even after 7pm, but I managed to get a few photos before melting. I chose low angle composition for all these shots to show the viewer something you could not already just see when walking by at typical eye level. Plus using low angle with an empty foreground draws the eye of the viewer into the photo, as seen in both photos featuring cars. Add to that using leading lines, and the photos have two composition styles to show a different look at Summerfest.
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.
In my car photography career, I have had the opportunity to photograph a lot of expensive cars, including a Rolls-Royce Wraith over $350k (and even drive it too!). However, the Duesenberg Model X photographed in Albuquerque, New Mexico is above and beyond any other car in terms of both value and rarity. This Duesenberg model is just one of five still in existence in the world! Who owns one of those other examples? No less than Jay Leno! The owner of this Model X is selling to to replace it with a Duesenberg Model J. He hired me to make photographs to help sell it for the highest price possible, as well as make drone video of the car in motion on Tramway Blvd.
On a recent car photography shoot in Santa Fe, I got to photograph four fantastic cars. This 1962 Austin-Healey 3000 MKII is the second car I am sharing from this day of car photography in Santa Fe (the first was a Rolls-Royce Wraith). I photographed this Austin-Healey in the style for selling at auction, as I had for this client before a few month ago with his Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider Veloce. As it often is when photographing a beautiful classic car, it was an absolute pleasure photographing this Austin-Healey as there seemed to be endless angles to get stunning shots. The color of the car itself dazzled me each time I looked at it in the bright afternoon Santa Fe sunshine.
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?
Going for details with car show photography in Albuquerque
To my surprise the car show featured at Albuquerque Summerfest 2019 was much bigger than I expected. As with most car shows, get photos of entire cars is a challenge due to people walking all around the cars, so as is my usual custom, I focus on getting detail shots, this time with my trusty 50mm f/1.8 lens. In the lead photo I cleaned up the background removing a few people to leave a clean shot of the front of a powerful yellow 427 balanced by the double center white line passing through the bottom of the frame. I look for contrasting lines, with the double white and then the black stripe on the car.
