Car shows are in fact, a very hard place to actually photograph cars in. That’s why when I go to them, I often just bring my 50mm lens, or in this case my Tamron 90mm macro lens. For the SuperNationals Custom Car Show 2019 in Albuquerque I guessed it would be crowded, people walking into potential photos from all directions, and the cars would be bunched in close together and often roped off. All this was the case so I was glad I decided to focus on getting details shots of the custom cars there with my macro lens.
This rat rod style hot rod at a small car show in Rio Rancho caught my eye for where it was parked, as well as how it looked. I cannot say I had ever seen a parking space marked "SENIOR ADULT" before. Does that mean there must be a junior adult or a senior child space somewhere in the world? This hot rod was about as ratty as they can come, and I mean no offense by that! It looked awesome and make me think I needed a tetanus shot just for standing next to it!
Those that know me, know that I love cars, well, special cars. Not all have to be as special as my beloved Aston Martin Vanquish (some day!), but even just the ability to go anywhere, do anything is enough. Getting serious speed in a car is not that affordable, especially for newer models. However, getting serious offroad ability is. When I traded in my faithful and much loved Mazda3 sedan in March for the Jeep Renegade Trailhawk you see here, I was giving up great, affordable on road driving dynamics for the ability to drive offroad anywhere a stock vehicle could.
Going to a car show for the first time, you never really know what to expect with regard to how many cars, how cool of cars, and even what kinds of cars. I was pleasantly surprised by a recent small car show I went to in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. A good number of classic cars many of which had very interesting interiors. With my new Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro SP lens on my Nikon D750 exclusively while at this car show, I decided to make the theme of my shots the cool classic car interiors, with a few detail shots here and there. Check out the sense of humor of a 1966 Mustang owner with what passes for an "airbag" in his classic car!
There was a time just a few years ago I was quite taken with the BMW M3 E46. It is a hardcore sports car that can be had on the used market for the price of a regular new car, but maybe just for now as it will only start to go up in value for low-mileage examples like the one pictured here. The original owner is selling it via bringatrailer.com so I traveled up to Santa Fe, New Mexico to photograph it for him.
If you watched Magnum PI in the 1980s, like I did, and revisited it on Netflix in recent times, through all those years I thought the only thing you needed to thwart bad guys in Hawaii was your wits, and of course a Ferrari 308 GTS! So when Bring A Trailer contacted me about photographing this supercar up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I was very excited!
At long last I got to see the Porsche 918 Spyder in person! To my great surprise Porsche of Albuquerque not only featured the 918 hypercar, but also the previous Porsche hypercar, the Carrera GT! The 918 Spyder was pretty much considered the fastest production car in existence when it came out just 3 years ago, and there really is not anything much faster around a track yet.
