Monday, November 2, 2026
Seems like just yesterday that I was sitting here typing about a Chevrolet Impala that I had gone to shoot in Forsyth County. I was really surprised at the amount of keepers that I got from that car after only seeing it for a second in passing before deciding to photograph it. The thing that it had going for it was the patina and the rust that was on it. Of course, those are some of the most important elements in my photographs here lately. Today’s trek will be similar, yet from a different angle. This is a car that I have been seeing for several years now but have yet to get a good look at it. I’ve mentioned it a couple of times in previous blogs as I pass by this location several times a week on average. The problem I’ve had with it is that the car is behind a house, in front of a shed and very hard to get a good look at. All I could see was that it was a red car from the ’60’s. At first, I thought that it was a Galaxie, but here lately, I’ve started to think that it was a Buick LeBaron of some sort. The body style could have gone either way and without getting closer to it, I was not quite sure what I was looking at.
The car seemed to be in decent shape with no real rust visible. Much of the chrome trim was missing from it and the paint wasn’t all that shiny. It didn’t really fall into the decay area of my photography, but there was something about the design of the car that really caught my eye. Without the rust, I was afraid that this car was going to turn into a show and shine session which I wasn’t really all that interested in doing.
A short time before the driveway adventure really got started, I had started to soften my opinion on the car and wanted to explore the shapes that it offered in hopes that I might be able to get some interesting abstracts or detail shots. The next problem quickly presented itself. It seemed that nobody was ever home when I was by here on days that the conditions were decent for the attempt. Every time that I stopped by, there were no cars in the parking area and no answer at the door. This is something that I run into quite a bit when trying to photograph old cars as they are rarely out in the open and easy to access without permission to access the property.
My plan had been to go by on a cloud day because I really thought that shadows would be my downfall with this car. Of course, after several failed attempts on cloudy days, I started to look for whatever kind of day I could find. This weekend had offered a couple of potentially good days to try and photograph it, but on Thursday evening, I was contacted by the company that did the driveway and they said that they could come out and do the back dress on the landscaping on Friday if I was available. With the alternative being after Thanksgiving, I jumped at the chance to get it all done. To make a short project a long story, I was told that it would be between four and six hours on Friday to get everything done. That turned into two full days of work as they restructured the yard to match the new driveway. They were finally finished in the later afternoon on Saturday, and I then had to go and get mulch to finish up the flower bed in front of the house. That took me until sunset which left me free on Sunday. It was cloudy on Sunday, but there was a real chance of rain and I was tired after doing the mulch the evening before. I decided to sit that day out and stay home.
When Monday rolled around, I started to really work on my upcoming family photo shoot that is scheduled for next Saturday. The location for the session is going to be Doughton Park, and I haven’t been there in months. I needed to get out there and see what the conditions were looking like so that I could really help to dial in the wardrobe for my clients. Yep, I help with wardrobe choices as well with my portrait sessions. That is one of the things that set me apart from other photographers. Anyway, I figured that while I was out scouting, I would take the camera along in case I spotted any fall color that I wanted to photograph. I have yet to actually get out and try to capture the season, though I’ve had some foliage sneak into some of my photos here and there.
The Parkway was actually looking really nice with the Fall color, but the light wasn’t really working for landscape photos. It was a little too close to the middle of the day and the sun was rather harsh. I saw a few trees that would have made fine photos on their own, but I just couldn’t muster up enough excitement about them to stop and get the camera. I’ve been seeing Fall colors daily on my social media feed and I’ve just grown tired of it, I guess. Whatever the case was, I was actually quite fine not getting any photos from the Parkway and just checked out Doughton Park for the upcoming client session.
I took care of a few things on the way back home and decided to drive by the house with the Buick behind it to see if maybe somebody was home. As I approached, I saw two vehicles parked out front which was something different than before. I could see space for me to pull out of the road and park which I did. While I was parking, I saw a guy walking alongside the truck with a look on his face like “why are you here?” I don’t fault him one bit, I would have had the same look on my face in his situation. I got out and approached him to confirm that he was related to the house and property. After that was confirmed, I explained why I was there and he was happy to give me permission to photograph the car. In fact, he said that his grandfather was trying to sell the car and to point any interest that direction. So, if you are looking to get a project car like this, let me know and I’ll get you in touch with the owners.
Once I got permission to photograph the car, I grabbed my gear and walked behind the house and took my first good look at the car from an up-close position. It wasn’t a Buick at all, and I had been right about my thought that it was a Ford from the beginning. It was a Starliner which I just don’t see that many of, but I do like the design of. This was going to be fun if I could figure out how I wanted to deal with the fact that the car was painted red and had no rust or patina to speak of. All I had to work with were the shapes that were present all around the car. That had been the reason that the car had grabbed my attention in the first place, so there was no reason to look any further than that for the photographs.
The decision was made to shoot this car with purpose. I was going to slow down my approach and really make sure that I had the compositions figured out before I pressed the button. It was a challenge to myself so that I didn’t have several of each composition to cull through. It would also give me a chance to really decide in the field if I liked the composition enough to shoot it.
The first spot that I went to was the rear of the car where the fins were. I really love working the fins of this era and they are part of what defined the ’60’s with space travel being the hot topic everywhere. Cars took on similar styling to capture that same sentiment. I knew that I had to be careful with the red color of the car when I was doing isolations. As I’ve mentioned many times, red is a color that has to be used sparingly in photos because of the sense of urgency and excitement that it will bring to mind. I needed to control how prevalent that color was in the frame and there was a very good chance that I was going to be filling the frame with more red than anything with these photos.
That first composition that I worked out was one that captured the shape of the fin, but from a unique position that didn’t really show it as a fin. By capturing the fin from above, the most dominant feature was the chrome trim that established the shape of the fin. The shadow created the depth beneath the fin. The clouds were out just enough to diffuse the sunlight, so I was able to capture this a little flatter than I would have otherwise which added to the abstract nature of it all. I really liked how this was coming together but saw a slight tweak that needed to be made to the composition to really make the trim show the way that I wanted it to. It was that second exposure of the day that turned into the first keeper of the day.
I didn’t see any reason to stick with this concept any longer, so I moved onto the next spot of the car that I wanted to work with. That happened to be the front fender with the “Starliner” script in gold right at the leading edge. I framed up a horizontal shot that I liked and got the exposure right with the histogram. A single shot later and I was happy with it but felt that I could boil down the elements slightly more for an even more effective photograph. I flipped the camera vertical and reframed slightly. This was much more to the point and placed more emphasis on the trim at the top of the fender. It worked out much better than the horizontal one and this was the one that I went with as a keeper.
I wasn’t wasting any frames here as I was already two keepers into my first four frames. I was slowing down and making sure that I liked what I was shooting and once I had it, I moved on to something else. I wasn’t quite done with this area of the car though. While I was happy with the script that I had captured, there was more to the shape of the front of the car than just that nameplate. The car had been worked over in the past and there was still evidence of the work that had been done to it. While you could see that some of the metal was failing, there were touches that were still present that worked well for the car. That was where I headed next.
The front corner of the car interested me quite a bit with this car. Of course, you will know that I have always enjoyed photographing the corners of these old cars because I usually can get the headlights, fender shape, and even the front wheel in a single frame. From a higher vantage point, I could get everything presented in a nice “V” shape which added quite a bit of visual interest.
With this car, I had the benefit of capturing that “Starliner” badge as well as the bombsight on the top of the fender for some added interest. The headlights showed a custom touch with the trim rings done in black rather than chrome. This made the rest of the chrome on the front of the car stand out even better in my opinion. The issue that I saw in the camera was that the red was quickly becoming overpowering without having some cooler tones to balance it out. I felt pretty sure that this was going to be a black and white photo when it was all said and done which would allow me to make the chrome pop even more. It was that chrome that established the shapes of the car and told the story that I was after.
It was kind of odd for me to be working with a car that had so little rust, and at the same time wasn’t a reasonably restored example either. It was something in the middle and that almost made it more interesting than a rust subject in my mind. It was like there was a layer of makeup on this car which was hiding a truth that you were only seeing hints of. That mystery became the story that I wanted to capture with this car. That was what fueled me for the rest of my time here. Of course, I continued shooting with that same purpose driven process to get the photos that really conveyed what I loved about this car.
This photo was one that really turned out quite nice and is probably my favorite of the day for how well it captured the story that I was after. Since I did end up doing it in black and white, there was no color to tell a story, and we are left to look at all of the more subtle clues. You can see that the chrome and stainless parts are there but not shined at all. The paint looks more worn than it actually was in this presentation but still looks fully intact. The headlight trim rings show up as black which will stand out to those that know these cars and show a certain level of modification and customization to this car. There are lots of chapters to this story if you take the time to look at them. I’m just thrilled that I was able to get so many of those layers in a single photograph.
The front of the car really started to appeal to me after that corner shot and I started to look for other compositions that could work along the front. The previous composition had been shot with just a single frame needed. My next idea was a little more difficult to work out because I was wanting a specific depth of field. What drew me to the next composition was the crest on the hood that clearly identified this as a Ford and not a Buick as somebody inaccurately thought a short time before. I didn’t want to just capture the badge though as that would have been boring. Had there been some great rust and patina it might have been a different story, but with this car, I didn’t need a simple badge floating in a sea of red.
I had already identified the headlights as a point of interest from the other side, and decided that I wanted to include those as well with the badge. This would give a great reason to bring in the delicate grill and even the bumper for a bit of cooling color tones to contrast with the red on the hood. This was where the depth of field came from. While I wanted the detail in the grill, I didn’t want the headlights to be in focus. Those didn’t need to pull the attention from the badge which I felt that they would have if rendered sharp. The bumper was there for structure and color, so there was no need for it to be sharp either. However, I needed these things sharp enough to be identifiable and not so blurry that they became a distraction at the opposite pole. There was also the matter of which direction to shoot in.
This was one of those decisions that I had to make in the field, because the badge would betray any flipping of the image in post to change how it read. I had to get this one right in camera, which meant that I needed to figure out how best this composition read from left to right. If I shot the driver’s side, the badge would introduce the composition and take all of the initial attention. The diagonal grill would go up to the right which would make the photo more exciting which would match the red. That seemed like the perfect choice, but at the same time didn’t feel like a smooth progression through the frame.
By shooting to the passenger side, the headlights introduced the frame. However, with them being blurred, the viewer’s eyes are forced to follow the path to the right which leads down the grill in a calming way. It isn’t until you start to get to the sharper parts of the grill that the eyes jump up to the emblem and fully discover the red paint. Because of this visual journey the image has both a calming and exciting element and takes the viewer through some very different emotions. That transition is firmly based on the depth of field which is why that was so important here.
It was the second exposure that met all the qualities that I was after for the depth of field and that became my keeper from that composition. There was no need to shoot a half dozen frames here because the light wasn’t changing and I was figuring out the composition as I went along before pressing the button. It felt like I wasn’t doing much with this car, but in reality, I was being really quite efficient with the process and working like a sniper more than anything.
I did realize that I was relying on my typical approach to capturing headlights in my photos and decided that I needed to get in closer to the car and start working on some abstracts which I knew this car possessed. It was the trim at the front of the fenders that caught my attention at this point. The trim just framed the fender from the side and wasn’t all that unique in regard to what it accomplished. However when I started to view it from a more extreme angle, I could see a shape developing that worked well with the bumper shape. I pointed the camera to the corner as I had been doing, but this time, I got in very close to the corner of the fender and really zoomed in tight. This was where the close focusing ability of my standard zoom really came in nicely.
My goal was to make this an abstract that was all about shapes. I still needed some sort of visual anchor for the scene which would allow the eyes a place to rest. There was a dent right at the apex of the bend in the trim. This added to the abstract look and also blocked my reflection from showing through in the photos which I found to be a great bonus to the element. I liked how the sliver of the bumper at the bottom both established the overall shape of the scene and provided some deep shadows for another layer to the mystery that this car offered.
Again, there were only two frames shot here with the difference being the depth of field once again. I was thinking that I wanted it to be all in focus, but after capturing that version, I wanted to see what would happen if I softened the bumper below the marker light. That way, I was just using the bumper for shape and a contrasting color rather than for the texture. In the end, it was that limited depth of field version that won out and I liked the overall balance of texture better in this way because the paint didn’t offer up much texture on its own.
I was pretty well finished with the front of the car at this point. I looked for some compositions around both sides, but everywhere I looked, I was only able to find a sea of red and with much of the chrome missing from the sides, there wasn’t much there to establish shape or interest. Eventually, I came back around to the rear of the car where the fins were located. I had already shot a composition of the fins that I had liked, but there was a pull to see about photographing them from below the level of the fin. This would establish much more of the shape of the fin and if done right, it could still be an abstract of sorts.
I started to look at the two sides to determine where the best visual interest was. It appeared that the car’s location and the quality of light dictated that the I shoot the passenger side, but I had seen that the driver’s side read much better left to right. If I had gone that direction, I would have had to deal with the house in the background as well as some less desirable lighting. As I looked at the scene, I was not able to pick out anything at all that was direction specific for what I was wanting to capture. With that in mind, I was able to take the side with a better background and better lighting as my subject. I could then flip it in post to get it to read better from left to right.
That was what I did, and it only took two exposures with different depths of field to get what I was after. This time, it was the first frame that was my favorite. I liked the heavier blur of the background which just introduced colors while the main subject was the only thing that was sharp in the frame. That provided the best sense of depth to the image in my opinion, so that is what I went with. It is an odd piece and I’m not completely sure that I like it. It is good enough to keep though, and after I live with it for a while I’ll reconsider my thoughts on it. It is something different and that makes it a fun piece for me to look at.
I could tell that I was starting to wind down a bit by this point. I had done far more with this car than I thought that I would have and that made me happy. I was excited to get home and see how effective I had been shooting with a purpose for this car. Even with that excitement, I still wanted to do one more walk around the car to see if there was anything else that I wanted to shoot that I might have missed earlier. After a minute or two, I started to look at the rear passenger side wheel and the shape of the wheel arch. I liked how the shapes worked together and since that was a big part of why I was here with this car, I decided to frame up a shot. I got a composition that I liked and fired off the exposure.
While I was looking at it, I was satisfied with everything except for how the photo read from left to right. My eyes started with the wheel and just kind of stayed there. I needed to flip the photo, but I wasn’t able to because of the words on the tire which would give that trick away. Fortunately, I recognized the problem in the field and just decided to reshoot the same composition on the other side of the car so that the image would read correctly from left to right.
There was an added benefit to shooting from the driver’s side as the wheel cover was more or less horizontal, though I believe that it is upside down. At any rate, it looked better than the other side which was canted at about 45-degrees. It is a small detail, but an important one and I was happy to have that be the case on this side of the car. I made two exposures here as I wanted to try a second one with a shallower depth of field to help push the eyes to the wheel. That was the one that I ended up keeping of the two. I liked everything about how it turned out, but saw something that I might be able to change.
There was just a hair too much room between the quarter panel and the main structure of the hub cap. If I elevated the camera slightly, I could get them much closer and I felt that might be more effective. It wasn’t a huge change in altitude, but it did alter some other things in the frame. The molding was now starting much lower in the frame and there seemed to be too much red and too much quarter panel. I liked how the wheel looked though, so I changed the framing from the same height and chose to go with a square crop instead. This reduced the size of the quarter panel in the shot and isolated the wheel even better.
This was the last shot that I made of the car and wasn’t sure I liked this composition better than the one that was from slightly lower. I just knew that I was pretty well spent with this car and decided to call it a day. I had been out here for only 26 minutes and had shot a total of 15 frames in that time. Of those 15, I chose eight to look at closer and possibly see how they would look after processing. There were seven distinct compositions in that group of eight, and I decided that I liked the first version of the last composition the best and chose to drop the last frame that was done as a square crop.
This is where things got interesting. After getting all seven of the keepers processed, I was looking back through them for any color corrections that were needed and I started to consider how that last wheel shot would look in black and white. I liked it in color, and I don’t really like to do the same photo as both color and black and white. There was, however, another version of that last composition that had made it through the initial culling which I liked but didn’t like as much in color. I revisited that frame and did a black and white conversion on it. There was no arguing the point. Black and white worked for this composition and seemed to be particularly effective with the square crop. I went forward with that processing and decided that I would keep that one as well for a total of eight keepers from this session.
The hit rate ended up surpassing 50% and with the exception of one frame that was shot of the wheel on the passenger side, every composition that I chose to shoot, I kept a version of it. It was quite the successful trek even though the subject was a bit of an enigma in the terms of what I usually seek out. I’m glad that I stopped and took the time to work with this car after all this time seeing it from afar. It was well worth my time, and I think that I have gotten some really good photos from it.
Hopefully, you have enjoyed this trek as well. I know you are thankful that it is a single-entry blog without having several chapters to get through the photos. Believe me, I like that aspect of it too. It does get a little tedious doing a blog entry over several days. I like these that I can wrap up all in the same day. Let me know what you think about the photos and remember if there are any that speak to you, I would love to match you up with a print to hang on your wall. Print purchases go a long way towards funding these treks so you get to see new photos. It is also a great way of supporting my art and really showing me that you like what I am doing.
For those of you who are photographers, I do offer mentorships and have some openings in my schedule coming up through the winter. These mentorships can also be given as gifts. All you have to do is tell me what kind of mentorship you would like to gift someone, and I’ll work out the rest. I’ve done several of these in the past and they are always a lot of fun and usually a surprise for the photographer. Of course, if you would like to gift yourself the gift of a mentorship, I would be happy to talk with you directly about that as well. Just let me know.
Until next time….
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