Wavecrest Woodie Fest - Encinitas CA

[Chris Dodkin]

Today was the annual Woodie Fest down at the beach - a Woodie is a wood paneled style of car, like oversized Morris Travellers

They have a big meet at the end of summer every year, and this year had the best turn-out for 20 years.

You get everything, from a woodie Rolls Royce, to a Morris Traveller - with many old American classic makes represented.

Here are a selection of shots, 5D MKII with 28-70 and 70-200 lenses:

 

[Paul Lange]

Chris, I dont know how you manage to be so prolific with your photography. I always seem to have stuff getting in the way of me going out with the camera. It doesnt help the weathers been pants here as well. Not just rain but dull skys as well. I was going to go out today even though its raining again but I have to give someone a lift later on so it kinda put a stop to that!

Out of interest what ratio of photo's you keep to those binned? My signal to noise ratio tends to be a bit high at the moment.

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Paul - I think half the battle with photography is picking up the camera - you've hit the nail on the head.

I shoot a fair amount of frames - I archive them all to hard disk and then DVD, but only process a handful to a final image.

I'll typically shoot several of each scene to make sure I get one I like, so that's a whole load of extra shots right there!

I figure digital is 'free' - so you may as well experiment and shoot away.

Drives my wife nuts! LOL

 

[Vic Shaw]

I like the ford one, the colours are so nice and coupled with the little dot of red it looks nice. I'm curious as to why you converted one to B&W?

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Paul - To Illustrate my workflow a little further - here are all my shots from yesterday's outing with the camera - of which I've so far processed (kept) 3 images. (May process a few more later as keepers)

 

[Chris Dodkin]

I'm curious as to why you converted one to B&W?

The car was an off white colour, and the final image looked odd in colour (almost like a colour cast), but had more punch in B&W.

 

[Tim Pindar]

I'm in the same position as Paul... weekends mainly involve running errands, fixing things around the house and garden, a bit of shopping, and so on.. Not too often we actually go somewhere or do something. The immediate surrounding area is not photogenic at all and of course the weather is typically s***. So the camera doesn't get used enough.

I've often thought I should develop an interest in an indoor style of photography, maybe fine art abstracts, macro water droplets, etc etc to overcome this problem. That was the idea with the "three shells" photo I produced, which was taken on our kitchen floor. The magazines are full of ideas like that, as they can't just talk about landscapes, portraits, sports, etc in every single issue. I'll need to give that some more thought.

 

[Paul Lange]

When the rain lightened up a little to day I walked to the fields and woods close to where I live and actually got some nice shots. I think part of it is just taking the camera out and shooting anything that might be interesting. Thinking about it some of the best shots I have are of things I see everyday.

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Paul - that's so true.

I saw a photo website from a local lady, where she had gone out in the early morning fog, and taken these amazing pictures of the local area. It was transformed by the fog and the diffuse lighting - I would have stayed in bed and waited for the weather to clear up!

 

[Vic Shaw]

I do find it odd when people say that the weather was poor so I didn't go out. In the studio environment we do everything we can to diffuse the light yet out side we're only happy with one small light source.

 

[Paul Lange]

It was foggy this morning and the drizzle this evening gave a similar effect. I think I will take my camera to work tomorrow. I've always struggled to get the landscape pictures right in the pretty but featureless countryside here but I've realised that what I need to do is use a telephoto lens instead of a wide angle!

Sometimes the fog here is very thick and sometimes its very thick but no cloud cover so the sun is quite bright giving strange lighting.

 

[Tim Pindar]

Paul - that's so true.

I saw a photo website from a local lady, where she had gone out in the early morning fog, and taken these amazing pictures of the local area. It was transformed by the fog and the diffuse lighting - I would have stayed in bed and waited for the weather to clear up!

Any recollection what site it was, Chris? It might give me some inspiration and a way out of my photo-less rut.

 

[Chris Dodkin]

I'm looking for the URL Tim - see if I can dig it up

In the mean time - this guy has the same idea

http://craigwolf.com/news/2007/08/what-using-flash-for-nature-photography.html

He went to shoot Redwoods - was foggy as hell..

He broke out the flash and did something a little different

Not as prolific a set of examples as the site I was looking for - but the same sort of idea

 

[Tim Pindar]

Cheers Chris.