I’ve owned this car for a fair old while now but have only just finished fixing all the bits that needed doing so I could get it back on the road.
So I spent an afternoon cleaning it and took some photos. Because I’ve realised my front page takes forever to load with too many photos on it, I’ve only posted one photo here, the rest are available through this link which YOU MUST CLICK IMMEDIATELY!!
Here’s a picture for no other reason than because I can.
So there.
This time Richard at Performance Car Dreams had a very nice Vauxhall Corsa VXR for me to shoot. As it’s still firmly winter time, and I’ve got a day job, this left me shooting at night.
I tried a different approach to the Audi shoot last year, this time I used long exposures of 30 seconds, and triggered two Vivitar 285HV flashes manually by hand at various points around the car to highlight the areas I wanted.
Corsa VXR
Corsa VXR
I also tried to get a decent shot of the interior but I remain rubbish at this. It’s either something I’m doing wrong in taking the shot, or a shortcoming in my post processing skills (or lack thereof).
In other news, sadly although my new whizzy Mesh PC is sufficiently stable to do a little bit of photo editing, it’s not up to the job of performing more strenuous tasks without displaying a blue screen of death and then crashing and like a miserable little stoat poo.
So I’ve got to send it back to Mesh who will no doubt tell me that there is nothing wrong with it and send it back to me still broken.
Also, my replacement camera that was suppposed to take 7-10 days to be delivered has not arrived, a mere 21 days later. Sigh….
I seem to be suffering from a sequence of expensive and depressing failures of what I (but perhaps not most people) would consider essential items.
It started before Christmas with our central heating boiler spectacularly failing and costing a scorching £440 to repair. Before the repair man had even visited this was closely followed by our shower, meaning we had no hot water and no shower… Another £80 and a lesson in how to fit an electric shower.
Next up the TV gives up. £88 to repair please. Shortly afterwards Sky+HD is installed but takes three weeks before it’s working properly. In the meantime I drop my new camera breaking it "beyond economical repair". Fortunately in this case after a brief battle with the insurance company a new one is on the way.
So when I lend my laptop to a friend to take on holiday, I should have known it would be my main PC that would break next. Naturally this happened the day after we booked a safari holiday to Kenya for later in the year. A new PC is ordered and on the way at a cost that I’d rather not share here but let’s leave it at "a lot".
The only bright side is that with a new camera and PC arriving by the weekend I’ll have that new gadget smell to enjoy for a few days.
In unrelated news for only the second time that I can remember in the past 22 years, it snowed here yesterday. Obviously it’s pretty much all melted now but it was fun whilst it lasted.
Photographing snow means cranking in 3 or more stops of over-exposure to avoid everything looking very grey!
It’s been a while since I’ve taken any photos so it was a welcome diversion to get out this weekend and wave the camera around frenziedly smashing the buttons and hoping for the best.
Aside from being overwhelmingly cute and funky, these Fiats are also absurdly specified as standard with all kinds of bluetooth and mp3 whizbangery taking place.
On to the pictures, because frankly no-one cares what I say.
This rig shot is a mixed bag – I’m happy enough with the composition and processing, but I’m gutted I forgot to put the lights on which would have looked much better.
A weekend jaunt to London town saw me carry all £3000 odd of my camera gear around for 2 days, yet the only time I used my Nikon D200 was when I was at the train station on the way home (more on that later). The rest of the time my £30 Holga was in use. I shot a total of 4 films, and I’m currently waiting with baited breath for the return post from Peak Imaging.
Following our horrorshow attempt to visit Venice earlier this year, I thought we’d seen the last of our travel woes. I was wrong.
Paddington station, 13:00 Sunday afternoon, our train is on the board showing “on time” to leave at 14:03. Then right before my eyes….
Approximately 20 trains all get cancelled at once, and some station announcer clown mumblingly slurs out an incomprehensible sequence of gibberish of which the only bit I could understand was “wait for furhter information”. What I want to know is, what is so special about Birmingham Snow Hill station? ANSWER ME!
I wont mention the mad as a box of frogs lady who cornered me and talked to me for 10 minutes about the voices in her head. Oh wait I just did.
Eventually a train to Taunton leaves, and we scurry down platform 3 only to find we are joined by three quarters of the entire number of passengers waiting to leave Paddington, so the train is packed to bursting point. Cue an hour spent crushed on the floor of the carriage entrance next to a toilet.
Did I mention Sunday was my birthday? Happy Birthday Ben!
London was great though, pictures to follow when I get my films back.