Car art

Sean called yesterday asking if I was up for a car show in Diamond Valley. (Black Diamond, for those that missed the merger with Turner Valley.) Car shows aren't really my thing, but I've been to a few, almost more by accident than anything else. But it was a good reason to get out of the house and take one of the cameras for a walk. I've been a real slug lately. I actually thought about which cameras to take, and ended up digital. Turned out to be a good decision.

The car show organizers said last year there were 300 cars and more than 5,000 people. I think the same was true this year, at the least. It was a beautiful day. Lots of cars, lots of people. We quite enjoyed ourselves, went to lunch, and took a bit of a scenic route on the way back home.

Looking at it as a photo challenge, such a car show is quite difficult. The cars are usually spaced fairly close together so it's hard to get an overall photo. Lots of people are good about not getting in the photo, but there's always some jerks. The blazing sun creates it's  own challenges. I actually thought more about the people milling around as photo subjects than the cars. 

It's actually nice to look at cars that are individuals. Cars with flair. Cars with colour, and when I say colour, I mean COLOUR!!! Look around as you drive to the next place. Unless you get close enough to see at the logo, or are a real car fan, you can't tell them apart. Quick, is that car two lanes over an Accord or a Camry? Is it a RAV4 or a CR-V? They've all been designed by computer and wind tunnels. Feed in the same parameters and get out the same results. They're all either white, black, or silver. I kept an eye out while doing the breakfast dishes and have to admit that one red car went by, out of a couple dozen. Maybe I should get some notepaper and walk up to the Anderson pedestrian bridge and get a formal count.

Now, as I told Sean, I'm an irredeemably practical car person. A car is not a status symbol, it's a transportation appliance. I want a reliable car that gets me where I want to go, when I want to go there. It doesn't need to be fancy. In fact fancy just means more things that need maintenance, or can stop working and will need an expensive repair. Even our very basic car (A 2016 Honda Fit) just had some basic maintenance that seemed really expensive. I don't even understand some of what gets done, because I didn't know that sort of thing went into a car.

Then again, I grew up in an era where one could look under the hood and actually see the engine.  That was true of many of the cars we saw. There was also lots of empty space that has since been engineered out. Practical is not a word to describe most of the cars. Almost all of them were so clean, inside and out, that you could eat a meal off any random surface. 

As a digression, my first car bought new was a 78 LeMans, and it cost about $6,000. It was pretty basic, but lasted about 5 years and 150,000 K. The Bank of Canada inflation calculator (here) thinks that is just over $27,000 in today's money. I'm actually having a bit of a brain melt, trying to comprehend that. A basic Honda Civic seems to sell for about $35,000 these days. Then again, the Civic is an infinitely more complicated car than the LeMans. I wish I could remember what I got paid in 1978, but it wasn't much.

I'm hoping our Fit will last as long as we're actually able to drive. I don't really want to be picking out a new car. So many choices. For a while I had hopes they'd figure out a reliable driverless car, but I think that's a ways off. There are so many possible situations that could happen, and when they do there isn't likely much time. Digression ends.

Then again, again, these cars are not meant to be practical transportation. They're artwork. Somebody put a lot of time, work, and probably money into each of them, and I'm hoping they enjoyed the process.

1. This photo gives about a 10% impression of just how orange this car was. There's probably a name for that colour but I don't know it.

2. I was amused by the stitches.

3. Sean working the scene. I liked this car, with the twin nostrils.

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6. Not many people would think of painting artwork on the inside of the hood.

7. I've always loved the shape of these early 70's Dodge Chargers, being an impressionable high school youth at the time. 

8. See what I mean about being clean?

9. Another lovely paint job, and you can see a reflection of the guy about to walk into my shot, and a whole herd followed him to admire the work.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Film

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago

Flower

Landscape

Serendipity

Hot and smoky reads

That was a bit of an abrupt transition. We went from lots of rain and cool, to smoky and hot. Not so much fun to be out and around in.

But at least we're not part of the huge evacuation in France and Spain. If I'm reading the news correctly, more than 250,000 people are on the move to escape wildfires. To put it in perspective for us Canadians, that's the entire population of Saskatoon, or Kitchener. Let's all hope that situation gets better soon. I fear climate change is just getting started.

La Calle by Alex Webb. I'd seen other of his work and put this one on hold. It's a really interesting book format, in that the covers are almost like pressed cardboard, and they're cut flush to the pages. The photos are fascinating, in that there's a street scene, and something to set off the street scene, though you might have to look to find it. Or maybe you have to look to find the street scene.

Einstein in Kafkaland by Ken Krimstein. So it turns out they were both in Prague at the same time. At first I thought it was an historical 'what if', but I guess not. It's a graphical novel, which I'm not especially fond of. I kind of blew through it in a couple of sittings, and didn't think much of it.

Dear New York, by Brandon Stanton. (Here, if you're curious.) Lots of lovely photos, and lots of sad stories. I'm not really a street photographer, but every now and then I wander around, looking at people and thinking about how I'd take their photo. To be blunt, most people in Calgary dress boring. I might take a photo of their face because it's interesting, but how they dress? Meh.

Plus a few re-reads of some Georgette Heyer novels. One of the situations in what I'm working on is similar to one of hers, and I wanted to revisit. I'm fully aware they are mostly written from an upper class perspective, where when something happens, they just assume someone else will stop what they were doing, and tend to their wants.

Plus one of our summer students is into science fiction, and we had a great chat the other night in between her giving out popsicles to neighbourhood kids. Or anyone else that wandered by. She's a Star Trek fan, and when I mentioned a trove of books in the basement from well before she was born, she asked for titles so she could look for them. Done. I've re-read a few of those as well. She's just starting to work her way through SG 1, so that restricted our conversation a bit.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NB)

Film

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago

Flower

Landscape

Serendipity

Flowery Friday 6

If one particular day was peak peony, it was June 29. There's about 45 photos from that day, which is way too many to blog. So today you get a nice selection, and the others will probably show up in the Of the Day feature over the next little while.

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8. I sort of think of this as the 'up against the wall' pose.

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Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NB)

Film (If you missed it, and are interested, there is a progress report on this year's film project here.)

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago

Flower

Landscape

Serendipity or our little queen of denial.