Art’s 1953 MG TD video from Mark Toal on Vimeo.

The car, now impeccably restored, will be among the many pre- and postwar custom-bodied Lincolns featured at the 63rd Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on August 18 at Pebble Beach Resorts. It also stars on this year’s commemorative Pebble Beach Concours poster, printed from an original painting created by Ken Eberts, founder and president of the Automotive Fine Arts Society. Also depicted on the Concours poster is the 1939 Lincoln Zephyr created for Edsel’s grandfather, Edsel Bryant Ford, who served as president of Ford Motor Company from 1919 through 1943, bringing both style and finesse to the Lincoln marque.

The 1956 Lincoln currently belongs to Rick Schmidt, whose father Jim discovered the dilapidated vehicle in a classified ad. Had they not already owned a 1956 metallic mint green MK II that had belonged to Benson Ford, and a 1956 sapphire blue metallic MK II that had belonged to William Clay Ford Sr.–brothers of Henry Ford II–the Schmidts would not have taken on the project.

Purchased through Ford’s central office, with the names of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ford II on the original factory production order, the car cost $10,000, the price of a house in 1956. The only MK II ordered with a Hartz cloth roof, the interior of the car is upholstered in elegant gray wool broadcloth with red piping and contrasting black leather on the door panels and dash. The car also is unique in that it was finished without a hood ornament at Anne’s request.

Eberts’ final poster artwork will be featured at the Automotive Fine Arts Society exhibit at Pebble Beach that is sponsored by the Lincoln Motor Company and held in tandem with the 63rd Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on Sunday, August 18.

Thursday April 11

10:00-1:00, 6675 Business Center Drive, Highlands Ranch

2:00-5:00, 5650 S. Chambers Road, Aurora

Friday April 12

11:00-1:00, 9400 E. Hampden Ave., Denver

2:00-5:00, 2100 Legacy Circle, Elizabeth

Saturday April 13

11:00-4:00, 440 Wadsworth Blvd, Lakewood

Last month a centenary exhibition was opened in the new Visitor Centre at the MINI Plant Oxford by Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin and Harald Krueger, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, to mark this milestone. One hundred years ago to the day, the first ‘Bullnose’ Morris Oxford was built by William Morris just a few hundred meters from where the modern MINI plant stands.

With a weekly production of just 20 vehicles in 1913, the business grew rapidly and over the century 11.65 million cars were produced, bearing 13 different British brands and one Japanese. Almost 500, 000 people have worked at the plant in the past 100 years and in the early 1960s numbers peaked at 28,000. Today, Plant Oxford employs 3,700 associates who manufacture up to 900 MINIs every day.

Over the years an array of famous cars were produced including the Morris Minor, the Mini, Top Gear’s fabled Morris Marina, the Princess, the Austin Maestro and today’s MINI Cooper. At various stages in its history, the plant also built Tiger Moth aircraft, ambulances, parachutes and iron lungs. Today, Plant Oxford is the heart of MINI production with the manufacture of the MINI Hatch, Convertible, Clubman, Clubvan, Roadster and Coupé.

The Oxford plant has a long history of export success and generated many billions of pounds in exports revenues for the UK with Morris products accounting for nearly 30 per cent of the nation’s total exports by the mid 1930s. Plant Oxford’s export record is equally impressive today with no less than 1.7 million MINIs having been exported to over 100 countries since 2001 and the plans for the future are for further expansion.

Get close to the car—but no so close that you incur the wrath of the car’s owner. In fact, talk to the owner first and talk about his car telling them why you want to photograph it. Then begin by working in close and gradually back off (or zoom out) until extraneous non-car details or people start appearing in the frame, then crop them out–in camera—which is what I prefer to do.
Wide-angle lenses or wide angle zooms let you fill up the frame with part or even the entire car while making sure distractions are eliminated, but make sure your zoom lens allows close focusing. I once purchased a 28-85mm zoom lens specifically for photographing cars only to discover it didn’t focus close enough to do me any good. An expensive mistake.

The photograph at right was made at a indoor car show using a Canon EOS 5D with Carl Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 lens. Exposure was 1/2000 sec at f/1.4—wide open to minimize depth-of-field— with the camera set at ISO 1600.

To make interesting photographs at a car show, you need to start with the right attitude. A passion for your subject is always a plus and enables you to look beyond the surface of a car to see its essence, its soul

There’s more than one way to manually focus a lens but using the Hyperfocal Distance is my favorite method for digital infrared photography, especially when working with wide-angle lenses. The Hyperfocal Distance is the point of focus where any object that is located between a specific distance and infinity is in focus.This is a tool for the digital infrared photographer who wants their images to be sharp and is easy to do with lenses whose apertures can be set mechanically on the barrel. This is a once common feature that is also getting harder and harder to find on modern SLR lenses.

Here’s how to do it: After you pick an aperture, such as f/16 or 22, you rotate the focusing ring to a setting where that aperture is opposite the infinity mark. On my 16mm lens (below) this gives me a depth-of-field from about five inches to infinity—that’s also more than enough to take care of any focus shift cause by invisible infrared light waves.

The MC Zenitar-MC 16mm f/2.8 is a super wide-angle, short-focus, manual focus lens and is intended for SLRs with 24×36mm film format but works great with APS-C digital SLRs too, although the lens must be manually focused no matter what. I prefer to set it at f/16 or something similar and set that aperture at Infinity to keeps me in focus from a few inches to infinity. I never focus this lens. When it’s mounted on my converted Canon EOS 50 that has been converted for infrared-only capture, I treat the package just like a digital point and shoot camera.

Entry applications were due in January and are now being reviewed and vetted. The Concours Selection Committee meets at the end of March to determine which cars will receive a coveted invitation to the August 18 competition set on the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links. Most applicants will be notified of the committee’s decision by mid-April.

Late entry applications can still be submitted, but space in many classes is already limited. To request an application, please send an inquiry offering some basic information about your car to entries@pebblebeachconcours.net. The 2013 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance will feature:

Lincoln: After Ford purchased Lincoln in 1922, Edsel Ford took a marque well known for mechanical excellence and defined it with superior styling and elegant custom coachwork. Long one of America’s elite luxury cars, Lincoln served as the official conveyance for presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush. The show field will focus on one-off custom-bodied Lincolns. The show will also feature Simplex, Vanvooren, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, 50th anniversary of the Porsche 911, BMW 507 and there will also be some surprises on the show field.

Corvette Racing is a lushly produced 256-page coffee table book from Motorbooks that is chock full of 155 and 95 beautiful photos including Kimble’s own beautifully executed and informative cutaway artwork. Starting with a fascinating look at the early days of racing a car whose six-cylinder engine, automatic transmission and weak brakes were clearly that was not ready for a race track, the first chapter details the efforts of Zora Arkus-Duntov and the “Real McCoy,” a  special that was raced at Sebring in 1956, to make the Corvette a true sports car.

The book shows  the history of factory-sponsored and private racing efforts, chronicling the history of the various Vettes that have been put to the test on the track. While I’ve seen and photographed Corvettes on the track I was much more familiar with all of the street variants that have been available since 1953, so Corvette Racing was an eye opener for me. The quality of printing on high quality paper, especially for some of the early images, is  incredible and there are lots of surprising entries, such as a portrait of Betty Skelton who ran the flying mile at 137.773 mph in an early Corvette. Because I never got over that silver ’66 I really enjoyed reading the chapter entitled “A Second Generation Fights back” showing the racing accomplishments of the mid-year cars but there also more her for fans of C3′s and C4′s including that ZR-1 (of mine) that got away. This is a fun and informative book written for Corvette lovers of all levels, including wannabes like me.

The last entry in the book marks the Corvette entry at Petit leMans in October 10, 2010 and now with the recent launch of the C7 Stingray, the latest generation racing Corvettes are ready to start breaking records and winning anew. Corvette Racing is loving depiction and tale of all that went before and is the perfect gift for the Corvette enthusiast in your life—even if it’s yourself.

The museum staff is friendly and knowledgeable and I had a great time talking with them about the histories of the various cars on display—and display they are with state of the art lighting  that creates dramatic lighting, so photographers will want to shoot at high ISO settings. (Flash will only produce ugly images.) After some experimentation I used ISO 6400, which was the highest for the Canon EOS Rebel T3 that I brought with me. On of the treats of my visit was to actually get a chance to meet and talk with Al Unser Sr. who was visiting he museum that day. That’s the car he won his last Indy 500 behind us.

The museum was  expanded to include an  annex that contains  more racing history, cars, and memorabilia. The annex contains fully restored antiques, to Indy 500 pace cars along with some rare race cars. There’s also a trophy room filled with thousands of unique items, a  library spanning the history of racing, original artwork, and lots more!

The Unser Museum is located at 1776 Montaño Road NW Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, NM 87107. 505-341-1776

Winter Hours: Nov 1 to Apr 30 – Open Fri-Sun 10:00am to 4:00pm

Summer Hours: May 1 to Oct 31 – Open Daily 10:00am to 4:00pm

Admission: Adults $10, Seniors & Military $6, Kids under 16 are free

]]> http://joefaraceshootscars.com/2013/01/18/the-unser-racing-museum/feed/ 0 http://joefaraceshootscars.com/2013/01/11/photographing-cars-in-museums/ http://joefaraceshootscars.com/2013/01/11/photographing-cars-in-museums/#comments Fri, 11 Jan 2013 05:01:53 +0000 Joe Farace http://joefaraceshootscars.com/?p=520 Car museums are great fun. When traveling I always try to find a local auto museum and spend some time looking at cars that I might not otherwise get to see or photograph. People too. At the Unser Racing Museum on Albuquerque I not only got to see some beautifully restored classic automobiles and race cars but got to meet and talk with Al Unser, Sr. And the only Talbot Lago I’ve seen is the one in the Cussler Auto Museum. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that sometimes the lighting is not that great and using a high ISO setting and the noise it can create can be a concern. And often the space between cars—and the lack thereof—can sometimes be a challenge to photographing them and then there’s the stanchions to prevent over-eager visitors from dripping ice cream on the car—or worse.

 That’s why you may need to change the way you shoot to suite the situation and not worry so much about getting a perfect shot of a particular car but making the best possible photograph under the conditions you’re working. Case in point: The J&R Vintage Auto Museum in Rio Rancho, New Mexico where there are more that 60 antique cars and trucks on display! During my visit to J&R, I brought along a Canon EOS 50D and my do-everything lens, Tamron’s 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC lens, that’s designed for cameras with APS-C sized sensors.

Tip #1: Stanchions can get in the shot, so avoid them by sitting on the floor and shooting under the ropes, chains or whatever that are strung between the posts. A wide-angle zoom lens helps and I’ll always push it a bit by sliding just a little bit more under the ropes, etc when sitting on the floor. So far nobody has ever asked me not to do that but if they did, I would apologize.

 Tip #2, Wear your grungies so you don’t care if you get dust, motor oil, bubble gum, whatever on you clothes. J&R Vintage Autos, however has spotless epoxy painted floors and like everything in the museum was squeaky clean.

Tip #3: Be sure to make images of parts of cars. Don’t be frustrated by the lack of space and crowded conditions found at some museums. Use that to your advantage by finding small details, such as the delicate nature of a Bugatti’s grille or the sensuous lines of a street rod’s fender and capture them in sharp focus.

Tip #4: Get close to the car. Begin by working in close and gradually back off until extraneous non-car details start to appear in the frame. Wide-angle lenses and wide angle zooms let you fill up the frame with part or even the entire car while making sure distractions are eliminated Make sure your zoom lens allows close focusing. I once purchased a lens only to discover it didn’t focus close enough to do me any good. Tamron’s 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC lens focuses to 19.3-inches but it will do so for the entire zoom range. That means that you can use the 270mm setting to get up close and personal enough so that your image looks like true macro photography

This was originally posted on my blog Saving the World, One Pixel at a Time