Today’s Post by Joe Farace
It was a dark and stormy night… Well it wasn’t nighttime but there was a chill wind blowing 40-degree temperatures across the parking lot at the Vehicle Vault for the May edition of Cars and Coffee.
Each month I had planed to do something different; last month I shot the show using an infrared-converted camera and this month, inspired my friend Mark Toal’s soft focus photography at a car museum I was going to try shooting with the Skink Pinhole lens to create something completely different.
But no, that didn’t happen because a combination of soft focus with dark clouds with flat lighting is a recipe for boring and even shooting normally with my Olympus E-P3 and “the worst lens ever made” was a challenge.
Because of the weather, the show’s attendance was down slightly but was helped when a large contingent of mostly current generation Camaros showed up. And yes, that is a Chevrolet engine in that Mazda Miata, with a build courtesy of Flying Miata. And the installation was so perfect the engine looked like it was designed for this tiny car. The owner told me because the engine block is aluminum, the swap only added 150 pounds overall to the car and they were able to move the weight slightly rearward than where the standard Miata 4-cylinder sits. This kind of stuff is why I love Cars & Coffee.
Coming Next Month: For a change of pace, Mary and I will be at the First Saturday Cars & Coffee in Colorado Springs on June 4th, when the host club will be the Pikes Peak Little British Car Club. We are also planning (and as yet confirmed) holding a Coffee an& Camera event at a nearby Starbucks after the show. Watch this blog for details as we get plans firmed up.