One of my many tips for car show photography is that you should try, and I know that it’s not always possible, not make photographs of cars with their hoods raised.

At car shows and especially Cars & Coffee events, many owners like to display the cleanliness or sparkling chrome underneath their car’s hoods but that’s not always the best way to photography a vehicle because having the hood raised breaks up the car’s lines. If the owner is nearby, ask them if they wouldn’t mind closing the hood so you can make a good photograph of the car. In exchange, offer to e-mail them a JPEG of the finished image.

But sometimes as in the case of the above Valiant, the owner volunteers to close the hood for you which gave me the opportunity to be able to shoot near-identical images; one with the hood open, the other with it closed. This also gave Mary and I an opportunity to get better antiquated with this Valiant’s owner and hear this car’s story.

As any car lover knows there never was a project that didn’t have a story to it. This gentleman was a Valiant aficionado and had owned other Valiants. This was a 1962 model, the last year in this style and when I asked about the fake spare tire on the trunk he told me the 62’s did not have the fake spare but he bought a 1961 rear deck and installed it because he too liked the look. I did too.

This car looked bone stock from the exterior except for a slightly different two tone effect than what came from the factory and the larger-than-stock but period Cragar wheels. Under the skin it had the mechanicals from a 70’s Dodge Charger, complete with 360-V8, though he retained the push-button Torqueflite transmission.

Mary and I enjoyed sharing stories with the owner about her second generation Valiant and my 1964 Barracuda that was just a fancy Valiant with a big back window. So if there’s any lesson here it’s that just shouldn’t just look at the cars at shows. If you really like the car, talk to the owner. You never know what you might learn.

If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to treat me to a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.75, Starbucks raised the price of Earl Grey), please click here. And if you do, thanks so much.

Along with photographer Barry Staver, Joe is co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photography that’s out-of-print but new copies are available for $21.49 or used copies for giveaway prices—less than five bucks—from Amazon, as I write this. The Kindle version, for some reason, is expensive—not Barry or I.

The below image was shot with an Olympus E-M10 Mark I with Leica DG Summilux 12mm f/1.4 lens and an exposure of 1/5o sec at f/10 and ISO 320. Speaking of exposure…

One of the best film emulation software products I’ve found is Alien Skin’s Exposure and they’ve rolled out the latest iteration that more and more takes on the mantle as an image editor that’s been specifically designed for accurate film emulation.Exposure X2’s more than 500 presets emulate the iconic black and white and color films from Daguerreotype to modern portrait films like Kodak Portra. Additional presets like Lo-Fi, faded, and cross-processing offer a palette blend of effects. Me? I especially like the Cinema effects that can be found under the Color tab. You can customize each one, then add it to your library.

Exposure X2’s creative editing tools include color toning, exposure, sharpening, and saturation and you can refine your images using spot healing and brushing, stack layers for endless looks and apply a variety of special effects. You can even apply overlays like light leaks, textures, and borders. Download the free trial and try it on your own images.

I’ve written a small Book How I Photograph Cars that’s available through Blurb and is a concise look at how to make great car photographs under all kinds of lighting and working conditions.