Darien Chin
'38 Oldsmobile F-38
VIEW LARGE
1938 Oldsmobile F-38 owned by Kevin Dagel of Kirkland, WA. This thing is clean enough to eat off of top to bottom, inside and out. It has a '77 402 Olds engine, a TCI Street Fighter TH350 and W-27 rear differential and remote control 4-way Air Ride Technologies w/triangulated 4-link. He tells me it's funny to watch people react when he they're checking the car and he hits the pumps from inside the restaurant or something. There's other things going on too like the custom fabricated independent front suspension, custom leather seats and an incredible DuPont Chromabase Metallic Medium Sage Green paint job that cost more than my camera and lens. One of my challenges was to try and show the range of this awesome paint.
This was a pretty amazing place to shoot and I'm still amazed that I was able to get away with it. We had been trying to get a hold of someone from the University of Washington's marketing and events department for a couple weeks with no response. The day of the shoot rolled around and we still had not gotten our permits. We headed to UW anyways in hopes that we could figure something out. The goal was to try and shoot in the middle of Red Square. An almost impossible feat if you don't have permission. I parked as close to the square as I could in a construction zone and ran out to scout. By the time I came back, there was a construction guy who was waiting for me and he told me that the campus police were "real hard-asses" and that they liked to hand out $120 parking tickets like jolly ranchers on Halloween. We had a few cars there and I didn't really want to risk it.
We decided that we would go and speak with the officer and see what they had to say. We took his car because I just didn't think it would carry the same impact if we pulled up in my old, crashed up Blazer. She was busy directing traffic at a major intersection at the time and told us we needed to wait till another officer could come to speak with us. When he arrived, we all looked at each other and very quickly came to the conclusion that we were screwed. I was already starting to try and think of new locations in my head. He was a tall, well built man with a bald head and a strong jaw. He walked up and we explained the shooting situation to him and how we had been talking....er....trying to talk with --- from UW Marketing/Events. He stepped back a bit and got on his radio. When he finished, he stepped back towards us and said "I think the best thing would be for me to just give you an escort in there". I damn near broke my face trying not to smile. We were both surprised and elated, although we felt a bit bad for stereotyping the officer. He turned out to be COOLER THAN A POLAR BEARS TOENAILS. He was into cars and was telling us about a photoshoot that the department had just a bit ago. It was a trip to drive a car around inside of Red Square. I'm going to go back and try and find him and give him a calendar when they come out.
To me, this seemed like another case of "the cooler the location the harder time I have making a shot that I really like" like with the Sorrento shot. I'd love to hear thoughts on what I might have been able to do to spice this up more. Or maybe you think it's spicy as is? I tried dropping a different sky in that had clouds and was more dramatic, but it just didn't seem right. I dunno...
This is a combination of 7 exposures:
Body, ground and building
Front Wheel
Back Wheel
Grill
Front of interior/top of roof
Back of interior/top of roof
Sky
5D
17-40L
Hoya C-Polarizer
Hitech .3.9 Soft GND
W.L. X3200 in a large softbox into from above and 1' camera right
W.L. X3200 softboxed into both wheels
W.L. X1600 into grill
W.L. X1600 from back right at 2:30
SB-28 with Omni-Bounce into ceiling from front seat
SB-28 with Omni-Bounce into ceiling from back seat
Thanks to my grip for the day Greg!!
'38 Oldsmobile F-38
VIEW LARGE
1938 Oldsmobile F-38 owned by Kevin Dagel of Kirkland, WA. This thing is clean enough to eat off of top to bottom, inside and out. It has a '77 402 Olds engine, a TCI Street Fighter TH350 and W-27 rear differential and remote control 4-way Air Ride Technologies w/triangulated 4-link. He tells me it's funny to watch people react when he they're checking the car and he hits the pumps from inside the restaurant or something. There's other things going on too like the custom fabricated independent front suspension, custom leather seats and an incredible DuPont Chromabase Metallic Medium Sage Green paint job that cost more than my camera and lens. One of my challenges was to try and show the range of this awesome paint.
This was a pretty amazing place to shoot and I'm still amazed that I was able to get away with it. We had been trying to get a hold of someone from the University of Washington's marketing and events department for a couple weeks with no response. The day of the shoot rolled around and we still had not gotten our permits. We headed to UW anyways in hopes that we could figure something out. The goal was to try and shoot in the middle of Red Square. An almost impossible feat if you don't have permission. I parked as close to the square as I could in a construction zone and ran out to scout. By the time I came back, there was a construction guy who was waiting for me and he told me that the campus police were "real hard-asses" and that they liked to hand out $120 parking tickets like jolly ranchers on Halloween. We had a few cars there and I didn't really want to risk it.
We decided that we would go and speak with the officer and see what they had to say. We took his car because I just didn't think it would carry the same impact if we pulled up in my old, crashed up Blazer. She was busy directing traffic at a major intersection at the time and told us we needed to wait till another officer could come to speak with us. When he arrived, we all looked at each other and very quickly came to the conclusion that we were screwed. I was already starting to try and think of new locations in my head. He was a tall, well built man with a bald head and a strong jaw. He walked up and we explained the shooting situation to him and how we had been talking....er....trying to talk with --- from UW Marketing/Events. He stepped back a bit and got on his radio. When he finished, he stepped back towards us and said "I think the best thing would be for me to just give you an escort in there". I damn near broke my face trying not to smile. We were both surprised and elated, although we felt a bit bad for stereotyping the officer. He turned out to be COOLER THAN A POLAR BEARS TOENAILS. He was into cars and was telling us about a photoshoot that the department had just a bit ago. It was a trip to drive a car around inside of Red Square. I'm going to go back and try and find him and give him a calendar when they come out.
To me, this seemed like another case of "the cooler the location the harder time I have making a shot that I really like" like with the Sorrento shot. I'd love to hear thoughts on what I might have been able to do to spice this up more. Or maybe you think it's spicy as is? I tried dropping a different sky in that had clouds and was more dramatic, but it just didn't seem right. I dunno...
This is a combination of 7 exposures:
Body, ground and building
Front Wheel
Back Wheel
Grill
Front of interior/top of roof
Back of interior/top of roof
Sky
5D
17-40L
Hoya C-Polarizer
Hitech .3.9 Soft GND
W.L. X3200 in a large softbox into from above and 1' camera right
W.L. X3200 softboxed into both wheels
W.L. X1600 into grill
W.L. X1600 from back right at 2:30
SB-28 with Omni-Bounce into ceiling from front seat
SB-28 with Omni-Bounce into ceiling from back seat
Thanks to my grip for the day Greg!!