when you’re late to the meet shoot anyways
I’ve been trying to make it to more car and bike meets this summer with some success. It helps that there’s a vibrant car scene on the East Side of Cincinnati where I live. I’ve had the “Hobby Lobby Nights” meet on my radar since last year, but something always seems to come up that stops me from going to it. From photos that I’ve seen its a big one, so when I knew I was free the Sunday before Independence Day I penciled it into the calendar.
We’ve been in a bit of a heatwave over the past few weeks so I wasn’t really looking forward to head out into the heat, but I knew I needed to get out there to get back into the car scene, but to also keep practicing using my new Nikon Z8. The meet was set to start at 6pm, but I decided to let it cool down a bit and wait until 7-7:30ish to head out since it was only a few min from my house. I stopped at the corner store to grab some bottles of water to recharge during walking around the meet and headed over.
As I arrived I was disheartened to see the lack of cars in the lot. I wondered if there was another meet that sucked the participants away or if people, like me, wanted to just stay home in the AC. “Oh well” I thought, I’m here, let’s shoot some cars!
Lighting has a huge influence on shooting anything and it was amplified greatly as I walked around. The sun was bright with no clouds in the sky and the sun was low as it was heading to the horizon. I wish we, as photographers, could teach a class to car people how they can help us take the best photos possible of their cars. So many of them were pointed away from the sun making is really hard to shoot any front facing shots. I shot what I could and made the best out of the angles I had.
While walking around I ran into a fellow photographer Jay who was excited to talk shop. I normally bounce around and try to keep a low profile at car meets, but meeting new friends is also fun. We chatted about shooting Nikon, something I feel like is a rarity these days, swapped photo stories and shared some photos. As we chatted more and more cars headed out so I missed the chance to take more photos.
I was going to head out after our conversation was done, but I saw a familiar car pull in. It was a green Dodge Charger that I knew was owned by a person that shared my photos from one of the last meets. I had never introduced myself so I headed over to him and his friends. He was stoked to meet in person and thanked me for the photos I took weeks ago. He suggested we grab some photos of his and his friends cars together. I obliged, because why not? I had shot every car left in the lot. They pulled together along a fence on the far end of the lot facing into the sun. I had two Camaros, his Charger and a Chrysler 300 lined up and ready to shoot. I snagged as many angles as I could while battling the deep, contrasty shadows. I tossed many of my wide angle photos and stuck with my trusty 70-200 so I could stay far enough away to not have to edit so many shadows off the ground.
I completed my mini-shoot and headed back to the group. I mentioned to the two Camaro owners that they were after my own heart since I used to own one. I do miss having a cool car, but my truck is much more practical all around. One day I will get a cool car again, but it’s not on the priority list. After a while we all decided to go our separate ways so I headed home to relax before I had to go to work on Monday.
I was able to salvage a night of shooting that I had lost as I arrived. Moral of the story is, when you’re late and everyone left, shoot as much as you can. I do plan on going to this meet again, but next time I will make sure I’m there on time or even early.
