Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Street rods have a Chevy in front and a can of wax in the back…Hot Rods have a flathead in front and a box of tools in the back”—Fred Offenhauser
According to Wikipedia: A rat rod is a style of hot rod or custom car that, in most cases, imitates or exaggerates the style of hot rods from the 1940s, 1950s, and early-1960s. … Most rat rods (are designed to) appear unfinished, regardless of their status, as only the vehicle’s bare essentials are included for the car to be driven.
To die-hard rat rod aficionados, this old Chevrolet may not be a classic “rat rod” but, to me, it has the proper vibe to be one. This car was photographed in the city of Prospect, Colorado that has always been one of my favorite places to photograph because of its unique ambience and architecture.
How I made this photograph: To get high angle “Hail Mary” shots of cars in the past I would just hold the camera over my head and make a guess at where it was pointing. Then I would make a lot of shots until I, with lots of luck, got something close to what I wanted. Nowadays instead of guessing, it’s much easier.
The Panasonic Lumix G5 mirrorless camer I used for this shot has a tilting-swiveling screen that lets me hold the camera over my head and see exactly what I was getting. The lens was the Lumix G Vario 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 (at 17mm) along with an exposure of 1/400 sec at f/8 and ISO 400. The final image was tweaked in Analog Efex Pro using the Classic Camera filter.
If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to buy Joe a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), click here. And if you do, thank so very much.
Along with photographer Barry Staver, Joe is co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photography that’s now out-of-print but new copies are available from Amazon for $21.50 and used copies at giveaway prices—around three bucks. The Kindle version is really expensive for some reason; not Barry or myself.