Sunday, March 18, 2012

My Love Affair with Heavy Metal!!!

1954 Concept Dream Car, Oldsmobile F-88 Convertible

All my photographer friends have realized by now that I have a passion for shooting automobiles.  Not just any automobiles... Big, shiny, chrome-encrusted things that glitter and intimidate are the ones I usually like the best.  For me cars don't have to be new or fancy, but they do have to have to exude character and attitude.  

Last week I had the chance to visit a place that gave me more than 3 hours of photographing and exploring the coolest, shiniest state of the art vehicles in Western Colorado.  These cars represent the evolution of automobile design and ingenuity that spans the majority of the 20th century.  Ron and I visited the Gateway Colorado Car Museum, a part of the Gateway Resort in Gateway, CO owned by John S. Hendricks, (Discovery Communications founder).  The tasteful exhibits and the ambiance really makes you want to celebrate the manufacturing history of Detroit and rejoice at their recent comeback!  What fantastic American ingenuity is on display.
1928 Cadillac Phaeton Convertible
1929 Packard Roadster

Located 54 miles west of Grand Junction, the museum was a delightful surprise and gave me a unique opportunity to photograph cars to my hearts content.  A big bonus was the fact that we were the only visitors in the place (Early March is their slow time of the year)and so tons of tourists were not present to get in the way, plus we had the docent all to ourselves.  Lighting was a challenge but I was able to boost my ISO way up to 3200 and use of flash was permitted.

                                       
                                  Ron next to a 1928 Dusenberg
One of the most phenomenal vehicles in the museum is the 1954 concept car, an Oldsmobile F-88 convertible designed by Harley Earl, that was never actually manufactured but was introduced at the 1954   General Motors Motorama as a response to the Corvette introduced in 1953.  This car, hidden away in pieces for many years, was bought at auction in 2005 by the Hendricks family for a winning bid of $3,240,000.00.  Wow!!!  Breathtaking!  


If you are coming anywhere near Western Colorado and you love cars, you won't want to miss this great tribute to design and functionality .  Follow this link for directions:


http://mapq.st/znjDWm


Go to this link for a fun video showing some other dream cars of the past.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5eTkXkMpYg&feature=related

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Shooting Colorado is a Joy!


Every season in Western Colorado offers challenges as well as great visionary delights.  Even in the dead of Winter you have a variety of Photo Ops that are rivaled by few locations.  


Last Sunday, my husband Ron and I traveled about 30 miles along Highway 550 from our home in Montrose, CO to the City of Ouray, called America's Little Switzerland.  Ouray is a unique and beautiful setting any time of the year and is really a tourist mecca nestled in the wonderful San Juan Mountains.  It has great restaurants, pastry and sandwich shops as well as one of a kind stores.  

It was February 12th and our target was the Ouray Ice Park, home of the Annual Ice Climbing Festival and Competition in January.   Although the competition was well over, there were still lots of climbers and many young students just learning the required skills.

It was a breathtakingly beautiful day, overcast and chilly, but well worth the trek.  Sparkling ice fields and dramatic icicles were the highlights of the day. 





















See this Mapquest map to find out how to get there.  

You'll be happy you visited Ouray no matter what time of the year you go!

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Artist Statement:


I love photography (both film and digital) because it empowers me to share my vision of the world and to introduce new and innovative perspectives on the commonplace and sometimes unseen aspects of our world. 

I usually concentrate my efforts on macro or abstract images that give me license to exaggerate or amplify them.  I want viewers to say, ‘Wow!  I’ve never imagined or looked at it that way!”  

Photography makes me stretch the limits of nature and my own knowledge and talent to attempt to always go a step farther.