RANGER QUADTYCH

Ford Ranger Quadtych
© Lydia Marcus 2010 / www.lydiamarcus.com
Photographed April 20, 2010 in Sherman Oaks, CA

Shot with a Nikon D80 with a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens.
Nikon D80 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera (Body only)

GROOVIN' TO THE 8 TRACK

Griffin Technology is using this photo on their blog to promote their Throwback Thursday Promotion.

Griffin makes great accessories for iPods, iPhones and Macs in general. Right now I'm using the Griffin + Threadless "Funkalicious" case to protect my iPhone and make it look just a little bit cooler :-)





© Lydia Marcus / www.lydiamarcus.com
Photographed May 10, 2008 at the Culver City Car Show
1972 Ford Mustang with a Pioneer Super Tuner (with 8 track)
Sony T100

PIONEERTOWN

Last weekend I went on a Los Angeles Group flickrmeet to Pioneertown and Joshua Tree National Park. For this blog post I'm sharing photos from Pioneertown. If you'd like to check out photos other people took on the meet, check out this discussion thread on flickr. Next time I post, I'll share my Joshua Tree shots.

Here's a description of Pioneertown's cinematic history according to to www.pioneertown.com:

"Pioneertown was built in 1946 as a movie set for western movies, including the movies of Gene Autry, The Cisco Kid, with Duncan Renaldo, Annie Oakley with Gail Davis, Judge Roy Bean with Edgar Buchanan, Range Rider with Jock O. Mahoney, and Buffalo Bill Jr. with Dick Jones. The movie set was to provide a place for the actors to live, and have their homes used as part of a movie set. Some of the original investors in the town were Roy Rogers, who also built thePioneer Bowl, Sons of the Pioneers, which the town was named after, Dick Curtis who was a professional villian in old movies, Bud Abbott, Russell Hayden, who played Lucky on the Hopalong Cassidy series, Louella Parsons the Hollywood gossip columnist and Philip N. Krasne: The Man Who Saved Pioneertown. Mane Street is private property and is always open to courteous pedestrians."

Pioneertown is only a two hour drive from L.A. We were graced by the beautiful presence of fresh snow all over Pioneertown.



Me on "Mane" Street. Photo by Laurie Thomson.


While most of the group wandered through the Pioneertown, I found myself drawn to the Pioneertown Motel in the back and the snow covered cars and landscape behind the Motel.













This is the motel.


The motel was very cool and had a lot of character. Each room has it's own kitchenette. It's definitely the kind of place I'd like to stay at in the future - quiet, peaceful, nostalgic.



A beautiful tree on Mane Street.


A funny snow woman by the motel.

This snow woman reminds me of Dustin Hoffman in drag as Dorothy Michaels in the classic early 80's romantic comedy "Tootsie"

It was pretty much a ghost town at Pioneertown - we were the only tourists. The only other people I saw were staying at the motel. A few of those were out walking their doggies out in the snow.

This cute doggie named Gracie was sunbathing in front of her two mommies' motel room.









As the group was getting ready to leave Pioneertown, I met these three amigos.



These guys were kind of like Jackass or Dumb and Dumber come to life. The guy on the left was a groom to be. On the way to get married, he got his car stuck in the mud. While working to get the car dug out of the mud with a shovel, he split the tux pants he was supposed to wear to the ceremony. Once they got the car out, the trio did some pre wedding celebrating with Pabst beers. This was just before 11am. The last thing I heard the groom say was something about he should have known better about getting the car stuck because he grew up driving that road and that his wife to be was going to be pissed and he probably wasn't going to be "getting any" tonight. At least he had a sense of humor about it. Good luck with the marriage buddy.

Photo credits © Lydia Marcus 2010 / www.lydiamarcus.com
Photographed January 23, 2010 in Pioneertown, CA

SUBURBAN 'STANG

"Suburban 'Stang"
Polaroid Photo credit © Lydia Marcus 2009 / www.lydiamarcus.com
Photographed May 17, 2009 in Lake Balboa, CA

GOT WINDOWS

Photo by © Lydia Marcus 2009
Photographed May 9, 2009 in Culver City, CA

PURPLE 'STANG

© Lydia Marcus 2009
Photographed May 4, 2009 in Encino, CA

GO SPEED RACER

I got a special birthday treat yesterday - my friend Cathy took me along as a guest to a promotional Marlboro Drift Racing event at Toyota Speedway in Irwindale, CA. We got to do two ride alongs with professional drift racers in Ford Mustangs on the race track. A super exciting and exhilaring event! And it happened to be on my birthday! The event was called Hot Laps.



Here's me in front of one of the racing Ford Mustangs.


In case you don't know what drifting looks like - here's a short video I shot with my Sony T100 point and shoot camera of a few of the Ford Mustangs squealing around the track.


To start the experience, there was a photo op where we got to put on professional racing suits and stand in front of a blue screen where later an image of the racing Ford Mustang would be superimposed. I'm not posting the shot we took because Cathy and I both look like Stay Puff Marshmallows women in the gear - not cute - but it was fun to do nonetheless.

I thought the racing suits and helmets looked pretty cool though.





Then we were given "gators" to go over our heads and were fitted with the right size helmets so when we got out to the track they would know what size to give us.

Here's Cathy and Me in our gators looking doofy.



Then we went out to an area where they had snacks and a real Indy 500 race car that we could sit in.



Here one of the guys from the event was explaining to me what all the buttons on the steering wheel do.



Then we were taken out to a tent just off the track to wait for our number to be called to get into one of the Ford Mustangs.



Then I walked up onto some bleachers to be able to get a better vantage point to watch the cars racing on the track.





Before we got into one of the cars, we were given hand sign instructions: thumbs up (okay, more thumbs up - go faster), thumbs down (slow down), and pointing to the left (LET ME OUT NOW!!!)



I thought people looked cool lining up waiting for their ride wearing the required helmets.



I wasn't allowed to take a camera into the car (they didn't want anything that could possibly fly around and distract or injure the driver or passenger), but I got this great shot of Me and Cathy after our second race while we still had our helmets on.



Riding along with the professional drift racers was thrilling and scary - kind of like being on an insane roller coaster ride only with more danger and less predictability. You hear the wheels squealing and you smell the tire rubber burning and it's all very loud and fast. I had my left hand gripped onto the edge of the seat and my right hand gripped onto the door and I didn't let go for a second of the ride. If you were drifting sideways in a regular car on a real road, mentally you would be preparing yourself for the worst scenario, but on a track with a pro driver you just have to let go and embrace the fun and uncertainty of the thrill ride. It mentally goes against everything you are used to doing in a car.

After the rides, we were taken to another tent to relax and enjoy a fancy buffet lunch. I'm not a smoker, but Marlboro put on one very nice and adventurous event.

To end my birthday festivities, I was joined later that evening by a few close friends for dinner. We had a great dinner at Anajak Thai on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. Their food and ambience is really nice.

(Clockwise L-R: Tina, Sonya, Serena, Me, Sheryl)

So all in all, I had a really great 39th birthday! And a few of my friends and family are still taking me out on different days later in the week so I can stretch out my celebrating a little longer. :-)

PAUL'S BIRTHDAY PRESENT

I created this quadtych for my friend Paul's birthday present. He's a fan of Ford trucks and drives one - the grill on the top left hand corner is from his truck - the other three shots are from various Ford trucks I've seen on the road.

Ford Truck Quadtych Photo by Lydia Marcus

FAMILY TRUCK

John and Paul Thaden - father and son. The truck (a 1995 Ford F150 XLT) was originally owned by John's Dad, Clarence, who passed it down to his grandson Paul.

Photos by Lydia Marcus
Photographed July 26, 2008 in Encino, CA

XPAN AT THE AUTO SHOW

Late last year I borrowed a Hasselblad Xpan camera from my friend Jack. The Xpan is a very special panoramic format rangefinder that was manufactured from 1998 to 2006. A kit with the 45mm f/4 cost around $2000. A super wide angle 30mm f/5.6 went for $2566 new.

I shot one roll at the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show. All the shots were done with available light using the 45mm f/4 kit lens and Kodak Portra 800 film. Since I can't process the Xpan at any regular lab, the roll has sat in my office for quite some time until I took it to A&I in Hollywood a few days ago for processing and scans. For $15, A&I did processing, medium resolution scans of 5800 × 2376 (ranging from 10mb to 17mb in size), and a contact sheet (free with the order). They did a pretty good job but I have to go back to get some rescanned because they got the borders of a few shots wrong so I basically have two photos in one frame. With Xpan, one photo spans one and a half frames of 35mm film.

Here are the best of the roll:












Toyota had a free photobooth at the Auto Show so I did a self-portrait with the Xpan. The funny story behind this shot is that the photobooth started talking to me when I sat down. I guess they have somebody off site who sees you, but they make it sound like a HAL type computer voice. Right away the booth asked me who was going to take the shot because I immediately posed with the camera in front of my face. I responded that it was going to take my picture. And then it was asking me all kinds of photo questions, like was I a professional photographer. I guess the Hassie looked pretty serious to the photobooth. It was really funny.

Xpan photos of the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show by Lydia Marcus.
Photographed November 19, 2007 in Los Angeles, CA