TRADESMAN

© Lydia Marcus 2010 / www.lydiamarcus.com
May 8, 2010 in Culver City, CA

Photographed using a Nikon D80 and Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 lens.
Nikon D80 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera (Body only)

CULVER CITY CAR SHOW 2010

Sunday I attended the free Culver City Car Show - my favorite local classic car show. It was a bit difficult to get full length photos of the cars (too many people in the way) and honestly, the background would have looked cluttered and ugly anyway. This led me to take photos I love to take anyway - close up, abstract details of cars, trucks, and vans. I absolutely LOVE the vintage fonts on these vehicles. Job-Rated, Hotrod, Apache - way cooler than Accord, Venza, Prius, or some lame brain series of letters and numbers.
- Lydia Marcus



















And now for some levity - a woman posing with the Green Hornet. Go GRAY HORNET!



These motorcycle helmets are both creepy and creative.


Culver City Car Show 2010
© Lydia Marcus 2010 / www.lydiamarcus.com
May 8, 2010 in Culver City, CA

Shot using a Nikon D80 and Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 lens.
Nikon D80 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera (Body only)

SALTON MARINA

© Lydia Marcus 2010 / www.lydiamarcus.com
Photographed March 28, 2010 in Salton Sea, CA
Nikon 24mm f/2.8 lens and a Nikon D80 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera (Body only)

SPORTYCRAFT

Ford Econoline 150 Sportycraft
Photo credit © Lydia Marcus 2010 / www.lydiamarcus.com
Photographed March 8, 2010 in Lake Balboa, CA

SERVICE

Photo credit © Lydia Marcus 2010 / www.lydiamarcus.com
Photographed February 20, 2010 in Downtown Los Angeles

COMING OR GOING

Volkswagen Vanagon L
Photo credit © Lydia Marcus 2009 / www.lydiamarcus.com
Photographed December 10, 2009 in Studio City, CA

RAM VAN

Photo credit © Lydia Marcus 2008 / www.lydiamarcus.com
Photographed December 28, 2008 in Venice, CA

FRANKENSTEIN DODGE

Spotted this Dodge conversion parked in front of the defunct Wiener Factory in Sherman Oaks. It had a note taped inside one of the windows that said it was for sale for $6,995 and that it had $20,000 in customization. Is it a van, a truck, a semi, a camper? What the hell is it?

Adding to the customization, it has two doors on the passenger side and one door on the driver's side.

Frankenstein Dodge
Photo © Lydia Marcus 2009
Photographed July 12, 2009 in Sherman Oaks, CA

GOT WINDOWS

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

HOMEMADE

Photo by Lydia Marcus
Photographed April 1, 2008 in Van Nuys, CA

BZZZZZZZZZZ

Chevy Van 10 photo by Lydia Marcus. Photographed March 10, 2007 in San Pedro, CA.

OPEN ROAD

I spotted this great RV on Sunday and instantly knew it was Polaroid worthy. If Polaroid 600 film wasn't so damn expensive and hard to come by, I would have shot a lot more frames. The graphic on the door is what caught my eye the most. Total 70's cool. When I showed this Polaroid to my friend Paul, he immediately said, "Oh, an Open Road." When I asked him how he knew, he pointed to the door graphic and said that was an Open Road marking. Good eye Paul!



Dodge Sportsman Open Road photos by Lydia Marcus. Photos taken June 15, 2008 in Lake Balboa, CA.

DIGGING INTO THE PAST

Been under the weather since Friday - I rarely get sick - but I caught a rather virulent bug that has really gotten me down. My Dad's immunity is even stronger than mine and even he caught the bug too (from me - sorry Dad). He sounds like a really ill frog - just hearing him talk hurts my ears. So with not much energy to spare, I've just been going through some old family photos. I found close to 50 Polaroids I either didn't remember ever seeing or barely remember. The shots are all from the 1970's, a combination of Time Zero Film shot with the family's One Step or peel apart film shot with the older Polaroid in the family, the Super Shooter Plus. They had been tossed in with a bunch of photos from the 1930's - 1950's so I didn't realize they were there. Finding that lot made me go search out other various Polaroids stashed in different places. I'm trying to group them all together and get them all scanned. Today I put together a little over a 100 images and actually organized them according to date (or approximate date). Thank God my Mom had actually put dates on a lot of them! I used to have a really good memory for when stuff happened but as I get older, that gift is going out the window (or just getting lost in 38 years of memories being stored in my brain). What really helped organize them is that each pack of Polaroid film (10 images) has the same number printed on the back. So sometimes a print had a date, sometimes it didn't, so if it didn't, I'd just look for the corresponding Polaroid number on the back of other shots and match them up. The photos span 1976 to 1983, the latter being probably the last year I used the One Step before moving full time to my 35mm Canon Sure Shot. Back in '83, I thought that my One Step was broken and stopped using it. About 23 years later, when I got back into Polaroid film in a big way, I took my One Step out of the closet, put a new film pack in, and it worked! I guess when I was 13 I didn't realize that the battery pack built into the film pack could go bad, instead I thought the camera was dead.

On a separate note, I ordered a couple of photography books from Amazon last week and the first one arrived today - "Suburbia" by Bill Owens. I was supposed to take a weekend seminar with Bill last year at the Julia Dean workshops but it got canceled (I think because not enough people signed up) - what a shame. My first exposure to Bill's work was at the Getty Center last year. I'll let you know more about the book after I get to dive into it.

Here's a random shot for today. I rarely crop anything, but I did crop this shot (brought the top and bottom in a little). I think it has more tension and better composition now. As I start to scan more and get more involved with Photoshop, I'm learning (or accepting) that it's okay to tweak stuff a little now and then. I think sometimes my eye sees a composition a certain way and the camera is limited in capturing what I see because of different factors. I think people can go kind of overboard with changing stuff - I mean if I shoot a landscape of a lake and the sky on a rainy, cloudy day, I don't intend to turn it into a "sunny" shot. But slight crops or color tweaks can really make or enhance a shot. Now with so many people shooting RAW, everything is being modified anyway.

VA parking lot photo by Lydia Marcus. Shot May 26. 2008 in Westwood, CA with a Sony T100.

INSTAXIC IMPRESSION

Thursday was the weirdest day - around noon I was laying on the sand at Santa Monica beach with my friend Karen who was visiting from Seattle and at 5pm I was stuck in heinous traffic as a crazy rainstorm blew into town. End of May, torrential rain (and reports of Tornados on the news), what's next, locusts??? In between the sand and the rain, I spotted two perfect vehicle specimens for digital and analog capture. First up was a bright yellow VW Van parked next to a yellow building and a yellow street sign. Next was a pink RV fantastically detailed with angel's wings. I shot with THREE cameras: my Contax T2 35mm camera loaded with Kodak Portra 160 VC; my digital Sony T100 point and shoot pocket camera; and my new Fuji Instax 200 that continues to grow my admiration - I really like how super vivid the colors come out. In the evening, I went to my last photography lecture at the Julia Dean Gallery and after class I showed a group of five people my crazy big toy camera (the Fuji Instax) plus my five car shots from the day. The reaction to the camera was what I expected, everyone couldn't get over how damn big and goofy looking it is. The reaction to the film and my shots was way better than I expected, I think I instantly just converted everyone to want an Instax! Two of the people instantly wrote down the name of the camera and one of them said that she was going to order one for her sister. Everyone remarked how great the color looked. Too bad I'm not getting kickbacks (or at least free film from Fuji or Lomography) because I'm sure I will be helping sales!!!!





Here are some digital captures from my Sony T100. I can't get super close with the Fuji Instax (approx 3 feet is the closest focusing) so I liked the way this was cropped better because I could zoom in more with the Sony. BTW, the badge on the yellow VW Vanagon is from an Alfa Romeo - wishful thinking I guess.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Ford Econoline Van inscribed with "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death." Photographed in Westlake, CA on March 10, 2008

ABOUT MINIMALISM

I just read this article in the current issue of JPG Magazine and WOW I really related!

ABOUT MINIMALISM (an excerpt from JPG Magazine Issue 12) by Grant Hamilton

Part I:
A nice lady with a dog: Why are you taking a picture of the side of a bus?
Me: Well, umm, I take these pictures of stripes and things...
Nice lady: Why?
Me: I scan them and put them on a website. Lots of people seem to like them.
Nice lady: They do?"

Part II:
A famous photographer mentoring a workshop in Tuscany:
Does anyone have some photos they'd like to discuss?
Me: I have a few.
Famous photographer: I see. What is it?
Me: It's the side of a van I spotted in Orvieto.
Famous photographer: It's...interesting. Do you have anything else?
Me: Well, I like this one a lot too. It is a sign on the side of the road that was near the abandoned building everyone else was photographing. I was pretty pleased that I got the tip of the arrow to exactly touch the edge of the frame.
Famous photographer: Yes, it is quite symmetric. Did you shoot any of the abandoned building?
Me: No. But I got a good one of the side of our bus! Hold on, let me find it..."

I'm a huge fan of Grant's Polaroids - check out his work at:
flickr and jpg and on his own site sxseventy.com

here are my photos that fall in line with ABOUT MINIMALISM: