1934 Ford Hot Rod at El Mirage Author and Photographer: Mike Harrington We first spotted this ’34 ford at the Antique Nationals. There she was sitting in the staging lanes waiting to race with the rest of the antique American iron. A picture was snapped at the Antique Nationals. One thing led to another, and there we were a few weeks later in the blistering heat on a dry lake bed doing a photo shoot. Ron Hammack owner of this ’34 5-window has an interesting story to tell. This machine is a genuine Northern California barn find and had been sitting since the early 1970’s until he recently acquired it. As to the history of the vehicle prior to Ron’s ownership, and where it was raced; it’s still shrouded in mystery. Suffice it to say that when it arrived on the trailer it still had the grill shell, body, hood and frame. Rats had long eaten away sections of the wood floor and left a dung heap the size of Rhode Island inside the cab. Brenda, Ron’s wife, insisted that it be taken to a car wash first and...

Hot Rod & Custom Car Photography & Writing Through some good luck and a willingness to talk to everyone I meet... "Hey Do you use the internet!?" is a favorite thing my buddies tease me about... I bumped into Michael Harrington up at Bonneville Salt Flats in 2010. He was photographing a sick gasser Corvette (yes, on the salt!) and I asked who he shot for. Well, he's worked for a few Primedia/Source Interlink titles you've heard of, most recently, Super Chevy.   Flash forward to present and Michael and I are back in touch and we've worked out a deal to publish his incredible photography and musings here at MyRideisMe.com. It's incredible to publish professional pictures like this! Michael's got a gift and I know I'll learn from staring at his work.   I snaked this info from his photography home page Automotive-Photography.net to let you know more about him: I don't know how it happened, but it did. I guess most of us enthusiasts can blame it on our fathers. In my case, I can definitely pass the blame. My father was never a huge Hot Rodder...

Hot Rod & Custom Car Photography Photos & Text by: Mark Stacks of Tin Woody Photo - Click on any image to see it full size Like the last two galleries we've put up lately, the California Hot Rod Reunion and the LOWTECH Hot Rods, Mark's got a style all his own. He was kind enough to share some of his favorites with us as part of the "Best of" series I'm doing on folks like me who want to improve their photography overall, and have a passion for hot rods! Custom street rod at the October 2011 Golden Super Cruise In Mark's words: I'm a hobbyist photographer that really loves cars and their culture.  My goal in taking photos of car is to tell a little a bit of a story of the car, show some of its character, and maybe include a little mood or emotion. It may be a pipe dream, but if could have a viewer thinking they smell the gasoline or the rust...well, that would awesome! I go everywhere looking for cars to photograph, shows, rural farms, industrial areas, back alleys, if there is...

Traditional Hot Rod & Custom Car Photography Casny Coupe The entirely home-built model A coupe of Chris Casny on the way to the HAMB BBQ. Photos by Marc Woeltinger - LOWTECH Garage Photography Recently I've had a few people ask me, where do you get the stories and photos for MyRideisMe.com? The answer really is, all over the place! That's been most true lately as fantastic photos pour in from new friends on the web. I missed the Hot Rod Reunion Drags at Famoso Raceway, but thanks to Tim Scott's photography, we all get to see it. Same goes for these shots by Marc Woeltinger. From Switzerland with an eye for vintage steel, Marc's been holding a camera since he was 10 years old, but says he, "started getting really into it in 2008. Winfield Mercury This old leadsled is sitting in the Mojave desert in Gene Winfield’s back yard. Now working in the advertising industry, his knowledge of color and style is paying off. In his words: American car culture is my passion. I love to shoot traditional hot rods and customs and try to capture the stories...

Hot Rods & Nostalgia Drags at 20th Annual California Hot Rod Reunion Shooting with a vintage 1953 Zeiss Ikoflex twin lens reflex camera, Tim Scott captures the beauty of the hot rods and nostalgia diggers at one of the coolest drag races on the planet! Dig the warmth of these photos as Tim takes photographic demons of the past out for little ride... (Click on any picture to see it full size) Photos & Story By Tim Scott - Scott Photo Co. - www.scottphoto.co This was my second year attending the Hot Rod Reunion at Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield, CA. October 20-23 were the dates of this amazing event for 2011, and this year certainly didn't disappoint. See, I'm not much of a car show guy. I love vintage cars, motorcycles and speed, but I really don't care for the attitudes that often come with car or motorcycle cliques. I don't care if you're a Harley Davidson or an import bike rider. I don't care if you're a "rat-rod" fan or a custom fan. If you work on and ride/drive your toys – respect. Just leave the attitude at...

Old Cars Take On New Life In The Winter Snow Snow, cold, and winter weather lock up many a classic car in the safety of a garage. Here in So Cal, we're lucky that our old cars get to hit the roads 365 days a year! During a recent trip up to Montana - since there were no old cars on the road - I grabbed my camera and went wondering to find some old beasts out in the snow. Although my inner "mom" wanted to tow these all to safety and restoration - I think the setting made for some cool pictures. So if you live in a snowy area - enjoy these and stand by until warmer weather. But if you live in a place like lovely Southern California - count your blessings and take your car for a cruise! May this New Year find you all in good and joyful adventures! Happy Trails, Grease Girl All that poor rust, but this 1953 Chevy's hood ornament is still in good shape! John Deere standing proud with tin can covering the exhaust and all. An old Ford logo...

Best Pictures from 2010 Goodguys Southwest Nationals My new desktop picture! As I get older, the list of reasons for getting up EARLY in the morning oddly keeps getting longer... it used to be simply fishing. Next as Pops started to take me racing, I added, "going to a drag race" and then as I got more interested in cars, I added, "going to a swap meet." Now I've added, "taking pictures with morning sunshine." See the dude laying on the ground for this shot? That's me! I see alot of people cruising car shows taking pictures... some with gear much nicer than me, and quite a few using their cell phones. What are you doing with those pics? I wanted to cover cool shows like Goodguys Scottsdale with the best pictures I could, so I started watching guys like Paul "Swanee" Swanson take pics and trying to shoot like him.  (here's a few of Swanee's 2010 Goodguys Pictures from this year) Then, I sought out some other pros and got some tips on Shooting Good Car Pictures. I'm learning! Or maybe it's just the morning sky!  Who cares!!...

Custom Car Photography - HDR Special Ed's 1956 Buick Special shot at the Mesa Cruise - 10/24/2010 (click on shot to zoom!) What's HDR? In case you forgot, my friend Alan wrote a great story about "High Dynamic Range" or HDR. What it is, how he does it and a few resulting shots.  Alan's Car Photography HDR. Since Alan introduced me to HDR, I've always wanted to try it. I have a Nikon D90 that makes bracketing photographs easy so it was finally time to try it. How'd I do? For me, HDR either makes a WOW effect where I can't imagine seeing something so beautiful, (just so you know, I have a soft-spot for sunsets) or the photo looks too digital, faked and generally induce a three-quarter verp.  There's certain amount of funky-artsy-cool in the shot in both cases, but obviously, I'm shooting for the WOW.  Right now, I think I'm still over digitized, pretty noisy (in film it was "grainy") and showing I've never done this before.  Gonna work on it... In my defense, I used the first free HDR software set I could find. It's called...

Hot Rod Pin-up Calendar Looking for 2012's calendar? Hot Rod Pinup Calendar for 2012 from Mitzi Sometimes there's just no words! Who cares what day it is when you have the lovely Monica Renee greeting you every day of January in the brand new, 2011 Pin-up Model calendar from Mitzi and Co. Not only is Mitzi buddies with just about everyone at the shows, she's also been a great friend to MyRideisMe.com supplying several pinup model features and Pinup of the Month shots. We love Mitzi, but we love her girls better! See More of Monica Renee as Pinup of the Month here. Heating up your June, this is Emily Marilyn . Make sure to grab yourself a calendar. They're a super high quality, 11x17 portrait style, wirebound calendar for only $25. International orders are $30.  If you're not clicking Mitzi' "Buy Now" page, you might want to check your pulse! Last but not least, another friend of MyRideisMe.com, pinup Notorious Ang. As an undisputed babe and self proclaimed computer nerd, she's also a radio personality! She graced Viva Las Vegas where we grabbed these pinup of the month...

Car Show Pictures from Germany: I've got the latest scoop from our German Hot Rod informant, Pascal.  The German Street Rod Association (GSRA) is the only German club for street rod owners, which is now up to 300 members and was founded in 1993.  They have a website gsra.de you can check out, but its all in German.  Now, on to the sharp photos by Pascal and the rad hot rods from Germany. It's cool how 20's and 30's traditional hot rods can transcend time in any part of the world, as we've seen from Tano's '26 T Roadster with Olds V8 power to these rods in Germany. One of the traditional type rods that can be found worldwide is the Speed Shop truck.  I wonder if hot rodders from the 40's and 50's knew that their work trucks would be turned into street rods?  It makes sense though, I mean, you can hop up the big V8's they came with, you can slam them, put some chrome reverse wheels on 'em with baby moon caps and white walls, add the name of your speed shop and logo on the door...

Anyone who's ever been to Viva Las Vegas - or even in Las Vegas when it's happening - can back me up on this...VLV is FULL of characters! Sure there's cars. Sure there's music. Sure there's drinking. But you'd be missing out on what Viva Las Vegas is about if you missed out on the people! Words can't seem to begin to explain this varied assortment of characters. So this year I snapped a few less shots of cars and a few more shots of people. 'Nuff said, I'll let the pictures do the...

Well if I could paint like Tom Fritz, I would. If I could draw like my friends Brian and Dwayne, I'd probably do that too.  Since my creativity's pretty much limited to taking pictures, I'm doing my best to catch up to the great shots taken by Swanee, my main man shooting for MyRideisMe.com. Swanee's yet to lay down his shots from GNRS, so here's mine, FISHEYE style. A fisheye lens is an ultra wide-angle lens that takes in an extremely wide, hemispherical image. A side effect of this super wide shot is the distortion.  I'm shooting with a 10.5mm fisheye lens. Sometimes that distortion looks kinda cool with the swoopy angles of a custom or in tight on the details of an engine like the Stromberg powered flathead in Blackie Gejeian's "Blackie" Roadster. Sometimes, the look is just sinister!  This is the grille from "Camel Toe Racing" 1932 Ford.  The closer you get, the more distortion. I'm just a couple inches off this grill and I probably cropped the shot some. Too bad I have to give the lens back to my boss! Shooting in the Suede Palace...