autofantasia's photos

I'm pleased to say that the transfer of my CumbriaVAG 2011 album from flickr to ipernity is now complete and can be viewed by clicking the link. Apologies for taking so long to get this one completed. Hopefully, I'll get the next album done a bit quicker and it'll be a multi marque event so there should be something for everyone.

Took advantage of being one of the last to leave to get a shot of my car parked up in front of the Heaves Hotel.

One of a handful of cars that turned out to represent the Scirocco Register.

One of two shots I took of this intriguing little truck. From the front it looks somewhat like a Morris Minor, but records show it to be VW based.

One of two shots I took of this intriguing little truck. From the front it looks somewhat like a Morris Minor, but records show it to be VW based.

I wasn't expecting to see a modified, but very modern Vauxhall at an event dedicated to all things VAG. However, I was quite taken by the paintjob as, unless I'm very much mistaken, it's Mirra which produces a fantastic irridescence like what you see here. You see back in the late Seventies and early Eighties (when I was just a lad) I produced several customised push bikes and two of them had Mirra flake paint applied over black ... happy days, of sorts!

I think this shot summed up the day pretty much for me: sunshine and an interesting mix of cars.

This little Polo was I felt very simply, but tastefully put together. It didn't scream 'modification' and yet there were some lovely touches to it not least the altered bonnet line. However, would you call it a Mark II face-lifted model or a Mark III ... I'm not sure, I'll let you decide.

Far from the best photo I've ever taken, but certainly one of the funniest. I mean car shows can be really, really tiring and some times it can all get too much!

Came across these two totally different Beetle's in the car park. The blue one is from 1973, whilst the black one is a 1969 model.

Loved the juxtaposition here of the old and the new ... no offence, but I know which one I'd rather have!

Those that like the original Golf were well catered for here as the Mk1 Golf Owners Club had a great display of cars on show. Nice work guys!

Yet another GTI, this time a Mk1 that was parked up on the fringes.

Yet more for all you Golf addicts, this time a detail shot I took of one I found on the outer edges of the showground. I really should have gone back and shot the whole car, but hey ho!

Must admit to being partial to the odd Mk2 Golf and this one has BBS wheels fitted, which in my opinion is even better!

EDIT: 11/112014 This was originally produced for a Sunday Challenge a few months ago. I had hoped to revisit this theme in time for Armistice Day, but sadly haven't managed it. So I hope folks will forgive me for moving this to the front of my photostream to help mark this special date. The original description can be found below: Those that follow the efforts of the Sunday Challenge crew will know that a recent topic was ground level. Whilst this shot was not taken until after the challenge closed, and so wasn't a likely entry, it was certainly inspired by that particular challenge. It also enabled me to capture an image that I could use to produce something to commemorate the start of The Great War back in 1914. The subject is the war memorial at Romanby on the outskirts of Northallerton. I've tried to process the image sympathetically to give emphasis to the monument and the poppy wreath place on it. I also took out a few more modern features which were visible on the horizon that I felt detracted from th scene such as various TV ariels and a 30mph speed limit sign. The words are from Laurence Binyon's poem entitled "For the Fallen" and seem just as apt today as they did all those years ago when he first wrote them. So sad though that whilst people across the world look for ways to commemorate that particular war and all those who served on both sides, many millions of whom lost their lives, the news is full of stories of conflict still happening today. Seems whilst many of us will always remember there are still thousands who are either unwilling or incapable of learning from the past and coming together to make the world a better place. View large for best effect!

Yet another from the archives taken at CumbriaVAG back in 2011.

This week's Sunday Challenge had the theme of sepia , which to be honest isn't a style of processing I've used all that often. So I thought I'd do a little reading up to try and find out exactly what it is other than just "how old photos look". Apparently, sepia is a pigment that has been used in photography for a very long time and explains why so many old photos from the early part of the 20th Century, especially around the 1940s, have a brown or orange hue to them. However, since photographs aren’t really printed using those pigments/chemicals anymore, you may be wondering why it’s still a very common look on photos taken today. Well, as with so much in life it comes down to personal preference helped in no small measure by photo editing software. Sepia can actually produce a warmer image that also gives you the option of giving your images a vintage feel. This sense of warmth is especially useful in family portraits or family photography by showing a happy, close family in a "warm" setting. And as photographs aren't printed in brownscale these days, chances are when you see a photograph that has a sepia 'look' you immediately think 'old'. So sepia it seems has a lot going for it, which I must admit did make me feel guilty for not having done much with it as far as processing goes in the past ... no pun intended! Having said that, I'd not appreciated that it does have its limitations and not every scene, or even type of photograph, will work in sepia. Once this had dawned on me I decided to spend time experimenting with the technique on photographs I'd already taken rather than going out taking lots of new shots only to come home and find they didn't look good once converted. The shot I eventually elected to use was taken at the Classics On Show event in Stokesley earlier this year: an album that was never put onto flickr and which has yet to make it onto ipernity. It differs from many of the show shots I take in that it was a snap of a car I spotted as it entered the show ground, whereas most of them capture the whole car once parked up and usually from a very low vantage point. This was in effect then just a rushed snap, but I thought that the 1937 Austin 12/4 taxi complete with a collection of old suitcases on the side and the fact that there was little to suggest it had been taken in the 21st Century would lend itself well to the technique being deployed. The original was slightly underexposed, but I only made minor changes to it before converting it to sepia in PaintShop Pro X2. I'd read that you're supposed to first convert it to a greyscale and then to sepia, but having experimented with both approaches I found the end result to be exactly the same. Next, I used the albumen filter which I feel helped 'lift' the basic sepia effect and provided an interesting border. Then a little selective 'dodging' and 'burning' to really get the tones the way I wanted them. Moving on, I turned my attentions to the texture of the image as I wanted to try and make it look old for reasons other than just the sepia effect. So I dug out some old family photos from days gone by and noticed that nearly all of those that had a sepia look to them were also somewhat 'battle scarred'. They either had creases and tears or the surface was damaged in some way. Trying to get the creases was a real pain as nothing I did looked quite right, but then I thought of processing the heck out of an old image that had those very same creases on it and then transferring them onto my image. Then I overlaid the combined layers with a texture called Small Stones in PSP X2. I used a very light beige colour for that layer, set to a low transparency level, and deleted the texture from the central area of the photo so that the cracking effect it provides was more evident around the outer edges of the photo. Does it all work? I like to think so, but I guess the truth will be borne out by the number of kind comments and/or faves it attracts.