Highlands Ranch is holding its 11th annual HRCA Classic Car Show on Saturday, June 18, 2011 from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. Admission is free to the public and there’s lots of parking available. The show is held at:
Cherry Hills Community Church (Map)
3900 Grace Blvd.
Highlands Ranch, CO 80126
Official Car Show Info Page.
Car Show Photography
With lots of cool cars, shiny chrome and bright colors, outdoor car shows like this can be lots of fun to photograph. While you can certainly just take nice photos of great cars, it’s also a great opportunity to step outside the box to take some interesting and different photos.
My personal favorite is photographing details of the cars like hood ornaments, emblems and abstract elements. If you’re interested in doing photos like this, take a pocket camera or a lens for your DSLR camera that will let you focus fairly close to the subject. (A macro lens can be fun!)
Taking full photos of the cars is a little bit more challenging unless you’re looking for photos with people standing around your subject. What I generally try and do is shoot from a lower or higher angle. Getting really high may not work, but getting really low is easy enough.
Laying down on the ground and shooting up probably isn’t going to work with the other people walking around, but kneeling and holding the camera next to the ground and pointing it up at the car works! Trial and error is the order of the day for this. I will generally take a shot, and then look on the LCD screen to see if the zoom angle and direction worked. Then I’ll make some adjustments and try again.
It takes a little more work, but the results can be rewarding. Plus you end up with photos that are more unique and interesting.
And just like photographing in any public place with people walking around, it pays to have a little patience unless you want to have people or arms and legs in your photos. I’ll usually figure out a shot I would like to take, get ready and in position as best I can. Then I’ll wait for a moment when (hopefully) everyone has moved on so there aren’t any people in the photo.
Highlands Ranch only holds this show once a year so you might want to mark your calendar. It’s a fun (and free) opportunity to be able to shoot some different photos and meet some nice people. If you see a guy there with a ball cap on backwards and hunched down with his camera almost on the ground, introduce yourself. It’s probably me!
Highlands Ranch photographer David Sutphin specializes in senior pictures and family portraits. He also enjoys looking at and photographing cool cars!
