Car show peeps.

An experiment.

Pentax *ist D + Kodak Duaflex II

An experiment. TtV shots, all.

I cropped them square and cloned-in the rounded corners, where necessary.

I wanted to see if these portraits would work without the novelty of the rounded-corner TtV frame.

Interesting results. I think they work.

If I had to pick a favorite type or style of photography, I’d hafta go with portraits.

One person.

Groups.

Pairs.

Any camera.

All good as long as people are involved!

The car shows have been kinda key in my portrait taking and learning process. I like shooting cars, but there are so many cool and unique people waking around that it really is easy to find folks who’ll let me get a shot.

And I’m not shy about asking.

Compilation time.

Old Chevys.

I was looking through the archive for a particular grainy, black and white shot I made of a ’57 Chevy at a Goodguys car show years ago. Searching “chevy” on my old Mac brought up a ton of results.

After initially selecting around 50 shots, I whittled it down to these 27 photos made using various film and digital cameras, taken at car shows I’ve attended over the last 15-16 years.

Hope everyone’s safe and warm.

Charlie Allen.

Fremont Drag Strip.

A barely recognizable night shot from back in the mid-to-late 60s. Converted from color to monochrome in Photoshop. Shot from up in the spectator stands on the west side of the track.

I’ve started posting my shots from Fremont Drag Strip on Instagram > @fremontdragstrip

I was around 15-16 years old when I took these pictures. I’ve shared them in a number of places on the web already, but not Instagram.

Downtown.

Around the plaza.

My familiarity with downtown San Jose is a result of working at The Tech Museum of Innovation from 2000-2006.

I did web marketing and design for the museum and it was the coolest job I had in my 43 years of working.

The museum was just off Plaza de César Chávez, kitty-corner from the San Jose Museum of Art. The Tech staff was housed in a building around the corner on West San Carlos, and I had a decent sized work-space near the entrance, big enough to park my old Schwinn Collegiate in my office.

Whenever the weather was decent, I’d jump on my bike at lunch and ride around downtown with cameras, my Domke F6 fitting perfectly in the basket hanging from the handlebars.

Lots to see and shoot, with San Jose State, City Hall, The Children’s Museum, Japan Town, and older parts of town well within reach on bicycle at lunch hour.

Jump ahead to 2007, after a short stint as webmaster for San Jose State I landed at Santa Clara University, where I did web marketing until I retired in 2015.

The lure of the city was strong and I would still head downtown on occasion, just to find interesting and unusual subjects for photography.

These six shots were taken around the plaza late December 2008 using my old Pentax K10D and a Sigma 28-135 ƒ/4 zoom/macro lens.

Uniform.

Locked up.

Canon PowerShot S3IS, downtown San Jose back around January 2007.

I’d just started working at San Jose State and lunchtime walks in the neighborhoods surrounding the campus were a nice break in the day.

I really can’t recall where this bike shop was, though…

Camelia.

Ricoh GR Digital II.

January 2009.

A big bush near the northwest-ish corner of Varsi Hall on the Santa Clara University campus.

This is one of two fave shots of this beautiful pink flower, the other being a color TtV that I made around the same time.