New Lens, Old Cars

I recently celebrated my 36th birthday. I live a pretty blessed life where there's not a lot that I want for on my birthday. Most things I need/want are far too expensive for birthday presents, as the only things I ever really want are related to my work and photo and video tech tends to be hundreds or thousands of dollars. That means I never know what to ask for and people never know what to get me. And that generally leaves people whose love language is gift giving (hi mom) in a dangerous spot. I hate waste and already feel some sort of guilt when receiving gifts. This year I finally had some affordable creative tools to ask for on my birthday list. There were a handful of filters and a lens I had been looking at for the better part of a decade that I threw on there. My wife was kind enough to get me this lens.

Fast forward to the next weekend, a few friends of mine that I have ironic Fast & Furious watch parties with, found ourselves at the Peterson Automotive Museum for the Fast & Furious exhibit. I don't actually care about cars that much and normally wouldn't have thought of going at all, but my friend invited me and it's one of the few Los Angeles museums I haven't visited yet, so I acquiesced.

I was truly surprised by how much I actually enjoyed it. They had so many different wacky old cars, historic cars (a popemobile, Saddam's car) and film cars (Batmobile, Wayne's World, James Bond). It was a visual playground and made for a perfect environment to test out this lens that plays with tilt and shift movements. Having this new toy undoubtedly added to my enjoyment of the whole experience. There's so many little design details to play with and look for. It felt a little bit like a visual easter egg hunt. I took far more photographs than I expected to. Here is a selection of my favorite photos and details from the museum (with a couple from my other new lens from my previous blog post).