How to Take Great Car Photos

Car guys and gals have always liked to photograph their cars, and cool ones we find along the way. It’s part of car culture. The proliferation of smart phones and inexpensive digital cameras has revolutionized the world of the amateur photographer as well. Social media makes it easier than ever to show off your ride, or one you spotted to your friends, and the rest of your followers. Taking those pictures in a creative and high quality way though could get you a lot more +’s, shares, and thumbs up.
I’m not saying that photography is an easy art, however car photography does not have to be difficult in order to get high quality shots.

FAIL: This photo has a lot of problems. First the trunk is open, second the big bag next to the car is distracting, last the wheel is cut the wrong way. The angle and zoom are also not great.

The first tip I can give you is to look at the internet, web or E-magazines, as well as those in print. Yes their photographs were taken by professionals, with no doubt years of experience, likely with some expensive equipment, and edited on an office computer, using expensive software. That does not mean that anyone who is willing to take some time to compose a photo, using the equipment they have in hand, can’t turn out a few a high quality photos for their own use.
I’ve been photographing cars since I was a teenager, and doing so for magazines and publications for the last fourteen years. I’m going to share with you some of the basic tips, tricks, and guidelines that I use to get great photos. This is not meant to be the end all guide to automotive photography, and I don’t claim by any means to be the best in the business. I have learned from many of the best though, and while I’m still always picking up tips from those photographers, I can hold my own these days fairly well.

FAIL: This photo also has several problems. The first is the front wheels are cut facing the camera. This is a big mistake. No one cars about the car's tire tread and what it looks like, show me the face of the wheel, it makes the photo much more attractive. The second issue is also the composition or zoom of this photo. There's too much of everything else and not enough of the car. This is distracting, after all the purpose is to show off the car, not the pavement, grass and trees around it.

 How the Door was Opened
For me the door was opened into automotive photography years ago by an article similar to the one you’re reading now. Then editor of 5.0 Mustang Magazine, Rob Kinnan ran a one page editorial on how to take quality pictures, for the “Reader’s Rides” section of the magazine. Kinnan would later become my mentor while editor of ProMedia’s Race Pages magazine. I owe a lot to his guidance through the years, and he remains someone whom I seek advice from to this day. Those tips got me practicing more with my camera, and eventually I honed my craft into a career. So without further delay let’s get down to the basics of photographing cars.
Time of Day
This is perhaps the most critical tip I can give you. Unless it’s simply unavoidable do not photograph a car when the sun is high in the sky. The best photos are always the ones taken at sunrise, or sunset. Typically I prefer sunrise, during the dawn hours, before the sun is over the horizon. There is ample light at this time for good pictures, you can go outside and comfortably set things up ahead of time, and depending on the time of year and your location have anywhere from about 30 minutes to an hour of useable life.

I shot this photo of my '98 GT just before sunset. Notice how I got a little low, tilted the camera to add some "drama" and got close to the car. Also the wheels are cut to the right, allowing the face of the wheel to be seen, much more interesting than tire tread. There are fewer distractions to take your eyes away from the detail of the car.

I also like late day shoots for many cars. Depending on time of year, this is late in the afternoon (winter) or late evening (summer). Typically I start my shoot when the sun is starting to make everything gold and yellow outside. As it continues to set I adjust my camera, and will keep shooting until I have no more useable light. Some of the best photos I’ve ever shot of a feature car were under these conditions.
These conditions give you more even lighting, they reduce the glare, and they may also add interest to your background by having the effect of the sunrise or sun set add visually to the picture.
Mid day pictures often have significant glare, and can throw off the camera, the color, and the shoot. What could be an awesome car photo, is ruined often by too much light.
Set it Up
This is possibly the second biggest area that I see cause poor photo outcomes when it comes to car photos. Sometimes in our excitement to get the shots rolling, we forget some basic rules, only to find our mistakes when reviewing the shoot later. This has happened to me on more than one occasion, its an easy mistake to make. Take a few minutes to set up your photo area and then take a little extra time thinking about each shot before you snap it.
Remove distraction:
Get the trash out of the picture. Old cups, bags, boxes, etc. These all detract from the photo and distract the eye of those looking at it later. There does not need to be an old fast food bag under the tire, or the car, or beside it. When I can, I actually take my leaf blower with me, or a broom to a shoot, and clean the pavement off in the area I’m using before I bring in the subject car. Leaves, sticks, big rocks, these are all in the way.
Think about bright colored cones, signs or parking lot stripes as well, avoid these things if at all possible. You want the photo to draw your eyes to the car, not staring at objects around it and thinking to yourself “what’s that.”
Light at your back
If the sun is up, you’ll want it at your back. This avoids your subject being washed out by the sun (also called backlighting). You can have the light as much as about 60-70 degrees to one side of you, after that you may start to get sun spots. If the sun is below the horizon this is less of a worry, and not a big deal, just pay attention if it’s sunrise that you may need to move.

Location is a major player. Your location should not be more interesting than the subject. Location should if anything add to the appeal of the photo, and further make the car stand out. 

Location
Don’t get yourself into any trouble for trespassing or breaking laws. However your driveway may not be the best place for your next photo shoot. The local track or drag strip can make a good background. Industrial areas, an old barn, or building, etc. Just make sure that the car is your focal point, background is just that it’s background, not the focus so be careful and don’t let that overwhelm the car.
Be aware of your surfaces. All cars look good on pavement, some look good on gravel or dirt, avoid grass. Shooting car photos on grass used to be the trend in the mid 90’s. I’m guilty of it, but really it just doesn’t look like a natural environment for the car. So be aware of that. Old industrial sites, and buildings with some character or architectural interest make good sites for backgrounds. So do high tension power lines, and power stations. You can also just use a blank wall, or empty road. Avoid backgrounds with people in them, also try to avoid homes or multiple buildings, although sometimes these can look good depending on the setting. Rule of thumb to ask yourself goes back to, would this photo make it in a magazine? If you can answer yes you’re on the right track, no doesn’t mean it’ll be a bad photo, it just means you can do better.
Is the Car Ready?
This is a big one too. It’s especially hard when I go to race tracks where tire rubber, dust, etc all make a car very dirty over the course of a day. Not to mention fingerprints from working on the cars.
If it’s your car, a friends, etc. Take some time to get the car cleaned up. No big bug splatters, no splash from the drive home. I always say make it showroom clean, clean it like you’re going to show it to someone to sell it to them. That should do the trick.
Along these same lines, make sure the windows are up when you shoot the car. Unless you’re shooting a topless car, (convertible, targa or T-top, with the top down or panels removed), make sure the doors are all closed securely (and trunk) and put the windows up! This gives the car a much more even appearance in the photo.
Tire Angle!
This is my biggest peeve in car photos. I see more and more pros doing this these days, and I hate it, simply because it’s a big error. Unless you have some super cool custom tread, or top secret prototype, no one is interested in seeing your car’s tire tread. If I’m looking at pictures of a car, the face of the wheel is what I want to see, not the entire rubber of the tire. So always make sure the front tires are cut in a manner that you’re seeing the face of the wheel, not the treads. It looks better and makes for a more interesting photo. If you’re taking a profile shot, (straight on the side), you can leave the wheels straight. Trust me on this, your photos will look significantly better with the tires cut so the wheel faces you on whatever angle you’re shooting from.

FAIL: The problem with this photo is that the car is dead center, and it looks like the photographer is 40 feet away with no zoom. There's nothing interesting going on around the car, just empty dirty road, and lots of trees. The angles are good, the execution is flawed.

Framing
This is another huge area where I see mistakes made. For the most part you want to get the entire car or side of the car in your picture. Don’t cut off the sides, the back or the front. Also don’t move too far away, use a close up framing. If the background is interesting or provides a nice contrast you can highlight some of it, but remember this is a car picture, no one is interested in what’s going on a quarter mile away, or that you stood twenty feet away to get it. If your car is parked in a parking space crammed between two cars, move it. Same goes for cool cars you see at shows. Don’t be shy, ask the owner if he’ll move it out so you can snap a picture. Just don’t make a habit of doing this to every car there.

Partial shots like this are cool as long as they highlight cool detail or are purposeful. In this one I was trying to highlight the curve of the rear quarter panels, a cool body feature on these cars that I've always loved with the SN95 body style.

Move Around
Move around and play with angles for your photos. A straight on front or rear shot, or straight profile is not always as interesting as one with some angle, or a shot at what we call a 3/4 angle. Play with the tilt of the camera, put the nose of the car in the top corner or the frame or near it to add some drama. Zoom in from a little bit of distance and change the depth of field for the background.
You can do some close up shots that don’t show the entire car on an angle. These can be interesting if done right, but don’t make that your only angle.

Moving around and experimenting with angles will often yield incredible results. This is one of my personal favorite angles when shooting both classic and late model Mustangs. The car's long good stands out and the whole thing just takes on a different look. I found this angle simply by experimenting years ago, I use it often, almost on every Mustang I shoot these days. It may also work good on other vehicles, it all depends on the lines, and it's up to you to judge.

Before editing, not a bad photo.

Editing is Important
Do something with your photos after the fact. When I started taking digital photos no one thought they could use them in magazines because of previous failures. I explained it was all about the post processing, and within a few years the magazines I worked for were no longer accepting film, slides or negatives.

After editing, a much more vivid photo,

I had a professional photographer that I follow on Google+ talk about the importance of editing one day. The gist of it was this. A camera is a tool, a device, cold and unfeeling it captures the world in raw detail as information only. We as humans see things not only with our eyes from an analytical perspective but also perceive things when we see them, you feel something, smell something, maybe your heart rate changes, or it makes you think of something else. For many of us cars are an emotional thing, we get excited, nostalgic, or happy when we look at certain cars. The camera can't convey your emotion, you have to add that back when you edit your photos, show the world what you were perceiving and feeling when you took that picture, give the photo life.

Unedited, not a bad looking photo, this would be acceptable to publish. Scroll down though to see the post edited version.

Personally I use Adobe Lightroom 4 to get my photos corrected, and add some effects. There are plenty of lower cost apps and programs out there though for someone who’s not going to edit large numbers of photos every week. Do something interesting with your pictures, bring out the colors, add some vignetting, crop to remove distracting items. It will make a big difference in the final product.
Just don’t get too carried away. Unless I’m making an HDR or art project, I like to use software to make things look correct, crop and focus. Too much editing is like too much makeup and plastic surgery, it can go from good looking to ugly and unnatural in a hurry.

Same photo after editing. Which would make you more likely to pick up a magazine, click on an article, or check out an ad?

Taken on my iPhone 4s, edited in Lightroom 4, proof equipment isn't everything

Equipment
I personally shoot on my Nikon D3200 right now. This is a higher end consumer level DSLR, I recently upgraded to this camera, it’s not the highest end Nikon and it’s also not necessary for you to snap some good pictures of your car. Most smart phones have at least a 5 megapixel camera in them, which is plenty for a decent shot. The same holds true for many small point and shoot digital cameras. As the old adage goes the best camera is the one you have with you.
If you have a tripod or a way to steady your camera that is always helpful. Some cameras have stabilization features, and those can also do wonders for you. A flash for interior and under hood shots also goes a long way, but I haven’t even touched on those in this blog.

I could go on into a technical discussion about camera settings, rule of thirds (which often doesn’t apply to car photos), and editing. This blog though is just intended to give you the basics, just a few things to keep in mind next time you’re snapping some still photos of your ride. Action photos, are an entirely different animal. For now go clean your car, get out to an interesting location, and take some great car pictures.

Billy's Bad Day

This was the shot I had set out to capture for Glidden that weekend

Nearly eleven years ago, I took a stab at running my own race track photo sales business. I was an overly ambitious 23 year old with neither the business sense, nor experience to make the endeavor work. After nearly two years I had to fold the business and go back to working a regular day job. I don’t regret my attempt, or the consequences that come from it, I simply look back at it as a reference point for making better decisions today, and move on.
My business shot everything digital, and printed it from computers in a trailer that I’d customized with the help of some friends. I could produce a print as big as 11x17 inches within about 15 minutes of shooting the photo if needed. Most of the other businesses who did the same line of work had bulky photo processors, the big kind you see at Walmart and the like, crammed into their trailers. Their photos were great, but their technology typically required those companies to either have someone man the trailer constantly, or stay up all night printing orders from Saturday to be delivered on Sunday.
One person who offered support and advice to me during this time in my life was Billy Glidden. Those who follow NHRA racing and even Mustang and outlaw level street car racing know this name. Billy on several occasions worked out deals with me to provide photos for him to use either for his sponsors or other promotional work. It was a good relationship. Billy also provided me with a lot of good advice. He referred a lot of business to me. I haven’t seen or talked to him in a number of years as I’ve spent time away from the race track until recently. Next time I do run into him, I plan to thank him for all that advice, and the experience that came with it.
The World Ford Challenge, was a huge event during this time, drawing some 45,000 racers and fans combined. I ambitiously landed the deal to be World Ford Challenge 5’s official, and only photo vendor. That race was held the second weekend in May, 2002, at Gateway International, in East St. Louis.

Pro-Stock Legend Bob Glidden was also on hand, driving his son's Outlaw 10.5W car that weekend. This is a good wheels up shot that has been retouched recently in Lightroom 4

In addition to all the crazy Mustang and Ford madness of the weekend, NHRA Pro-Stock legend, Bob Glidden (Billy’s father) was going to step out of retirement, and drive Billy’s older outlaw car, while Billy drove the newer Pro 5.0 chassis which met the safety standard at the time to exceed 200MPH.
Prior to the event there was much press, and internet buzz about Bob competing. I headed to Glidden Racing Engines one Friday night, about 2 hours from my home, to take some promotional photos. I no longer have a disc of those photos, although I may have my own printed copy somewhere. Billy and his dad posed beside the cars, near sunset, in front of the shop. We ran on the bottom of the photo “The Legacy Continues...”. I agreed to do a limited print run of the photos, providing Billy with several copies. I would sell the others and give part of the money back to Billy as a commission, since I was essentially making a good deal of money from them.
Unfortunately it rained two of the days of the WFC5 event. Unable to sell as many starting line photos as I would normally have, our top seller was the Glidden father-son photo. Fans came to our trailer throughout the weekend and bought copies of the limited photo, printed in 11x17. I have no idea today how many we did, I think we limited the entire run to 200 pictures, maybe less. Bob and Bill were at their trailers, either between rounds, or during the rainouts, they autographed those prints for fans if requested.
Had it not been for that photo I’d have walked away from WFC5 deeper in the red for the event because of the weather and bad planning on my part. That photo took away some of the financial pain.
Billy had also asked me to get some photos of his Pro 5.0 car which had a special sponsor across the doors. The sponsor, was a St. Louis Ford dealer. I was also sure to get photos of Bob’s car as well.
Bad luck for Billy turned into a bit of good fortune for me. The photo you see of the red car with the fireball over the hood, is of Billy’s car having a rare nitrous backfire. Billy is a nitrous guru, knowing perhaps even more about setting up, and running nitrous than many that design and sell systems. I snapped this photo at just the right moment, with my Nikon D1x, what was considered to be the premiere digital SLR camera at the time. This was a time when nearly everyone else was still shooting film.
My shot  was the only one to grab the extent of the fireball. That D1x shot at an incredible frame rate for the time, and I had photographed Billy enough over the years to know when his car was about to launch. you just get a feel for that when you work the starting line as often as I did. I had hoped to get a good wheels up shot. Instead as soon as the clutch was let go, the car backfired in dramatic fashion.
The photo made the cover of ProMedia and NMRA’s magazine, Race Pages. I also was paid for providing the photography to ProMedia for the event. This was the first and only cover photo I ever snapped.

This is the shot that became famous for the weekend. Experience, timing, equipment and luck made it possible.

I recently came across the picture when I climbed up into the rafters of my garage and pulled down about 30 old archive cd’s I’d made before my original processing system went belly up in 2007. I’ve altered this photo recently, giving it lighting correction with Lightroom 4, and cropping it some to put the focus on the car more and less on the crowd. This is one of those shots that literally is a moment frozen in time. When the shot was taken, no one had yet processed, or reacted to it, the moment was that instantaneous, and surreal. I didn’t even fully realize it. I seldom close both eyes, and all I saw was a flash, and felt some heat. Realizing what had happened I immediately looked at my view screen, hitting the playback button, I found that I did capture the important image.
Sometimes it’s not just about good equipment, or the proper settings. Sometimes even the best timing and reflexes of a young person or a veteran starting line photohrapher aren’t enough either. Sometimes you just get lucky and an ordinary moment turns into something miraculous captured forever.

Don’t forget to visit my site www.donaldcreason.com, also follow me on Gogole+, Twitter: @DonaldCreasonJr, and Facebook.

Time for Change

In the past I've struggled to make this blog one about my personal experiences to share with family and friends. That has proved more difficult than I originally imagined.
The new year brings about some change for me and for my blog. Being a freelance writer and photographer these days, I want to make sure that I don't limit the exposure of my work. That being said I'm starting both a web site which will link to this blog, and display my work as a photographer. I will be discussing here the thing I know best which is cars. However, I'm not setting this up as another typical car related web site or blog. My work is sometimes limited for the company that I write for, because for the most part I write assigned stories, and occasionally dig out a few on my onwn.

With that said, I will be using this blog to discuss any number of several things. At times I may discuss a certain picture I've taken. The old cliche is that a picture is worth a thousand words. I may not be able to squeeze that many out about any single image. I have however taken through the years, thousands of photos of cars. I intend to discuss both newer photos, as well as revisit some of my favorites.
I'll also discuss my opinons on things going on within the automotive world. Everything from changes in the industry, new models, classics, etc. I intend to report things here that I may not have the oppurtunity to report elsewhere.
 News stories are abundant in the automotive world on a daily basis. Some of those get published with the company I work for. Others may not meet their criteria but because they interest me I may report on them.
From time to time I may do the same with a particular car. There are thousands of beautiful cars out there that will never make a magazine or web feature otherwise simply because they don't meet the stiffer criteria that many of those publications hold. I'm not saying I'm lowering my standards, in fact it takes a great deal for a car to catch my attention. There are cars out there though that I feel deserve some form of feature. I'll do my best here.
I want to take submissions from my readers, requests, and offer advice. The majority of my work will reflect late and early Muscle Cars, classic cars, street rods and hot rods. I will not object though to talking about four wheel drives, and even imports, though I lack some experience with both.
I'd also like to offer advice here and there on various automotive topics. This will be more of my opinion so you can take it or leave it. It will be based on my years of experience.
Last but not limiting will be my own projects. I may rarely get to publish stories on work with my own vehicles in any other outlet. So I'll occasionally show you what I'm working on and how it's going.
I hope you enjoy this blog, and take the time to come back each week to see what's new. I'll be using Social Media as a way to promote it, and hope to see it grow in it's following over the next year.
Best Wishes, and Happy New Year

-Don

Almost Famous

Almost Famous

–why I love cars and what I’ve done about it for most of my life

It must be in my blood. That’s really what I think it ultimately boils down to. Either that or the car business itself has a sci-fi type of attraction that keeps drawing me back to it. Looking into the evidence further though I think it’s a combination of genetics and conditioning. Whatever it is, over the last nearly eighteen years I have come full circle in my work life and realized that I’m probably where I belong (or at least where I belong for now), read the story below to find out the details.

As a kid I was fascinated with cars. I can remember from a very young age sitting out in front of our house with my older brother Dan and naming the cars as they went by. By “young age” I don’t mean seven or eight, I’m thinking more like four or five at the oldest. I had a fascination from early on with cars and with anything that had wheels and moved.

 

I can remember some of my favorite toys being Hot Wheels cars, rolling them across the kitchen floor to “race” them, or constructing plastic tracks for a similar purpose. The Transformers cartoons was probably my favorite cartoon as well. It featured action hero robots that turned into cars, how cool was that, the cars saved people and turned into robots, and shot lasers and blew stuff up five days a week on afternoon prime time for kids TV. For a car obsessed kid, it didn’t get much better.

Another memory that comes to mind was probably sometime between the ages of six and eight being asked what I wanted to do when I grew up. I can remember very plainly stating that I wanted to work with my dad. My dad at that time was the service manager for a local Ford dealer. As is common with most boys I looked up to my father, he was my hero, the one who scared off monsters under the bed, took me to work with him on occasion and knew everything there was to know about anything.

Dad had a “demo” car as a job perk, which was often a station wagon or later a minivan because there were a lot of us kids to haul around every weekend (demo meaning demonstration model). Demos used to be more common than they are today in the car business, dealers would often give managers and some other employees(usually salesmen) a new vehicle to drive for a few thousand miles each month to get some new iron out on the roads. This was also a great way to show friends, neighbors, etc what came from where you work. So a new car every month appealed to me, something new to look at, explore and appreciate in the driveway.  

At such a young age I was also able to visit my dad at work on a somewhat regular basis, occasionally he would stop by his office on a Saturday to take care of something or grab some paperwork often bringing my younger brother David and me along. I had a firsthand look at the inner workings of a dealership at a very impressionable age. Looking back now on those memories it seems very surreal, and maybe that was part of the appeal when I was so young. The sounds of tools clanking and ratcheting, the hissing of compressed air, the shining new cars, the smell of wax and glass cleaner, the crazy greasy guys in the back fixing cars and the sharply dressed smooth talking men up front selling them. There were glossy books with pictures of the newest models and “technology” for me to flip through as well. To me it was always a picture too of people working together for a common cause, when customers came in to the shop to either buy a new car or get their car serviced or repaired, someone was there with a smile to help them. When everything was finished there was often a handshake and a smile. That at least is how it appeared from child’s perspective.

It didn’t help much that my older brother Dan began working at the car dealership as soon as he was old enough either. Dan was a car nut already and I would say between him and dad largely responsible for my interest in cars in general. From my perspective as a young boy it just seemed like this was the place to be, working at the dealership was doing something important. Cars were the coolest thing I knew of, so what could possibly be better than working around them.

At the ripe old age of 14 I was going to work with my dad at the dealership during the summers. I would help take out trash, file paperwork for him, organize and clean various things. I was paying my dues so to speak. At 15 I was at the dealership several days a week cleaning cars all summer. I think as a teenager I really began getting a closer look at the real world of the car business. I loved cleaning the cars though, getting new cars ready for delivery/customer pickup or to go on the showroom floor, or detailing a used unit to be put on the lot, it was hot, dirty, sweaty work, perfect for a teenage boy obsessed with cars. 

I remember that particular summer hearing from my dad “Son, don’t get into this business”, he was at the time half joking and half serious. Much like any work situation, where there are individuals there is eventually bound to be drama between them. Conflicts of one sort or another probably occurred more often than I was aware and as a manager he sometimes had to deal with these issues. That summer some of the shine on the car business might have dulled a bit and I was no longer sure working around cars in this setting was what I wanted to do. In the meantime it was work and it paid and I got to be around all those cool cars so I didn’t mind.

I spent the summer that I was 16 again washing cars. That summer was even better, I had a license, I could now drive the cars that I was being paid to clean, now I got paid to drive them, put gas in them and organize them on the lot. Less enthused about being in the heat I spent as much time as possible tidying up the cars that were on the showroom floor. That job though was something that we rotated each day, since you could literally spend at least a half hour basking in the air conditioning while you were cleaning those cars we took turns everyday on who cleaned the showroom cars.

Like many teenage boys I became increasingly obsessed with how cars worked. I had built and still did build model cars, I had a clear model engine that I could move by hand. Keep in mind at this point in time computer animation was still in its infancy, Jurassic Park had been the high point of CGI to that day and the internet was still a dark and mysterious place that was not so easily navigated. Much of what I read in magazines was left to my imagination to visualize with only a few usually very grainy black and white photos to help.

I read nearly everything I could get my hands on about cars, various car magazines with reviews, magazines about hot rods and how to modify your cars to go faster or look cooler. I can’t count the number of car stereos and stereo components I installed not only in my own car but in my friend’s cars as well. I detailed a few cars for friend’s parents on the side and even did a little side maintenance work for some of them. Much to my dad’s chagrin I did or attempted to do a lot of maintenance or repair work on my own cars, changing spark plugs, changing engine oil, I was still a bit intimidated in doing anything more extensive but that was changing. . I was able to get a fairly good grasp on most concepts though, probably better than most people my age at the time. That technical mindedness has continued to be useful nearly every day of my adult life. 

During this same time in my life I met Tom Milazzo. Tom and I were both bored in Chemistry class and the teacher had the misfortune of sitting us next to each other. Not knowing, but quickly discovering it we were both car nuts, particularly Mustangs. There really is no way I can calculate the amount of hours I spent with Tom during my last two years of high school. Working on our cars, reading magazines or cruising around. Lifelong friends are hard to find, but Tom and I still swing wrenches together on each other’s cars over sixteen years later. 

At this point in my teenage years I also loved to write, what a great thing I thought it would be to combine my love of writing and cars with a job in the car magazine business, writing for a publication. I didn’t realize it at the time but my opportunity to do this was just a few short years away.

Much like the weather, the many pastimes of teenage boys (and my wife tells me grown men as well) can change quickly. By my senior year of high school I was looking at going into computers and technology over working with cars. After spending nearly every summer at the dealership working in some capacity the car business itself had further tarnished in my eyes.  The world of technology was changing rapidly and PC’s because they had become so much cheaper were finally in wide proliferation, the internet was about to explode and change the world forever. I thought that computers were my golden ticket to the good life so that’s where I focused a lot of my attention at school. I figured I could get into computers, make a bigger paycheck than in the car business and fund my car hobby/addiction without working in the car business. At the time I didn’t realize how deeply ingrained in my DNA cars really were. I had also not yet experienced the mystical car business vortex.

A year after graduating high school I landed a job with a local company working the helpdesk for their IT department. It was good money for a guy who wasn’t even 19 yet and the benefits offered by that fortune 500 company were substantial to say the least. 

November 1998, me with my 1986 Mustang. I miss that car like an old friend

In nearly all of my free time I was working on my own Mustang that I had bought at the end of my senior year of high school. I raced that car almost weekly (sometimes twice weekly). I had also started and was working on a web site that featured write ups and photos about local Mustangs from the track and their owners. I was writing about cars and racing one in my spare time. The internet was still pretty green in the automotive journalism area so I was having a good time and a little success as I created a nice niche for myself.

In the fall of 1998 a new drag racing organization the NMRA (National Mustang Racers Association) came to Beech Bend Raceway in Bowling Green, KY. I headed to the event with my brother Dan who was the track Chaplin for Beech Bend through a program called RFC (Racers For Christ). Taking my camera along I shot race coverage of the event and rushed home Sunday night to get my film developed and post the story to my little web site. By Monday morning I had the first online version of the race coverage anywhere. Apparently I drew more attention than I realized when I received an e-mail from the then head of the NMRA, James Lawrence asking me to call him about my coverage. Keep in mind these were the days before digital photography was widespread, internet coverage of events of any kind and live streaming were nearly nonexistent or seldom lived up to their hype, after all it was 1998. 

Through that phone call with James I developed a relationship with the NMRA that lasted for about five years. James asked me to check in once a month, let him know my thoughts on both the local and national scenes with concern to drag racing and Mustangs, racing trends and the performance industry. The NMRA was going through its early development phases and obviously they wanted to establish as many links around the country as they could (keep in mind that no one had ever thought of something like facebook or myspace at this point). That winter during a regularly scheduled phone call with James I received an invitation from him to talk with the then editor of NMRA’s monthly magazine Race Pages, Rob Kinnan and become a regular freelance contributor. 

That moment changed the way I viewed and participated in racing forever. Rob Kinnan to me was a giant of the car magazine industry. He had begun his career at Hot Rod Magazine, served as editor at 5.0 Mustang Magazine, both of which I read feverishly on a monthly basis, he had only left that job to purse a then better opportunity with the NMRA and subsequently the parent company they formed ProMedia.

This situation at the time was ideal for me. I had switched full time jobs to work for the IT department at KY Lottery. This job required that I work 12 hour shifts but in a two week pay period (14 days) I only worked 7 days and still made a full time salary (this was due to the number of hours worked). With my typically cooperative schedule at KY Lottery I was able to travel to NMRA events around the country on my weekend’s off. I was able to checkout a lot of cool cars and trucks, watch tons of great racing, get to know some of the racers and people I had only ever read about in magazines as well as meet all kinds of new and interesting people. If that wasn’t enough of a benefit I could often find enough material for freelance articles that I typically covered at least what it cost me to go to the events from my stories being published in Race Pages.

I contributed anywhere from one to four articles in nearly every issue of Race Pages for over three years. I also changed the way they dealt with photography. I bought an Olympus digital camera (I believe an E-10 was the model). It was a 4.5 Megapixel camera at a time when most digital cameras from a retail store were 1 or 1.5MP at the most. I worked with my local camera dealer and a few friends at how to correctly process digital images for print. Through my work I was able to convince NMRA and ProMedia to allow me to stop submitting film or slides and start sending work in on disc. Before I ended my freelance career with ProMedia and NMRA they were no longer accepting film or slides and instead had made the transition to all digital photography. I’d like to think I get a little credit for starting that trend.

During my freelance time with ProMedia they had also started a second magazine. There was a time when I contributed a large amount of content to it as well as Race Pages. Rob Kinnan called me on the phone one day; overwhelmed with his workload he was offering me the position of editor at this new magazine. Rob and the chiefs had met and decided Rob needed less work load, (I can hardly imagine being editor of two magazines at once). There was a hitch though; the job would require me to move to California, thousands of miles away from most of my friends, all of my family and a stable job. The pay would not be enough either for me to support myself and live on my own. Having no connections in the area near where I would be working and having no means to move on my own, I had to decline the offer. I did counter offer to do the work from where I lived, since most of it required traveling to races by car or plane, or dealing with freelance writers on the phone as well as a lot of work that would be completed on the computer. The in house staff needed someone present in the flesh though and we had not yet reached the age of telecommuting that we live in today where this might have been possible. 

My childhood friend who has known me the longest, Kelly, once remarked that the entire experience that I had as a freelancer reminded her of the movie “Almost Famous”. In some ways I might agree, a young guy from a small town gets to rub elbows, hangout and travel with some of his childhood heroes, while getting an inside glimpse at an industry he’s fascinated with and write about the experiences. With the exception of falling in love I think we have many of the key plot points from that movie (though I will admit to being infatuated with several girls that I met along the way during that time).

A few years into the freelance endeavor I decided to attempt taking my writing and photography skills into a full time career. I started my own business and spent the next year traveling the country to various racing events including NMRA both selling my photos to racers and fans as well as working on freelance articles. Unfortunately this was not an optimal full time career and between mistakes made on my part and a lack of sales I had to cease operations in late 2003 and close the company up for good in 2004. Having left KY Lottery nearly two years prior I was jobless for the first time in my entire adult life.

It would seem though that the mystical vortex of the car business would open up again and suck me back in. In January of 2004 I received an opportunity to work at the same dealer group as my dad. Byerly Nissan needed a person to serve as both service adviser and a parts truck driver. I could fit both ends, I knew enough about cars, the car business and how they worked to be a service adviser, I was good with people (which was a big plus) and I could “sell” work to customers that their cars needed. I had a clean driving record too so I could fill the second part of this dual role. My dad was the service manager for Byerly Ford located in the building next door, I was finally about to do what I said I’d wanted to do as a little kid, work with my dad, for real, as an adult.

I stayed at Byerly for about a year and a half eventually becoming solely the full time service adviser for the Nissan dealership(they needed me more on the service lane than in the parts truck so a new driver was hired). Driving to Dixie Highway from Crestwood each day, leaving at 6:30 in the morning and not getting home until 7:00 or later each night was wearing on me though. I found a job with an independent shop closer to home and left the dealership. I stayed in that next job for a little over a year, then I was made aware of a better opportunity at Pro-Tech, and I jumped on it. 

So today here I am, still in the car business. I’m the shop manager, service adviser, office manager, tech guy, whatever hat I need to wear today guy. Mostly I’m the manager/service adviser. I work for two very good owners who do a very good job not only taking care of customers and running an honest business but also at taking care of their employees (I’ve been here for over five years now). Like any job I have days where I go home and wonder if it’s really what I should be doing with my life, but those days when things click and go like they should, when everything falls into place and all the pieces work together like the gears of a clock, I know I’m where I belong, and doing what I’m meant to do (at least for now).

I will say that I sometimes miss traveling to the races, seeing all the action, the smell of tire smoke and racing fuel, standing on the starting line and feeling my chest shake from the sound of the engines, and meeting all those interesting people. Camping with the Dedpedal Racing guys, hanging out with the ProMedia staff, heading up to Indy to see my friend Jason McGrane and his now wife Audri. Riding with Beefcake in his latest toy and being the seat of the pants dyno in the passenger’s seat somewhere on an interstate in the Tri-State area. Spending the night on the couch at Ian and Sherrie Mullane’s hosue so Ian and I can leave early the next morning to drive all day heading to the next big event. Sitting in the race control tower and talking with Mike Galimi, Dr Meyer, Cindy Edwards and others during bad weather. Strange hotel rooms, late nights at the track, sleeping in my truck or in my photo trailer a tent or a friend’s RV and long hours on the road. That stuff was for the young single me. Married now, with a house, a nearly 50 hour a week job and trying to start family I have little time for those particular adventures. I do make it to about one NMRA event each year, and Sydney and I occasionally go to the local drag strip to watch or participate in some racing. During the summers we try to hit some local car cruises and shows when time allows. I still talk with a lot of the friends I made in the racing world, and I read about it online or in print, though I don’t follow the race results like I once did. I’d love to write some articles here and there but I have little inside info these days, my finger no longer on the pulse of the racing world like those glory days so long ago.

My current toy, a modified 1998 Mustang GT

You could say I’ve come full circle in 18 years. These days writing this blog, swinging wrenches on my own Mustang and my friend’s cars during some of my leisure time seems to be my two best creative outlets. Cars will always fascinate me and I’ll always have something in the garage to tinker with, change and modify. I will also continue to use this blog as a creative outlet for the part of me that enjoys writing. That for now is more than good enough.