I've blogged many times on the joys of First Fridays in the Kansas City Crossroads art district. September was a particularly good month. Every gallery I walked into had strong exhibits, the weather was nice and there was plenty of good people watching. To top it all off, I was treated to an impromptu car show!
Imagine this: you've just watched a graffiti wall going up on a gallery front and it is 10:30 at night. As you begin the trek to the parked car (a boring but efficient Prius), you hear the characteristic roar of a hyped up VW engine and see a dune buggy popping a wheelie at an intersection.
Welcome, my friends, to Dwayne's fantasy world!
This was a club run for KC Buggies taking advantage of the nice weather for a cruise. They stopped at the Kansas City Star parking lot to regroup and help fix mechanical issues with one of the modified VW bugs. Of course I had to take photos and had a nice chat with the current leader of the pack. She had one of the buggies that's all roll cage and engine.
The buggy below is a wheelie specialist. Minus passengers, the front end can be lifted with one hand.
The light show is a nice addition. If you are going to cruise the city in an open machine, you might as well do it in style!
The original bugs look really choice stripped to their bare essentials and then pimped to within an inch of their lives.
For car and street shooter geek me, this was a great end to an awesome evening of wandering around. I started in the West Bottoms hunting cool junk and ended with colorful buggies. It's all good!
In case you are wondering, all photos were taken with a Canon 60d with a Canon EF 50mm f1.4 lens at ISO 1600. There is no Instagram trickery. The Star parking lot is surrounded by a brick wall with intentional gaps. I framed some of the vehicles through the gaps to get the Polaroid look without resorting to digital effects.
Bonus shots: here is the aforementioned graffiti mural in progress. I can't wait to see the result.
Not only is this a legal mural, but at least one of the artists was actually wearing a respirator.
About the pesky thing known as Copyright: I, Dwayne F., own these bits of digital intellectual and creative properties. These photos may not be used, altered or posted without attribution. The photos may not be used for commercial purposes of any manner without my express written permission. Yeah, copyright is so last century. I suppose you could buy your own equipment and wander the streets for hours looking for interesting things to shoot. Just sayin".
What a fantastic evening! I really need to start taking my camera more places with me, though it's nowhere near as good as yours, it does okay. Also, I like your copyright blurb. I may start posting that at the end of photo-heavy blogs myself.
ReplyDeleteThanks! The basic rule in street photography is that the best camera is the one you have with you. I adjust exposure often and up to plus or minus 1 1/2 stops. But even without exposure adjustment, camera metering can be tricked by aiming a little off target into lighter or darker areas.
ReplyDeleteThe copyright blurb changes on a whim and no two are identical. Feel free to borrow the concept of the flexible copyright statement. I expect people will ignore it, anyway. However, one of the nice things about the 60D is that my name is embedded in the image meta data. Canon has a patent on retina or iris encoding when you take a photo. I am looking forward to that level of intellectual property protection.
Oh wow, I had no idea! That will be great when it finally hits the market; I may actually upgrade my camera about then.
DeleteAlso, I saw your interest in the ICI. I'm gearing everybody up for the second round, so drop me an email! My email is hyperlinked on this page: http://amachinefortheendoftheworld.blogspot.com/p/the-international-correspondence.html I look forward to hearing from you, and to getting the second round coordinated!
I'll be taking my Olympus with tomorrow, but I doubt I'll see any awesome buggies!
I've never seen anything like those dune buggies before...that was pretty awesome. I love VW bugs.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this was a fun sighting. I went to a greaser car show with lots of home builds, but these were really clean.
DeleteAre these carzy things road legal?
ReplyDeleteIt's America.
DeleteSeriously, yes, these are street legal and everyone of them had a license. It would be harder to get one of these licensed in California because of emissions control requirements, but in the great plains we don't have any specific engine requirements. A car must have a clean title and requisite signaling and safety equipment. Most of these have better restraint systems than a passenger car and would far more survivable in a crash than a motorcycle.
I still need to post photos from the "Greaserama" car show. Some of those cars were downright scary, but I grew up in the country and spent many happy hours rebuilding and tuning American cars of the '50s and '60s. Extreme tinkering is part of the American DNA.
i see these things on the road too... some riding a cart on a hitch and some actually driven on the freeway on the way to the river.
ReplyDeletecool things!
I suspect most of these have never been off the asphalt. They are just another variety of urban cruiser. The serious mudders in our area tend to use big pickups jacked three or four feet off the ground.
DeleteYou would be surprised how many of those buggies have left the asphalt to dive in some sand...
DeleteHi! I'm glad you found this photo series. Sorry you had to post several times. I moderate comments because of spam comments.
DeleteMy Beloved Spousal Unit is a lifetime fan of the VW Bug - will have to show him these pics!
ReplyDeleteI hope he enjoys them! We have another month or so of festivals before everyone battens the hatches for winter. I'll miss having interesting street scenes to shoot.
DeleteI own the Red and Black BAJA you pictured above. Great picture!!! The KCBuggies Club will be at the World of Wheels car show in KC February 8th - 10th.
ReplyDeleteHey! I'm glad you came across these photos! This reminds me of a pleasant evening at the end of a very long and nasty heatwave. I hope the cruise was good for your crew.
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