RUST BELT - Friday Flash 55

This post is in response to

FRIDAY FLASH 55

The idea is to write a story in exactly 55 words.

Click on the yellow link above to join the fun or read others’ stories.

His VW seemed to be held together with wires and duct tape. Large patches of rust covered the hood and driver’s door. Rust had eaten several holes all they way through the metal.

But Max was sixteen and it was his first car, so to him it was as good as a shiny new Porsche.

-------------------
My first car was a $300 used Corvair ---you know the one Ralph Nader decided was unsafe at any speed. I needed it to get to my student-teaching assignment each day. There was a hole in the back-seat floor, so passengers could watch the asphalt zip by. On Mother's Day 1967, on my way back to college, I was rear-ended at a stop sign which forced my car into the one ahead of it, totaling the car. Fortunately no one was seriously injured.

I purchased my next car in August of 1969 after I returned home from a two-year stint in the Peace Corps. It was a spanking new Volkswagon Beetle which my new husband totalled in 1971.

Luckily my run of bad luck with cars ended then.

(©2009, C.J. Peiffer)

THE CREATIVE PROCESS #7 - From Photo to Art

"CLASSIC CADDY"
('54 Coupe DeVille)
(©2006, C.J. Peiffer)

This image is, in part, a response to

RUBY TUESDAY

and

CREATIVE EVERY DAY

Click on the link(s) to post your own response

to the challenge or to see what others have posted.

This post is the seventh in a series explaining how a

particular work of art or a group of works was created.

        I love to enhance my photographs so they look like pieces of art rather than photographs.

        I took this photo many years ago at Gast Classic Motorcars Exhibit (apparently no longer in business) in Strasburg, PA in the middle of Pennsylvania Dutch country.

        After scanning the photo print (I took the photo way before digital cameras) the first thing I did was digitally remove any specs of dust or other flaws from the photograph.

        Next I intensified the colors and increased the contrast between light and dark.

        After trying several other filters, to make it shinier, give it texture, change the colors, I decided to use the "glowing edges filter" which gives the image a black background with neon-like edges.         

        While this results in an effect that is interesting in itself, I didn't want the red color of the original automobile to be hidden, so I removed the black from the car, leaving the glowing edges.  

        I left the black in the background, but it looked too plain and flat, so I added a texture to it. Finally, I added a copyright and my name to the lower right corner.

        See products (T-shirts, mouse pad, card, tie, etc.) featuring this "CLASSIC CADDY" image at my Pro Artz Zazzle pages.

(text ©2009, C.J. Peiffer)

GRANDDAD'S CAR

This is a post in response to "A Thousand Word Thursday"

at Cheaper Than Therapy blog. 

        My grandfather is in the driver's seat in this photo. I have no idea when this was taken. He looks like a teenager, but I understand he always looked young. Maybe someone will recognize the make, model, and year of the car. My father was born in 1909, so I think it might have been within 5 years before or after my father's birth.

       I think this was actually a car that was at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio for visitors to sit in while photographs were taken. If so, the men probably traveled from Pittsburgh by train. But it is possible that the car was owned by my grandfather or one of his friends. It looks like my grandfather is having fun, but everyone else looks terribly serious.

        And how did the dog get there?