With high-resolution digital cameras built in to modern cellphones, it’s pretty easy to take great pictures of virtually anything – in any light setting. And with Photoshop or other apps that make it easy to adjust brightness, contrast, shadowing, and other factors, it’s even easier to improve how those pictures look.
When it comes to taking pictures of motor vehicles, the formula seems pretty straightforward. Just turn the camera sideways to get a wider “landscape” image that maximizes the amount of room for the car or truck of your choice and click. But so often, it’s easy to find terrible shots taken with vertically-held camera phones that cut whole parts of the car out of the picture. If you’re not sure what I mean, take a quick look at vehicles for sale on Craig’s List.
Over the years, digital cameras have made it easier for me to capture great images of cars outside on the street, at shows, and even indoors where lighting can be challenging. So it only seemed natural to think of myself as a great photographer. Make that a great photographer who’s always been great.
When a colleague needed an original photo of a 1988 Toyota Supra, I remembered that I’d taken a shot of a red turbo model with a film camera at the 1988 New York Auto Show when I was a teenager. It was somewhere with a bunch of other ones taken that same day, and I mentioned I’d look for it because, in my memory, the pictures came out pretty good. Maybe it would even be usable.
After digging through stacks of pictures, I finally came across the 1988 pictures that were long forgotten in a box. Seeing how terrible they actually were, I had a hard laugh at myself. With a film camera, I completely sucked. In all but two photos, one or both sides of the cars were cut out of the photo frame.
In the spirit of staying humble, I’m sharing those 1988 Auto Show pictures in the gallery below. And in the interest of keeping one reference spot for all original car photos taken by us over the years, we’ve started a new Car Show Pictures tab on the main page of this website. And you’re not imagining things, the last picture here is of a short-lived Yugo convertible.
