1941 Chevy Master Deluxe Business Coupe, RIP

Bill and his first wheels, one last time

I still live in the same town where my family has been for 100 years.  My grandparents lived on a dairy farm (now merely an acreage) south of town for 73 years.  I grew up on that farm myself.  The farm has been full of memories and beautiful photography subjects to which I turn my camera every chance I get.  I've said many times on this blog that I love old things, so it should come as no surprise that one of my favorite photo subjects has been my uncle's 1941 Chevy Master Deluxe Business Coupe, which has sat immobile in Grandma's shed for nearly 50 years.  The Chevy was sold recently as part of Grandma's estate auction, and will most likely be parted out & then scrapped.  I therefore wanted to pay it tribute with a little photo montage.

This shoot was for the birds

I've always enjoyed Joel Sartore's "Photo Ark" project, wherein he photographs simple portraits on black or white of endangered animals.  When I as asked to shoot images of some birds for the web site of a local parrot rescue organization, the Photo Ark was the first concept that popped into my head.  I had never made serious portraits of animals before, so I did a test run with a friend and her cockatiels.  The goal was to photograph her birds on black and white backdrops, sometimes posing with her family.  Kids?  Animals?  Flaky equipment?  What could possibly go wrong with that trio?

Updating the Canon 7D firmware

In late August 2012, Canon released a new major version of the firmware for its 7D body, upgrading it from 1.2.5 to 2.0.0.  This was followed a few weeks later with version 2.0.3, which fixed a few minor bugs.  The v2 firmware added a number of relatively major features to the 7D, and provided an uncommonly significant upgrade to a body that is over two years old.  After waiting a month for other people to beta test the new firmware (a good idea, as evidenced by the release of v2.0.3), I finally upgraded my own 7D from version 1.2.5.