Finally found some time to grab my camera and take pics of my car last weekend. Not quite as well timed with some glib Forza Horizon 5 screenshot quips (because I'm an idiot and thought I'd be playing it all weekend, but plebs like me don't play until Tuesday), but nonetheless: enjoy!

Of course, she also likes videogames (for those of you who watched her LP with me)! Twitter: @DamFoxy

Nice pics man! I like you. You always seemed to me like a "we can do it!" person, no matter what you started. Photography was always a distant hobby for me, and never quite got it why. A couple of years ago I realized that I suck at it, and only like cameras for purely technical reasons. It was a relief, to be honest, because I always felt bad, ever since, of how bad some of my pics came out. I still buy some oddball cameras now and then, but never use them much for real photography, just for weird pet projects. Example: I have several-bridge, superzoom cams that I use to take pics of bugs and tree trunks, and action cams to simply take some muddy, underwater pics, and get ecstatic when I spot a fish.

+1 for the car as well. I hate to admit it, but even though I have had a driver's license for around 5 years now, I have only now started to drive, and man, I love it. Every road trip I ever imagined, is now a possibility. Sure, I have something far more basic (VW Golf) but I just realized that I also kind-off like cars. Most deff going to buy a more serious 4x4 as soon as I feel like I can handle it.

not a fan of orange personally prefer blue/silver but whatever float you're boat :)

I do believe in the human ability: "we can do it" has been proven by humanities continued existence through both its own foibles and that of mother nature.  In the end, we continue to persevere, so some part of me holds out hope that gaming communities will mature enough to a point where all these weird narratives people have over piles of plastic becomes minimal and people can just play what they're going to play rather than pretend they hold any real superiority over another.  It's really stupid to think that people will speak and act in any real level of superiority based on what gaming console they play... It's ridiculously petty lol

About photography, I don't know that my reply will get you back into photography, but hear me out on this: photography is a lot more technical than it seems.  I'm obviously an amateur at it and can point out so many wrong things in my photos myself, even (and this may not be readily apparent, but it was actually DRIZZLING during the shoot!... I'm about to post a few extra pics after this post with more and you can see the little droplets on the top of the car where the sunroof is black and they can be seen, but this photoshoot was essentially occurring in light rain!).

The reality is that the "artist's eye" only goes so far.  To minimize photo-editing, you want to maximize your settings to begin with.  This means you have to understand white balance, ISO, aperture, lens focal length, shutter speed, etc. and how to combine them for ideal shots.  You'll notice all my shots are slightly over-exposed, but that was done at the camera level, not in post.  This is "cleaner" than doing it in post because I'm capturing more light in the overall image rather than processing pixels to brighten it, and it creates better contrast this way while maintaining color reference.  This is one example of it being technical moreso than artistic.

The other mistake I commonly see that, again even as an amateur, I can point out: being too close to your subject.  The majority of beginners almost all (me included!) make the mistake of being too close.  If you're willing to try your hand again, I would tell you take a pic of any subject, and then zoom your lens in almost all the way or close to, and keep moving back until you've nearly identically framed your subject the same way and take another pic.  I'm guaranteeing you'll see the subtle difference this creates.  It creates better depth perception in the image while also eliminating foreshortening (foreshortening is generally not ideal and is only good for purely artistic shot compositions).  For reference, you can't tell from these pics, but I'm standing nearly 20' away!  When taking pics of cars, due to their larger size, you have to be further away from the vehicle or it distorts the vehicle's proportions.

Everything I said was technical, you'll notice there really wasn't an "art" to it.  Granted, again, my pics are also pretty amateur, and part of that is me using a mid-low tier DSLR, though the lens I have is actually a good one with an ideal focal length for car photoshoots.  I have a portrait lens for headshots, though I rarely use it lol... So if you give photography another chance, I think your technical interest might actually end up being to your benefit: you might have just given up too early!  I'm not necessarily trying to tell you that you'll become a National Geographic photographer, but I guarantee your technical interest will allow you to surpass many "professional" photographers I can easily see are on "auto" and just sitting there spending more of their time photo editing than actually being a photographer lmfao!

You'll love this: the irony is that my personal preference is white!  This is my first non-white car (other than a brief stint in a vehicle that got rear-ended and I got rid of it shortly thereafter)!

The crazy part is it's continued to get compliments for years (I've had the car for just over a couple years, now, and just got a compliment again last week), and it seems other people like the color more than I do lol... Which, again irony, is so backwards.  You'd think I'd pick a color I like more than others, but it's been reversed this whole time hahaha

Just a few more shots, and you can see the light layer of rain sitting on top of the car's sunroof: this was done in light rain overcast!

Happy Sunday, folks! I'm excited for FH5 on Tuesday!

can we get the hat on the car?

Hell nah, the cowboy hat is straw and I ain't about to scratch my hood lol

Actually, as I was typing this, it also occurred to me: are you asking to be funny or asking because you are in disbelief this is my car? lmfao

I just want the damned hat on the car

*sigh*  We'll see lol