Plainville Fire Co Balloon Festival, August 28th, 2010

The skies over Plainville were filled with a blaze of color as hundreds of visitors to the 26th Annual Plainville Fire Co. Balloon Festival watched in awe, as balloon pilots took to the sky in their brightly colored hot-air balloons. The previous evening had featured a “balloon glow” at dusk followed by fireworks. On Saturday the balloons launched at 6am and 6pm. Part of the festivities included a classic car show and sock hop that took place from noon to 6pm. The show was well attended, with the balloon launch field packed with eager onlookers all straining to get a close view of the balloons. I even spied Linda McMahon, Republican candidate for US Senate in Connecticut and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, mingling among the onlookers!

As we were photographing the cars, Kathy and I were very impressed by a Chevy Camaro that was an ex-Florida State Trooper’s cruiser. After taking a few shots of the car, we discovered that its owner was Cruisin’ Photography Facebook fan Angelo Appi! Great to meet you Angelo. Thanks for the tour of your superb car.

Dream Machines Indoor Auto Show, August 22nd, 2010

Overnight rain put off many people who were intending to show their vehicles at the first Dream Machines Indoor Auto show held at Hartford's CT Expo Center on Sunday.

With 200 spots allocated on the show floor, the organizers, Radio 104.1 WMRQ, probably only had 75 vehicles in attendance. It was a real shame that this was the weekend that the weather turned wet, as it had all the makings of a great show.

The cars and bikes in attendance were all of a high quality with, once again, the Dreamz II Reality (DIIR) and Game Over clubs having high numbers in attendance.

The show got off to a hot start when DIIR president Jerry 'Sparky' Zayas had a fire under the hood of his superb Hyundai. Jerry, I would have thought that you had seen enough flames the day before at the DIIR cookout!

Thankfully the damage wasn't severe enough for Jerry to be able to travel home safely. An incident like this shows the real community spirit that exists among the car clubs attending as several members offered assistance or trailers to make sure that Jerry could got home. A nice touch indeed.

When it came to the awards Dreamz II Reality were prominent once more. Among the haul was the best club trophy and best of show for club member Jason Eisenbaum and his Nissan 350Z (top picture).

More Commissioned One-Of-A-Kind Images!

Two more satisfied customers have recently received their one-of-a-kind Digital Auto Art images.

Dreamz II Reality member Raul Gomez, took delivery of a framed 20x30 print of his Chevy Impala at the recent High Life Creationz show. Raul placed his order, and I photographed his car, at the Hard Hittn' Lowz show. Judging by the picture above, he wasn't the only one enjoying it! Careful with the fingerprints ladies, I've just cleaned the glass!

Another recipient who placed his order at Hard Hittn' Lowz was Dave Weber who wanted an image of his Oldsmobile Alero. Dave's 11x17 print was delivered at the indoor Dream Machines show in Hartford where, like Raul the previous week, he promptly displayed it for all to see.

And The Winner is...

As part of the event-photography package for High Life Creationz Two-O-Ten Car Show, Cruisin' Photography donated a raffle prize of a shoot for an 11x17 one-of-a-kind Digital Auto Art print.

We are pleased to announce that the prize was won by John Velez from the Bridgeport, CT based Frontline Auto Club. The Frontline members are easy to find at any car show due to their distinctive 'uniform' of brown shirts and camo trousers. John and his sister Rosa wanted this military aspect incorporating into the design of the artwork. Rosa also fed some more ideas to me via e-mail and the design shown above was agreed upon as the clear favorite from the samples I had supplied.

Enjoy the image guys and I look forward to working with you the other projects that we have discussed.

If you like the design, or want your own one-of-a-kind Digital Auto Art image, visit http://www.cruisinphotography.com/ for more details.

High Life Creationz Two-O-Ten Car Show, August 15th, 2010

Another Sunday and another show. This time Cruisin' was in attendance as the official event photographers for the High Life Creationz (http://www.highlifecreationz.com/) Two-O-Ten Car Show held that Porter and Chester (http://www.porterchester.com/ site in Watertown.

Sadly the overcast skies had an effect on the turnout of cars, but that did not stop those that did turn up having a great time. Mike Brough, Crystal Weber and the rest of the HLC crew put on a great event that Kathy and I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of. Festivities included a marshmallow eating contest, engine rev contest and a tug of war between the clubs in attendance.

Our job as photographers was made even more enjoyable as we had some more sleak bodywork to capture when the models arrived on the scene. Yeah, it's a tough job but someone has to do it! Thanks ladies, we had a blast watching the car and bike owners lining up to have you pose with their vehicles.

Thanks again to High Life Creationz for hiring us and for laying on a great event.

Digital Auto Art Commissions

As a result of our visits to the Dreamz II Reality Summer Dreamz cruises (http://www.dreamziireality.com/), Cruisin' Photography gained four new commisssions for one-of-a-kind Digital Auto Art images.

Kathy and I would like to thank Jerry and Maria Zayas (Hyundai and VW GTi), Dominic Milczak (Chevy Blazer) and Matt Benware (Chevy S10) for their custom. They were fun projects, and even more fun to deliver at the Hard Hittn' Lowz show in New Britain.

Cruisin' Photography supplied one-of-a-kind images of their one-of-a-kind cars...
Yours could be next!

Visit http://www.cruisinphotography.com/ for more information.

Hard Hittn' Lowz 3rd Annual Car Show, August 8th, 2010

The Hard Hittn' Lowz car club of New Britain held their third annual car show at New Britain High School on August 8th. To say that the event was well attended would be a BIG understatement!

Lowriders, imports, tuners and bikes, both motor and pedal, packed the school parking lot. The show was so well attended that the approach road to the parking lot became an impromptu show area for the Game Over club attendees!

Like the previous week's show in Hartford, many clubs were represented. The award for club of the day was given to the Dreamz II Reality crew for their strong turnout of cars and bikes.

Cruisin' Photography attended the show as a vendor to promote our one-of-a-kind Digital Auto Art images. Under the shade of our trusty gazebo, Kathy and I fielded many questions about the images and also took several orders. All-in-all we had a very good day!

The Regiment, Hartford Life Star Car Show and Poker Run, August 1st, 2010

The first day of August saw Cruisin' Photography strolling the parking lot of Hartford Hospital's Institute of Living campus for The Regiment's (http://www.theregimentct.com/) Life Star fundraising Car Show and Poker Run. In high 80-degree temperatures more than 200 cars and bikes packed the parking lot to support a very worthy cause.

A former Hartford Hospital heart transplant patient, Luis Vidal, was the show's guest of honor aftyer he landed in the Life Star helicopter on the hospital's helipad. Luis was 18 when he contracted a virus that attacked his heart. He was so grateful for the second chance that his heart transplant gave him he has decided to become a paramedic.

The show was very well organized and extremely enjoyable with many car and bike clubs represented.

Life Star is a critical care helicopter service which responds to and provides air transport for a variety of patients who require care at a tertiary care facility. The crew consists of a flight nurse, flight respiratory therapist, pilot, mechanic and communication specialist.

The critical care air medical transport service began operation in 1985. The service is available to all emergency/critical care patients within a 150-mile radius surrounding its bases. All tertiary care centers within this response area are serviced by Life Star and approximately 1,200 patients are transported annually. Life Star has transported in excess of 20,000 patients to date.

The service operates one American Eurocopter BK-117 and one American Eurocopter EC-145, 24 hours a day, seven days per week. One aircraft is based on the rooftop helipad at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, with the other is based at The William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich, CT.

First Nationally Published Work In The USA

Cruisin' Photography is proud to announce that the latest issue of Ol' Skool Rodz is carrying material by Dave Burnham. The feature covers last year's Hot Rod Fall Out IV. It has a brief report and eight images. Many thanks to Alan Mayes and Koolhouse Publishing for using my work.

Dreamz II Reality Summer Dreamz, July 20th/27th, 2010

Tuesday, July 20th, found us pay our first visit to Bart’s in Windsor for the Dreamz II Reality Summer Dreamz cruise. What a great night we had! Club President Jerry Zayas could not have been more welcoming. Along with Dominic Milczak and John Crowley, Jerry went out of his way to show us around the cars and introduce us to a few of the club members. This was my first US experience of the late-model custom trend that’s so big in Europe. The workmanship in some of these cars is phenomenal. Gull-wing doors, kick-ass sound systems, Playstations, big alloys and race-inspired graphics are the norm.

What interested me was that this area of the car-show scene has such a varied age range of its participants. In Europe it’s mainly the younger guys who are involved, probably due to the cars looking like refugees from a video game! Kathy noticed that the classic Corvettes parked among the Hondas and Subarus were equally as well received.

Kathy and I repeated the experience a week later as I had some cars to shoot for Digital Auto Art orders and we had an even better time. Contingents from High Life Creationz car club in Cheshire and the CT’s Finest car club joined the host Dreamz II Reality gang. We’d like to thank Jerry and the DIIR gang for two fabulous evenings. We are sure that they will not be last visits we make to Bart's either!

Ralphs Rapid Transit Mopar Cruiz-In, July 17th, 2010

As seems to be a July habit, KAthy and I stopped by the Mopar Cruiz-In on the 17th and was lucky (?) enough to witness some of the most torrential rain that I’d ever seen. Within seconds the parking lot resembled a small lake with cars causing bow waves in the puddles as they drove through them! I saw the storm approaching and found some cover before the drenching arrived. I remembered my old sports editor’s words from my local newspaper days in England of “Keep shooting!” I did and got some of the most unusual cruise night pictures I’ve taken thus far. For me, the remarkable thing about all this was when the rain stopped, the car owners just came out from their shelter, mopped off their cars and carried on with the evening. A real moment came later that evening when the “Flashback” Super Stock dragster was fired up much to the enjoyment of the crowd gathered around the car!

Junkpile Jamboree, July 17th, 2010

July 17th saw Kathy and I on the road again, this time to Haddam Neck for the 1st Annual Gasket Goons Junkpile Jamboree, organized by Ian Targonsky and Matt Firestone from 100percentkulture.com. What a great location for a car show! With lots of shady areas under the trees for shelter from the sweltering sun, excellent live music and a superb collection of cars in attendance, this was a great day out.

I spent a while with Ray Shampang, from the Route 66 Cruisers out of Middletown, photographing his superb Chevelle. We both commented on what a good show it was, with rat rods, classics and muscle cars all rubbing shoulders. At a rough estimate I would say that well over 200 cars showed up. Before leaving I grabbed a quick word with Ian, who said that he was very pleased with the way that things went. Keep an eye out for this show next year. Cruisin’ Photography will be there for sure!