All Porsches great and small

 My take on the NSW Porsche Club Concours and Display day held yesterday .Some fabulous cars and the star of the show -and people's choice winner -was David Withers' 73 2.7 RS -displayed for the first time after a 6 year restoration.With competition like that I went home empty handed but it was great day.Leica X1 photos.

Porsche 917 fanboy

Oh to own a Porsche 917.There are only a few in private hands but fortunately some of the owners do race them including at the Le Mans Classic so you can still see them in action.The cost of racing a 917 today just does not bear thinking about but good on the owners for doing so.The noise alone is just wonderful and you can hear it in the Porsche Museum if you can't make the LMC.
I have just been reading -Porsche 917 -The undercover story by Gordon Wingrove . It is a great insight into this extraordinary racing car.I bought the book some time ago but have only just got around to reading it.
I also own Porsche 917x17 -a photo book by Jeff Zwart which records details of all the remaining 17(of 25) 917s.It is a superb piece of work- a trifecta for me-a superb photography book about Porsche and the greatest Porsche of them all the 917.
Yes, I am a very committed 917 fanboy.
Some of my 917 photos from the 2008,2010 and 2012 Le Mans Classics and the Porsche Museum.Leica X1 and Canon G9 photos.
And I am told that the Porsche Museum is sending some cars out to the Australian Phillip Island Historics in February next year.Here's hoping that there is a 917 amongst them .I'll be there...There will never be another racing car like the 917 so see one if you can.

Retro at Le Mans Classic 2012

It's not just the cars at the LMC.Canon G9 photos.

On a street in Bavaria.

Augsburg,Bavaria,Germany,May 2012.A beautiful city with a wonderful wide main street lined with lovely old buildings and some automotive sights.Leica X1 photo.

Portra .It isn't Kodachrome but....

Playing around with my first colour film through the Hasselblad.I used Kodak Portra 400 colour negative film and I like the results .I am using  lenses here which have been around some considerable time and they don't have the fancy modern coatings so all the expert advice is that they are not great with colour but I'm impressed.
Portra isn't Kodachrome but it is ISO 400 and seems to have plenty of latitude,fine grain and great colours and unlike the late Kodachrome it can be processed in a minilab (if you can still find one).According to the Kodak technical literature it is optimised for scanning and I found it easy to scan compared to old colour negatives .

Not great photos but just testing.I am going to do more shooting with Portra -I hope that it stays around awhile and doesn't disappear like so many other Kodak films.

It's a Peugeot

Ok, it was very obscure but there are some serious car experts amongst TRR readers so there was no point in making it easy and as it was some suggestions were close .It's a Darl'mat body on a 1953 Peugeot 203.An unlikely candidate for such an unusual body but Monsieur Darl'mat - yes that really was his name- specialised in bespoke bodies for Peugeots see Darl'mat and this was just one of his creations.It must have been unbearably hot in the cabin on a sunny day and the puny power output of a 203 would have hardly tested the aerodynamics.Still it's nice to see that such an oddity is still around and in an unrestored condition .
Thanks to those who emailed me with suggestions/guesses -most guessed that it was French but no one got it right.
Photographed at the 2012 Le Mans Classic on a Leica X1.

What is it ?

Clue -it is not a Porsche .
Please submit your answers/guesses as comments.The answer will be revealed in the next post .

Hasselblad days

Earlier in the year I sold a set of spare Porsche wheels and on a whim and spurred on by friend and photogear collector Roger Putnam  I spent the proceeds on a HasseIblad camera and a couple of lenses. Since then I have added another lens .So it's back to film (analogue) photography albeit in the medium format which I had not used before.

I posted some of my first Blad shots on an earlier post and a couple of my latest efforts are below .I now am processing the films and rediscovering how much dust there is the atmosphere but I have no intention of going back into the darkroom to do my own printing.I was never that good in the darkroom anyway so now I am scanning the film negatives into the computer .Hardly pure - more like hybrid photography -- part digital and part analogue -and it works in a way that a darkroom never did for me.Both photos were taken locally on the Central Coast of NSW .Both were taken using a red filter- the beach scene was taken on Kodak Tri-X and the lake jetty on Ilford FP4.

Using film again is a challenge.Even fast film is slow by digital standards and being stuck with just the one speed takes some adjustment after digital where the camera can adjust the sensor sensitivity to the prevailing light conditions.Also having just 12 shots on a roll (and each one costing real money) really concentrates the mind and encourages/forces me to think about what I am taking-a practice which I am now also employing in my digital photography .I have probably reduced the number of photos I am taking with my digital camera by 80% yet I am still getting the same number of worthwhile shots.So effectively I am eliminating most of the dross shots -- before I take them.

Urban Outlaw

It was only put up today but if you are into old Porsches you've probably already seen it and if you haven't watch it now.It is a superb piece of cinematography and features some fabulous 911s.In the credits it thanks Kodak so presumably it was shot on film.Make sure that you watch it on a good monitor or an iPad.
Click on the Urban Outlaw below to watch it now but be warned it's 32 minutes long -it's not your usual Youtube Hero camera hand held 2 minute snip.

Urban Outlaw

Porsches and cream

Classic Porsche Register run from Berowra to Yarramalong Valley up the Old Pacific Highway this morning.Dry and almost traffic free "driving"roads through some great scenery.Great turnout of 21 cars.Half of the group took in the optional freeway add on package of a few extra kms-they took a wrong turn.Great end of trip coffee and scones/cream cafe .A really good morning run.Leica X1 photos.