{"id":13460,"date":"2021-06-16T05:01:40","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T12:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=13460"},"modified":"2021-06-16T05:01:40","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T12:01:40","slug":"shoot-and-scoot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2021\/06\/16\/shoot-and-scoot\/","title":{"rendered":"Shoot and Scoot!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I should have won.\u00a0 It was politics, I tell ya…that’s the only reason the Axis prevailed.\u00a0 But I’m getting ahead of myself.<\/p>\n

That photo above?\u00a0 Like I said, I should have won.\u00a0 That’s my photo.\u00a0 I watched the two judges, stooges of the Axis powers, deliberate for several minutes, even delaying announcement of the winner while they looked for a plausible reason to deny what was rightfully mine.<\/p>\n

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Okay, back to the beginning.\u00a0 Me and the boys used to hang out at Bob Brown’s BMW dealership on Saturday mornings, and back in the day, Bob and crew were always coming up with great ideas…you know, things to do.\u00a0 \u00a0They outdid themselves on the Shoot and Scoot deal.\u00a0 You see, one of Bob’s BMW customers owned a camera store down in Chino Hills.\u00a0 \u00a0Between Bob and the camera guy, they had this idea:\u00a0 Combine a day-ride to the Chino Planes of Fame Museum and a photo contest.\u00a0 It worked for me.\u00a0 I ride (my ride was a Triumph Tiger in those days) and Lord knows I’m a photography phreak.\u00a0 I was in.<\/p>\n

The day started with photo ops and donuts at Bob’s dealership, with a very attractive young model.\u00a0 \u00a0Attractive, yes.\u00a0 Creative or unusual?\u00a0 Hardly.\u00a0 But I grabbed the obligatory fashion shot…<\/p>\n

\"\"From there, it was a quick ride to the Chino Airport’s Planes of Fame Museum.\u00a0 I’ve always loved that place.\u00a0 The idea was to grab an interesting photo or twenty in a place jam packed full of interesting photo ops.\u00a0 Trust me on this, boys and girls…if you’ve never been to the Planes of Fame Museum, you need to go.<\/p>\n

Anyway, these are a few of my favorite shots from that day…I was working the Nikon for all it was worth and I was having a good time.\u00a0 I could win this, I thought.<\/p>\n

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My last few photos of the day were of my reflection in that big radial engine you see above, and then it hit me.\u00a0 Like a politician who knows never to let a good crisis go to waste, when I have a camera that’s how I feel about reflective surfaces.\u00a0 I was getting some good shots of myself in the polished prop hub, and then it hit me.<\/p>\n

“Hey Marty,” I said.\u00a0 Marty is my riding buddy.\u00a0 You’ve seen him here in the ExNotes blog in many places.\u00a0 Mexico.\u00a0 Canada.\u00a0 All over the US.\u00a0 “Get in the picture right here.”<\/p>\n

And he did.\u00a0 That’s when I grabbed the photo you see at the top of this blog, and as I saw the image through the viewfinder, I knew I had a winner.\u00a0 It captured what the day had been about.\u00a0 Great photography.\u00a0 Air cooling and internal combustion.\u00a0 Riding.\u00a0 Friendship.<\/p>\n

So we rode from the Planes of Fame Museum over to the photo shop and uploaded all our shots.\u00a0 We returned that evening when the winners would be announced.\u00a0 I wasn’t interested in placing.\u00a0 I wanted to win.\u00a0 And I knew I would.\u00a0 Or at least I knew I should.\u00a0 The funny thing was, the two judges were the camera store owner and the local Canon sales rep.\u00a0 I could see they were having a tough time.\u00a0 They were down to two photos, mine was one of them, and they were struggling with the decision.\u00a0 I think my photo was the clear winner.\u00a0 But alas, I shot it with a Nikon.\u00a0 This was a Canon contest being at least partly sponsored by a BMW dealer (and I rode a Triumph).\u00a0 The Germans and the Japanese.\u00a0 The Axis powers.\u00a0 Still trying to make up for World War II.\u00a0 Not that it bothers me.\u00a0 Much.\u00a0 But I should have won.<\/p>\n

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