Wednesday, August 22, 2007 – Spider in the Shadows

It seemed time for some black and white abstracts in dappled shade, and the opportunity arose. This was parked, but probably not abandoned, down on Santa Monica Boulevard across the street from Barney's Beanery –

Old Hollywood actors like Clara Bow, John Barrymore, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, and Lou Costello were regulars in their days. During Prohibition unincorporated West Hollywood was relatively wet. By the sixties the neighboring Sunset Strip had become an important music center and Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin became regulars. Poet Charles Bukowski lurked around, as did artists Ed Kienholz and Ed Ruscha.

And the sign says here this is "Historic Route 66" – like in the song.  So for kicks the "this" is a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. There's probably some reason Italians call convertibles "spyders." You see a lot of these Lamborghini things out here, driven my young fellows in their twenties.  The sticker price is 206,000.00 – dollars – and for that you get the five-liter, forty-valve, 520 horsepower V-10, and a six speed manual (standard) or six speed automatic transmission.  It will do about 190 miles an hour, but the mileage stinks – ten miles to the gallon in the city, sixteen on the highway. The production spyder model of the Gallardo was introduced at the Los Angeles Auto Show in January 2006. Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer was the first person in North America to take delivery of the Gallardo Spyder.  It figures.

It has good angles, and it was fun to play with the light.

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site.

Technical Note:

Most of these photographs were shot with a Nikon D70 - using lens (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, or after 5 June 2006, (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  Earlier photography was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik