Thanks for the feedback guys.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 66-PMD-GMC
I gave up keeping photo records of my builds 20 years ago. I normally just take a couple pics of finished projects and leave it at that but your thread made me wish I had done more on some of my builds.
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Having experienced similar disappointment many times is why I take so many photos now. Since this is a build thread and not the general forum, I’ll digress a bit and share my picture taking history along with some of the limited photos of earlier builds. My photographic history started out rather poorly. Having a dad that made every childhood picture taking event miserable, I grew up with a loathing for photography.
As a result I have no photos of my first two cars, a 1946 Chevy two door sedan, and a 1947 Chevy coupe. It didn’t take long to regret not having taken any. But with the cost of film and developing, pictures were rarely snapped more than a few at a time.
Here are a few examples of my early snapshots. On some of these cars these pictures are about all that were ever taken:
My high school car (my first daily driver) was a 1954 Chevy two door sedan. I have no pictures capturing the somewhat dangerous trip towing it home on a rope, or images of what it looked like. Although the body was in near mint condition, it was a boring pea soup green with wide whitewall tires, upside down tail lights and a broken transmission. I repaired all the dings and dents, installed a used BelAir blended windshield, rebuilt the transmission, and corrected the tail lights. When my parents were away for the weekend I repainted it black to cover the terrible “wrong color (blue) paint job” my dad insisted on doing himself earlier. At this point I finally bought a cheap Instamatic camera, and snapped about a dozen “after” pictures. On the income of a a high school student it was just too expensive to waste shots.
Yes this is me a few years ago when I was somewhat (45 years) younger and a tad skinnier. I was very pleased with how the paint turned out. The photo was damaged in a divorce many years later, so I’m happy it still exists at all:
Although I didn’t do the final paint, I rebuilt my girlfriend’s 57 Chevy from this:
To this:
The first picture wasn’t an intentional “before” shot; it was just one that I took when the car was purchased.
After returning from Vietnam in 1970, my first project car was a 1950 Plymouth 3 window coupe I converted into a 1949. Because film and developing were still expensive on my limited income, photos continued to be taken very sparingly. By the time I sold the car I had taken maybe a dozen photos. The early pictures weren't taken as "before" photos, because at the time I never anticipated I would modify the car so substantially:
As things progressed and my income increased, I put increased effort into capturing more of the important moments of a build. (This of course had to fit in with taking tons of kid pictures during the same time period). In spite of being older and wiser (?), I still generally continued forgetting to take any before pictures.
There were at least a dozen more cars that received similar treatment including this original owner 54 Chevy I had for 5 years. It was quite a sleeper after I added about 95% of the optional exterior accessory trim, and a Corvette 283/4 speed.
Of all these early cars, most had no before pictures taken and during ownership rarely had more than 1 roll of film exposed.
Finally in the early 80’s I went berserk with photos. I built a 46 Ford 4 door sedan from what was basically a parts car into a daily driven 300,000 mile street rod, and almost every detail of the construction is documented on film.
I started out intending to steam clean the engine compartment and drop in a Chevy small block. Like so many others, I got carried away and the whole car went down to the frame, but at least this time I had the sense to take pictures.
My last and final build is our truck. We’ve had so much fun with it, and I’m very grateful digital photography came along. It’s so much easier to work with and far less expensive than film ever was.
If digital photography and web forums like this one had not come along, I would have taken about 95% fewer pictures of the GMC. I have benefitted immensely from the photos and postings of others, it inspires me to return the favor when I can.
For anyone just starting a build, I highly recommend getting any affordable digital camera and take lots of photos, and most importantly – take a bunch when first purchased and before anything is touched. Too many times it turns out there are no “before” pictures at all, making it difficult for others to appreciate how much work and talent have been invested, or just to remember what it used to look like.