Beauty Shot of a 1951 Chevy Truck

Not my first shots of the truck, but I think this is the best one I've taken of it.

This truck sits on the street near downtown Enumclaw, WA. I have been taking photographs of it every once in a while, looking to get a shot I really like. This one feels right.

It was taken with a 60mm Schneider APO-Sironar lens, one of the earlier attempts at a high-contrast, high-detail lens for digital medium format cameras.

A 60mm lens is a wide-angle lens on a medium format camera, and it adds an interesting effect to the shot: the front fender, being closer to the camera, is large relative to the rest of the truck—true proportions are not maintained because of the wide-angle lens. It gives the truck a beefy, heavy-footed look that I really like. It feels very ‘in your face’ which I think is reasonable for a truck that is one year older than I am.

I spoke with the owner; he’s happy to leave it in its colorful, multi-layered paint, rather than restoring it. He things the current state speaks to its age better than a restoration would. I love the colors, and feel pretty much the same. This truck has true character.

Central Enumclaw is an older part of town that’s also been around for a long time; it’s a good fit for the truck.

I could not get the entire truck in focus because I was so close to it. I took three shots, focusing on the front left headlight for the first one, then front door seam for the next one, and the back of the bed rim for the third shot. I combined them as a focus-merge in Affinity Photo, which is a really solid tool for that type of image combination. The end result is a single photo with all portions of the truck in focus.