Light Painting a 1958 C1 Corvette
Today’s blog post is about light painting a 1958 C1 Corvette and the neat story about how this car came to call Minnesota “home” this past winter.
This is the newest sibling to “Chaos 2”, a beautiful 57′ C1 Corvette, that I’ve now light painted twice! The first time was back in September, outdoors by a pond and waterfall at his home, and now just recently this late spring in its matching “she shed”.
“Rebel 2’s” beautiful interior before light painting.
The interior light painting of “Rebel 2”, a stunning
1958 C1 Corvette.
Jean, the car’s owner, calls this guy “Rebel 2” named after one of her dogs, Rebel, of course. I call him my “Corvette-In-Law” because I actually have a little history with Jean’s newest member of her family. I actually discovered, and helped her to acquire the car earlier this year!
Barrett-Jackson
In January, I made the trip to Barrett-Jackson in Phoenix, Arizona to share a light painting booth in the trade show there with my fellow light painting photographer friend Dave from California. While it was a lot of fun, it was also eleven long days of getting up early and going to bed late day after day. But wow, did we see a lot of fabulous cars!
We also met a lot of great people too. Once we get past all this COVID stuff, I hope to begin light painting many of those vehicles for all of those nice folks that I met there.
My “Corvette-In-Law”
Early in the week, to pass the slower times during the trade show, I decided to send Jean a few photos of Corvettes to tease her a bit about not sending me pictures of the “she shed” that she custom-designed for “Chaos 2”. There were a large number of Corvettes with that body style there (I’ve grown quite fond of them myself).
Well, one of my pictures caught Jean’s attention. She replied to my text with “Bid on that for me”. Well, long story short, I got as much information as I could about the car, the bidding process, etc. I found a very nice car guy, Tony, (who had lived right here in Mounds View at one point in his life) to look over the car for me so I could give Jean any info I could about it. Tony said the car looked very well cared for and so I passed that info on to Jean.
“Rebel 2’s” “cove” prior to light painting it.
Timing Is everything
Well, low-and-behold, the car was up for auction on the last evening of the auction. Jean had another commitment that day back in Minnesota and thought that she was going to miss bidding on it because of the timing. Well, down in Arizona, we had up-to-the-minute updates on when each car would be on the auction block, and this Corvette wasn’t going to appear until near the end. I texted that info onto Jean and she was able to bid from her event while in her car while on her laptop!
Light painting of “Rebel 2’s” cove.
When it was getting close to auction time, I followed the car from outside, to all the way into the auction hall, sending pictures and videos to Jean. In the process, I actually meeting the car’s owner who was from Atlanta and was following it all the way into the building as well. He told me he was sad to let it go, but he was getting old and it was time to let it go.
The Auction Block
When it arrived on the auction block, I started to record the whole bidding process with my iPhone. Barrett-Jackson auctioned off nearly 2000 cars that week (and a lot of other cool car-related stuff), so these cars are not on the auction block very long, usually less than 5 minutes, so I knew it would be over fast!
Well, after all of the hype and hysteria, the auctioneer announced: “Sold, on the internet”! I immediately sent a text to Jean: “Did you get it?!”, to which she replied: “OMG yes!”
So that’s the story about how I met my “Corvette-In-law”, “Rebel 2”! Pretty cool story, isn’t it?
The front end of “Rebel 2” before light painting.
Light Painting in a “She Shed”
I really enjoyed the challenge of creating the featured light painting of both “Chaos 2” and “Rebel 2”. I’ll be sharing that cool light painting with you in just a few more days.
Jean’s amazing “she shed” is absolutely wonderful. In addition to that amazing image, I really wanted to create something that I’ve never tried before. I’ve never light painting smaller parts of cars to really bring out their features.
So after the “Main Event”, I got my wish.
“Rebel 2”, light painted in total darkness.
“Rebel 2” in its cozy new Minnesota home.
After light painting the two of them together, we light painted both of the interiors. Then, the sweet front ends of both of them (two different ways), and just the “cove” on the ’58. As you can see, those cool before and after images are spread throughout this post for your enjoyment.
The link to our short YouTube build video about the front end light painting is below.
Thank you, Jean!
What a great evening of light painting, with a little wine and tasty hors d’oeuvres mixed in there too. It was fun to have Joannie meet you and help me with this project as well. And, of course, I really enjoyed my reunion with “Rebel 2”, but here in Minnesota this time! – M&J