Vintage Photo Backgrounds

 

VINTAGE PHOTO BACKGROUNDS

 

Adding vintage color photos to recently taken Custom Car photos gives the image a whole new feel, like they were photographed in the Golden Years of Customizing.



Some time ago I was asked if I had a good photo showing the original Carson Top Shop created headliner in the Bob Hirohata 1951 mercury. Well I had a few nice photos taken of the interior when Jim McNeil invited me for a short drive inside the Merc at the 2011 GNRS Customs Then & Now event. When I was looking at the photos, that were taken at the parking lot of the NHRA Museum, the background distracted me from looking at the topic of the photo, the headliner. Then I got the idea to find a suitable vintage Los Angeles color photo and see if I could past it in the photo so that the modern parking lot background would appear to be vintage Los Angeles. Almost like you would step back in time, like Jim was taking the Hirohata Merc for a spin in Los Angeles in the early 1950’s.

Visualizing Custom Car day-dreams…



The first Vintage Photo Background project was this headliner photo of Jim driving the Hirohata Mercury at the NHRA parking lot in 2011.
It now looks like Jim drives the Mercury in vintage Los Angeles.
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The Hirohata Mercury being driving to the Pan Pacific Auditorium in early 1955.
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A Steve Stanford design that I recreated with Digital Restyling, and then added it to the late 40’s Los Angeles color photo. How this 1940 Ford pick up with DuVall windshield and padded top was created can be seen here.
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For King Kustoms I created this poster with King Kustoms Rob Radcliff’s nearly finished Shoebox pasted into the famous Motor Trend cover photo of the Sam Barris Mercury taken in 1951.
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For our own 2015 Christmas Card I created this image based on an late 1940’s Los Angeles color photo. I removed a few of the signs on top of the building and replaced them with my own signs. Then I added the Jim Skonzakes 1949 Buick and Tim Kirkegaard’s Kevan Sledge created 1939 Mercury to the photofor the right Custom Car touch.
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Brian Holden shared a photo of his nearly finished 1936 Ford coupe, including one of the custom dash created by Laurie Peterson. I could not resist to add a nice late 1940’s California street scene to give the whole picture the perfect feel.
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Ron Martinez Dick & Keith Dean built, and later redone by Scott Guilder’s 1939 Mercury taking off in an early 1950’s Los Angeles photo.
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I took a photo of Tim Kirgekaard driving his chopped 1939 Mercury on a trip to Sweden, and was day-dreaming how it would have been driving this car in vintage California… 
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In the summer of 2015 Palle Johansen invited me a trip to Sweden in his chopped padded topped 1947 Cadillac. Palle had just finished his restyled dash with a center positioned 1948 Cadillac gauge cluster. On our long journey we wondered how the Kustoms of Los Angeles car club would have felt driving their Customs in San Francisco in the early 1950’s…
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Perfectly proportions sectioned, chopped and padded topped 1940 Ford from Ralph Jilek was photographed at the Rodder’s Journal show in 2015. I was wondering how it would have looked in a more period perfect setting…  
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After having don the first image of the Hirohata Mercury headliner with showing only a small portion of vintage Los Angeles, I wanted to do one that showed a bit more of the Hirohata Merc, as well as the Los Angles background. Although the small windows in the Mercury do not allow to see much for the vintage view. The image does bring you back in time…. daydreaming of these beautiful Customs d around in vintage California. 
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Some of the original “recent” taken photos I used as base.
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(this article is sponsored by)

Contact Rob Radcliffe at King Kustoms for more info on these T-Shirts Email Rob




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