It was bath time after that fun charity drive to the mountains which went through a few major rain storms. I was excited to see how the C.Quartz ceramic coating that Metropolitan Detail applied would simplify things for me. I also bought their shampoo AND I bought the AmmoNYC FOAMe product for some extra lubrication to help avoid any swirl marks. It all worked great and made clean up a breeze!

All foamed up at The Shop:

Look at the water fly off the paint…I didn’t have to use a drying towel except in a few spots…ceramic coating for the win!

With the car so freshly cleaned, I was sitting at home and when everyone was going to bed, I decided it was the right time to try my hand at some more night photography. I have so much to learn and I had to take hundreds of photos just to get a few usable ones, but for my second attempt I was pretty happy with the results.

The boys and I love exploring the woods in the Jeep, or at least I make them come with me and they don’t complain much. We have had a hard time finding open forest service roads but I recently heard about a private access area with thousands of acres of explorable forest. Campbell Global offers motorized recreation passes to the Snoqualmie Forest and for a small fee, we get a key, a map, a big ass waiver to sign and the right to explore away! Endless miles of gravel forest roads and rougher side roads to explore. Lakes, waterfalls, hunting/fishing if that is your thing and apparently tons of bears and cougars…I think we will stay in the Jeep most of the time 🙂

I finally made it up there today for a scouting trip and hope to take the boys back with me tomorrow. The weather was ugly today but the views were still beautiful.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Day 2 – Now with the boys!

The scouting trip was successful so I decided to drag the kids along for another trip in the forest. We loaded up on Arby’s, explored the forest and I spent some time teaching Gabe to drive…he needs some off-road experience too right 🙂

• 

• 

• 

• 

The Shop organized a small charity drive from Seattle to Crystal Mountain with registration proceeds going to support YouthCare.org, a fantastic organization that supports kids experiencing homelessness. Even with heavy rain in the forecast, we had a great turnout of folks and a wide range of cool cars. The group size had to be kept low due to COVID social distancing and gathering rules but I think we had 12 cars in total. We found some great backroads up to Crystal, ate our sack lunches at the base of the mountain and then drove home individually at our own pace. Heavy rain on the way home kept me out of any speeding tickets 🙂

Here are a few rolling shots that I tried to take on the way up but I5 traffic made it hard to line up any great photos:

• 

• 

• 

Some individual and group shots at Crystal:

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

There is a saying in the car world that goes something like – “White, green, red are colors but black is a hobby”. My first color choice was white and I’ve always loved white cars. Black was my second choice but when I found the perfect spec car with some rare options and at a great price, I passed up a few other white ones and went with black. When clean, there really is nothing cooler than a wet, glossy black sports car. One day later, you have a dusty dirty mess so you have to really make the most out of washing day 🙂

My car is in great condition but it needed a professional detail. There were some swirl marks and the paint protection film (ppf) that was on the front of the car was showing its age. Metropolitan Detail (MD) to the rescue! They had worked on previous cars of mine and they always to a phenomenal job.

After 10 hours of paint correction, a full detail, new STEK ppf film for the front end and fender flares and a finish with C.Quartz Pro ceramic coating, my car looks new again. Of course, the next thing I did was take it on an all day drive and get it nice and dirty…at least it will clean up a lot easier now.

Here are my photos but I’m really looking forward to seeing MD’s photos because they had their photographer shoot the car when it was done. I’ll update this post with their photos when I get them.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Charles Hawes is the staff photographer for MD and he sent me a number of great photos from the process and the finished product that are much better than mine. I shadowed him while he was taking his photos and he was super patient as I got in his way and pestered him with questions.

Some shots of the process including some serious paint correction that was needed to address the swirl marks:

• 

• 

• 

Some cool shots of the finished product by a better photographer than myself:

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I was having some work done by Metropolitan Detail (more to come on that in the next post) and I showed up earlier than planned to pick up my car. John, the owner and all around great guy, offered to take me next door for a tour of Drivers Club, a private car club in Redmond. Wow, what a gold mine of stunning cars. GT3RS, GT2RS, GT2RS Clubsport, 911R…they were all amazing and most looked like they got driven…not just living their life in storage! We only had a few minutes to walk around, and thankfully John let me snap a few photos, but I could have spent all day in there checking out each car. Maybe he will let me back in some day!

• 

• 

• 

• 

I was that kid with car posters all over his room. I think I was that kid long after I stopped being a kid! I remember staring at the posters, usually while flipping through some new car brochure that mailed in for and imagining what it would be like to drive the cars that hung on my wall.

With this education theme in mind, I live close to West Seattle High School and I like to use it as a background for photos…there is something about the brick and the windows that I love. Here is my latest:

Some other shots from today and a few older ones as well.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I’m married to an amazing photojournalist and art photographer (Meghan E. Jones Photography) so I know what true talent looks like. I lack the artistic instincts required to ever be a great photographer, but I enjoy the hell out of trying to suck less.

Last night I was putting Shep to bed when I looked out the window and saw the sun setting. It looked like one of those painted sky Seattle nights so I grabbed the camera, borrowed Meg’s tripod and tried to capture the last rays of light. The sky wasn’t nearly as picturesque as I hoped, but for my first time doing any nighttime photography, I got a few keepers out of it.

• 

• 

• 

• 

As I was playing with some long exposures, trying to get some light from this black car, I had a few cards drive by and ruin the shot. When I went back and looked at the photos, I actually loved the look!