Jaguar XKSS, Portland Art Museum

A few photos of a Jaguar XKSS at the Portland Art Museum's "The Allure of the Automobile" exhibit. This is one of only 16 that were built before the Jaguar factory burned down, including the XKSS blueprints. So that was that. This particular car was once owned by Steve McQueen (of Bullitt fame), so it has a bit of extra car-nut cachet to it. Another went to Cuba and spent the entire Cold War there, before making its way to a rich collector in the decadent West in the 1990s. Another went missing for many years before turning up in Chicago a few years back -- and then making its way to the hands of another rich collector. I don't usually post car pics here, but I recently did the "go to the car show with dad" thing and ended up with a bunch of photos. He's a bit of a car nut, ok, more than a bit, and I remember him going on about the XKSS -- how rare they are and how it's a shame there's no chance of ever seeing one in the flesh, and so forth. So when one came to town, I figured he might be interested in having a gander at it. And oh, how right I was. Lunch was a bit later than we'd planned due to all the extra XKSS ogling. So that was kind of cool. Also in the back of my mind I figured it'd be interesting to take photos of something else for a change, instead of the usual flowers, statues, bridges, etc. The light isn't really the best for photography; this is the first time the museum's allowed cameras in for a special exhibit, and they aren't really set up for it. I understand they've been doing special "photographers only" sessions, where they let you bring a tripod and even use a bit of flash, which I suppose is what you'd want to do if you were really going to be hardcore about this. So the problem is that you've got rather dim artificial light, with lots of little spotlights, lighting cars that are often extremely shiny and sometimes painted very dark colors to boot. Plus you've got tourists constantly elbowing you. I'm just happy I remembered to bring a wide angle lens so I could fit the whole car into the frame. That's my one and only beginners' photo tip for today: If you're in cramped quarters taking photos of a car, you'll want a wide angle lens. This is also true for other kinds of large object. So yeah, in short, this is not exactly the famous 1980s "Decisions, Decisions" poster you're looking at here. But hey.