I have always liked driving. I remember a summer job when I was 11 or 12 at a campsite. One of my duties was to drive the big car and trailer to the dump up the road (I think I was the only one who could back up the trailer). I got my drivers license on my 16th birthday{{1}} and spend a large part of my youth driving around the local mountain roads. This is a long way around to saying that I like cars.

As objects of art, automobiles can be pretty remarkable. Early American cars were all about bling, before bling was a word. Chrome was everywhere, which brings us to this post. How do you make the impression of chrome translate to a photo?

When taking the photo, you must be aware of reflections. Obviously. Chrome, like a mirror, does not have a colour of its own. What you are seeing is a (distorted) view of your environment.

In this image, I applied some blur and glow to the ornament to emphasize the impression of brightness.

[[1]] In BC at the time, to get a drivers license, you had to be 16, write a fairly simple test, and pass a practical exam. Since I was living in a small town, the test basically consisted of driving around the block.[[1]]