We went for some food, but left with some cars. Photos of cars, that is.

Friday night was the annual pre-Thanskgiving Thanksgiving meal at the Anderson compound. Autumn wanted me to take some photos of Spencer’s newest show car — which is actually a truck and boat — but he also had all of his other vintage cars in their various states of repair sitting about the yard. This seemed like an open invitation to a photog and his assistant, so we spent our before-dinner time shooting.

As you can see, I wanted all the photos to have the same feel after post production. I gave each a similar color treatment and found a set of textures that I liked (my thanks to the generosity of Caleb Kimbrough on Flickr). I am going for a groovy vintage look, similar to the cars I was shooting. I was also using two strobes off-camera on stands; thanks to Autumn for helping me with their placement.

Check out the rest of the “Spencer’s Cars” gallery. Oh, and thanks to my mother-in-law Cheryl for some great food.

The last time we were in the mountains, we were driving Maxine and found this cool photo opportunity. This time, we were in Pepper, and we decided to revisit that spot just off of Wears Valley Road — see the last photo on Flickr for an exact location.

The barn was still standing, but the sign was a little worse for wear. Still, a cool place.

The first two images are from last fall, and the second two were taken last Friday.

After a great visit with Mom and Bryce on Friday, Autumn and I went to the Mini Rocks the Rivals test drive tour at Mini of South Atlanta. I had been wanting to drive a Countryman All-4 with a manual transmission since I drove one with an automatic. The latter was not impressive, but I loved the styling of the new, larger Mini. MOSA had several Countrymen, and man did they look cool. I was immediately drawn to a black-and-white beauty.

Needless to say, we bid a fond farewell to Maxine, and he came home with us. Autumn named him “Pepper,” and it just seemed appropriate. So, meet Pepper, our new, mature Mini.

More to come.

Maxine (my former red and black 2009 Mini Copper S) is not dead, but has just moved on to other things. I thought it fitting to give her a photographic send-off. It was sad leaving her at the dealership on Friday, but what’s replaced her is even better. More on that soon enough. For now, three cheers for Maxine — she was a great car and will continue to be for her next lucky owner.

Maxine, you will be missed.

These photos were taken in an industrial area, just west of Pio Nono in Macon, GA. The latter three are from the Wesleyan campus.

Giles and I have visited this industrial section of Macon before a couple of years ago, but we always like to revisit places, especially when we’re bored on a beautiful afternoon.