Does your project have a plan? | Articles

So tell me about your latest project. Can you picture the outcome in your mind or are you just flinging parts in a general direction in hopes that some divine entity smiles upon your haste and miscalculations?

Believe me, I’ve seen plenty of builds that could best be described as rolling chaos: no direction and even less cohesion. Sorting and drivability? What’s that? In fact, labeling these builds as “rolling” would be charitable. Most are perched on jack stands or tucked into corners of garages for eternity.

As the great Carl Heideman has taught us, having a plan can pay significant dividends. (By the way, look for a Carl story soon about successful project car planning.)

I know I tend to overthink things, and of course my cars are no different. They might not be radical, but as Chris, our video editor, has noted, they’re clean–and come together exactly as envisioned. The stance looks right, the wheel-and-tire package perfectly fits. Little details found throughout help tell the story. It’s not an accident, happy or otherwise, that my 1984 Porsche 911 wears New York registration stickers from the same year.

This weekend, I scored a small win by capturing a project exactly as originally pictured.

I recently decided to create a photo series of friends seated across the table at Waffle House. Why? I like my friends, I like photography, I like Waffle House. Logically, it’s also something we can do 24/7 pretty much anywhere here in the Southeast–rain or shine, even.

Bette, a dear friend, agreed to be the first. Going in, I had a few small technical questions floating in my head regarding lens, lighting and composition. Could we pull it together–and while keepings things a bit on the D.L.?

I got there first and grabbed a table that gave me a view of the grill–a perfect background for the shot.

While we ate–cheese omelet with grits and a biscuit for me–my camera sat on the table. For this, I brought my Fuji X100V. It’s a powerful, compact camera that most people don’t notice. Its leaf shutter is also rather quiet.

[How I rekindled my love affair with photography]

While Bette’s wife got up to pay the tab–she’s the sweetest–I looked at Bette: Ready for a few shots?

We popped off the first one and I quickly glanced at the image. Good light, good composition. There’s the contrast of the cool subject against the chaos of the grill.

Sometimes it’s also good to be lucky: Her…