98 years old

nice photo! And nice car! When you see these things up close you can see the care and quality work that was put into them.

Gee Nodda, the fire truck is almost as old as David Lyga. Although the detail is good, I would have liked the car to have been portrayed a bit lighter and the background a bit darker. When shooting cars, focal length is important as too short a wide a lens presents a grossly distorted subject length. Here, if anything, the focal length is a bit too long, thus compacts the car only a tiny bit too much. That is simply my opinion and others are free to disagree, but I like the subject matter and old things in general. Thank you. - David Lyga

Thanks for the comments, I appreciate them!

Very poignant feedback, David, and you are not incorrect (except, you are only as old as you feel!). The preference here on APUG is often to share photos without context, but in this case I think "the rest of the story" may help.. .so you'll have to indulge my desire to "talk shop" and elaborate.

I prompt the viewer to compare this against the color shot to study when color or B&W photography makes a better fit for a given subject. My opinion -- in line with your comment on the relation of the subject to the background -- is that this bright red truck is better shot in color to stand out from background. Choosing a lighter background was a conscious decision. The color shot coupled with a bright background works better with my desire for a "lighter" image, to impart a sense that this historical subject is new or modern (similar reason that advertising photos for new products often have a light background). The reason: The color photo will be incorporated in Brookline's soon-to-be updated history chronicle, and presenting a photo that makes this fire truck look "new" I think will help immerse the future reader further into the time period the corresponding section of the book will cover. So the context that the photo will exist in drove some of the decisions for setting up the shot. The real prize is the color photo I posted earlier .. the B&W pictures were my exploration of the composition "design space" (as it would be called in my engineering world) for my own edification. I'm not sure if this B&W photo would have benefited from a red filter to stand out from the split background.

I have yet to develop the dry plate photos I took of this... I'm curious to see how the different spectral response will affect the image.

Re: focal length. I feel that now I have acquired at least a tentative grasp on composition (over the course of a couple years' conscious effort), I should turn my attention to selecting appropriate focal lengths for the subjects. You picked up on my ongoing learning curve, which is great and it helps. My choice of a longer focal length was a practical one: I needed to provide enough room bto allow the fire trucks being used to fill the town's skating rink to pass between the camera and the subject.

In 1969, when I was bellhop at the 1200 Beacon Street Hotel in Brookline (my best job, ever, while attending my sophomore year at Boston University) I never saw fire trucks like this on the street! Thus, I am delighted that Brookline will be updating is 'historical chronicle' in order to bring out the beauties of the past, like this fire truck. Here, the focal length is not 'wrong'; it is just that I felt a slight need for a 'longer' truck. - David Lyga

Just to clarify, this belongs to the "real" Brookline: Brookline, NH! I kid, of course. The town was renamed after Brookline, MA to unlink itself from the reputation of the earlier name (Rady) for being home to thieves and highway robbers.

Ah.... I'm tracking on the view of the truck... I struggled with that as well. Always a struggle when learning.

Focal length seems perfect... better than the "normal" 210 used by commercial photogs and way better than 150 used by beginners.

I do think flash fill would help, but I'm guessing you saw this as a color photo...where flash fill might not have contributed much.