Bumpers, Curves, and a Fisheye View at the Barcelona Classic Car Show

A Sunday of Chrome and Curves

I was invited to the Barcelona Classic Car Show on a Sunday, and since I had nothing urgent to do (a rare luxury), I thought, why not? Cars aren’t my main subject, but the promise of polished chrome, old-school design, and eccentric attendees was enough to tempt me — especially if it meant a few interesting frames.

I brought along my fisheye lens, partly as an experiment. I’ve learned it doesn’t love straight lines or modern architecture — the distortion makes everything look like it’s melting. But when it comes to curved forms, it sometimes works beautifully. I’d discovered this while shooting Grand Central’s arches in New York. The warped lines there didn’t feel jarring — more like a visual memory rendered slightly off-kilter.

Anthropomorphic Engines and Fisheye Fun

Classic cars, it turns out, are excellent fisheye subjects. The soft curves of 1950s bonnets and sweeping fenders took on a playful, almost cartoonish quality. They looked like characters — wide-eyed, animated, halfway to speaking. A little absurd, yes, but oddly charming.

It felt like I was photographing the cars’ personalities rather than their exteriors. That’s the thing about distortion: used sparingly, it can reveal something unexpected. Used heavily, well… it can make a ’67 Mustang look like it’s melting into the tarmac. I may have overdone it. But I had fun, and sometimes that’s the point.

Classic Meets Surreal

There’s something surreal about standing in a convention center full of machines from another era. So lovingly maintained. So still. It’s like visiting a museum of motion that’s decided to take the day off. My lens may have twisted reality a bit, but the joy of it was real.

And honestly, we could all use more excuses to see the familiar — even a row of old Citroëns — from a slightly stranger angle.