AUGUST 2025 – The back of a bright red Cadillac 1953 Eldorado Convertible on a sunny day in Grömitz, Germany. Photo © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com
The story behind the image
While we spent our summer vacation in Grömitz, Germany, we had the pleasure of attending a historic car show in town. The organizers had pulled together more than 300 stunning cars which filled three greens right next to the beach. Of course, this provided me with countless photo opportunities.
My image shows the back and logo of a beautiful 1953 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible, said to be one of the most important post-war Cadillacs. And it’s a valuable beauty as only 532 cars of this type were built. At a 2009 auction a similar model was sold for US$ 187,000. At the time of writing, a current listing at autoscout24.de carries a pricetag of € 129,000 (about $151,000.)
Anyway, the image is one of my favorites because it shows a detail of the car in a powerful, unusual way. It’s almost like a mix between a photo and a sophisticated illustration. (But it is a genuine photo, trust me.) I opted for a very steep angle, almost straight down, and a focal length of 32 mm so I could get the Eldorado label, the large V symbol, and a large portion of the polished cover for the reserve tire into the frame. An f-stop of 22 ensured that nice beams emerged from the reflecting sun.
A rain shower had come down a few minutes earlier, and at first I thought that this would ruin most of the shots. But it did not. Quite the contrary, actually. When the sun came out again, the fresh raindrops added a nice detail.
Awesome.
Design ideas
The high resolution image
| Capture Date & Time | 23-AUG-2025, 13:02 |
| Location | Grömitz Germany |
| Camera | Canon EOS-1D Mark IV |
| Lens | Canon EF16-35mm f/2.8L II USM |
| ISO | 400 |
| Exposure | 1/80 sec at f/22 |
| Digital Image Source Format | Canon Camera RAW (CR2) |
| Edited Image Format | JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Dimensions | 4792 x 3188 Pixels |
| Copyright | © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com |
Zanzig.com Photo Hub 