Lynn WiezyckiSince one of my photog friends was a “car guy”, we decided to make another stop in Philadelphia at the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum. If you are a car person this is the place for you.
I am not really a car person BUT I do like to make images of cars! My only issue is that cars look best when shot from down low and my knees just don’t like that too much anymore!
Some Details From Wikipedia
The Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum is an automotive museum located at 6825 Norwitch Drive in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The museum’s collection consists of approximately 75 racing sports cars and has been assembled over more than 50 years by Frederick A. Simeone, a retired neurosurgeon, and native of Philadelphia. Frederick Simeone has been ranked the #1 car collector by the Classic Car Trust Registry.
Frederick Simeone’s father was a general practitioner who ran his medical practice out of a rowhouse in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. When his father died in 1972, Simeone was left with $8,000 and 4 cars which were stored in a garage on Clearfield Street. He grew this collection over the next four decades, and in 2008 he donated the entire collection of cars to the museum’s foundation, which now owns the titles to the cars.
Our Visit
As we pulled into the parking lot at the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum, the rain was absolutely pouring. Spending a couple of hours inside a museum was perfect!
My “car guy” photog friend was a colleague of Dr. Simeone and was eager to see his collection of race cars. So the three of us split up and made our way around this very large museum.
One of the issues I have always had with shooting cars is that they always park them very close together. Most of the car museums or shows may have a few set apart but most are crammed together due to space issues! But this museum had more cars sitting apart than close together!
The best setups were where they had the car in a life-like vignette! The backdrop and props were appropriate to where the race car had been driven.
Note: All these images were made with my Nikon Z7 and my Nikon Z 14-24mm lens. Most of them were shot at ISO 10,000 at 1/30 sec. I shot most using my tripod, some with the camera about 14″ off the floor. Topaz DeNoise AI came in handy when post-processing all these images!
My favorites were Italian-made cars, sitting in front of some Italian settings.
There is a large hall with a lineup of beautiful cars.
Getting down and close to the car with a wide-angle lens is my favorite shot!
There were a few newer model cars as well.
They have one area that is set up like the pit row at a race track. This was another fun spot to shoot.
I got down and low for a few of these cars as well.
In the Circle of Champions, they had several actual cars that had won important car races.
I had to get one last up close and personal shot of this beautiful old car!
There is an ante-room to the museum where you can sit down and watch some videos about the museum and its cars. I found it very interesting as it showed that all the vehicles were kept in running condition and were all periodically taken out to the small track outside the museum and put through their paces. Several of the videos showed Dr. Simeone driving his beautiful cars. This is a very unusual situation as at most car museums most, if not all of the cars, are no longer functional!
Note: While pulling the info together for this blog post, I found out that Dr.Simeone had passed away in June of 2022. I am sorry to hear that, but I am sure the Simeone Foundation will continue to keep these amazing cars running and on display for all to see and enjoy!
If you are a car person or just like to make images of cars, I highly recommend a visit to Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Philadelphia. If it is raining, even better! Check out their website for upcoming events, especially when they bring the cars outside and run them!
Click on any image to see a larger version OR visit my gallery to see and purchase prints and other items with these and many additional images: Simeone Foundation Auto Museum They have many more cars than I have made images of.
This is my last post from our Pennsylvania trip as our last day we spent at Longwood Gardens which I covered in Part 3!
My next post will be a little closer to home! I hot air balloon festival in Lakeland, FL!
That is all for now!
Lynn
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