I popped in to Turners Auctions today to take a look at some impounded vehicles going under the hammer this weekend. Twenty-four cars, motorcycles, boats, and trailers. Not that I'm in the market for a new set of wheels or anything.
The collection includes three Rolls-Royce Phantoms, a 1911 Cadillac, a 1928 Buick convertible, a 1969 Mercedes Benz, an E-type Jaguar, a 1924 BSA motorcycle, a pleasure cruiser and three inflatable boats. They were owned by convicted fraudster Michael Swann, who conned the Otago District Health Board out of about $18,000,000 in exchange for buggerall IT services. 18,000,000 is a lot of zeroes. It's also a lot of hip and cataract operations, cancer scans and dialysis machines, which is why Swann isn't too popular in these parts. I was told Turners have actually been getting busloads of folks from rest homes coming in to see these vehicles, spit, curse and burn Swann's effigy.
As with any good crime story, there is a constellation of supporting rumours. Take the Honda motorcycle below. Legend already has it that once the writing was on the wall, Mr Swann offered it to a local gang in return for a little protection in prison. Smart move. Except now that the authorities have the bike, the protection might not be so good. Oh dear.
It's a nice collection though. I wish I'd had time to do these cars justice. The ideal would have been to hoist a white sail up above the cars and bounce light off it, giving nice big clean specular highlights bouncing off that gleaming metal. Oh well. Instead I went for a few flashes here and there to add a little juice and occasionally kill the ambient. My favourite actually turns out to be one taken with just ambient below. I like how the cone from the light above helps frame the shot a little.
I think I should have shot more ambient, gone for a documentary feel instead of motoring glamour. Lesson learned. I wanted a little glamour look to add to the story I want to tell later on - I'm featuring the Swann fraud story in a book I'm working on. More on that later.
Auction starts Saturday 5 March at 11. Could be a good chance to snag that Rolls you've always wanted.
Proceeds to our local hospital!
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