First of all, great work the photos Dominc, and also thank you for posting them here and being comfortable with receiving constructive criticism.
Here's my take on the photos.
The first photo:
I'm with Germaniac on this photo, it is your best photo of this series. Firstly, focusing on the angle of the shot, it's very well composed because it gives a small sense of motion and direction to the car because it looks like the car is slowly driving by you as you captured it. The photo could have been a tad better had it been taken at a lower angle, but understood that you had limited time with people everywhere. Also, the way the dirt road disappears into the distance provides excellent sense of perspective and depth to the photo. The way that long cloud is stretched at the same angle as the car only adds to the photo because it again provides a line of perspective. In terms of the lighting and colour adjustments... well, if you've had a look at a couple of the photos I've posted in the General Photo Comps over the past few weeks, I'm sure you'll know how much I love the 'desaturated-blue' look!! That faded-blue tone reflecting off the chrome linings of the car and also the dark hood really make the car stand-out without needing a lot of vibrant colour or excessive lighting contrast! Again, as stated, IMO the photo would have been better had it been shot a little lower, and also if it had been cropped from the top a bit to give the photo a more wider look to the whole scene.
The second photo:
This is an interesting one for me. Good work in getting it perfectly head-on, and also good work in getting down low! Good job also in controlling the harsh lighting without sacrificing too much colour saturation and highlights. As Germaniac stated, the photo would have been more striking had the background been less cluttered, but you've explained that this was out of your control, as was your attempts to further decrease the DoF of the shot. The only other thing I can think of which could have made for a cooler shot would have been to get even lower (to where the camera was nearly sitting on the ground) so as to give this little Alfa a more imposing look (especially since it has those big round lights). The photo is a little two-dimensional, but if your aim was to get a head-on shot, then 2D is what you'll always get.
The third photo:
This is a very very nice photo! Firstly, you know me, I very much like the technique of selective colouring, especially when the selective colour is red contrasted against a black & white background, so this photo instantly appealed to me. Composition is fairly good with the Alfa in the foreground and the Ferrari in the background to add depth and extra dynamic to the photo. Again, the photo could have been taken a little lower, but more importantly, I feel the Alfa should have dominated the photo more. More of the Alfa should have been in the photo (since it is the one you are focus on)and maybe just the final third of the frame should have been filled-up by the Ferrari.
Another way in which this photo (and this style of foreground car in focus, background car out of focus) could have been taken was using Vertical orientation. Here's an example I got from my Flickr photos to show what I'm kind of thinking/visualising:
The fourth photo:
Nice shot of the rear-end of the white Merc. I like how you've tried to reduce the DoF to give more focus to the fine details of the car eventhough the items in the background are fairly distracting and detract from the photo (again, I know this was unfortunately out of your control..gotta hate car shows for that!!). I must say, good work in controlling the lighting because it definitely is not easy to prevent blown-out highlight areas when you shoot a white car in the sun. The desaturation of the grass, the background and the sky also helps in adding focus to the car.
The fifth photo:
Now this is a very interesting angle you shot from. The surrounding objects really distract from the stylish interior of this car, so that's a pity that those people were in the way. What you could have done in this situation was to actually decrease the shutter speed so as to make that small hatch and the cyclists have a bit of motion blur...which would not only further un-focus these 2 objects, but also it'd give a sense of timeless-ness as the old stylish car sits still as more modern forms of transport go by.
In terms of post-processing, the one thing which instantly came to my mind was using selective colouring exclusively on the interior of the car. So the interior would remain that beautiful blood red colour, while everything else (including the red and white sticker on the door of the car) would be desaturated to black and white. Then I'd slightly darken (Burn tool) the black parts of the photo to provide extra contrast between the red of the leather and the black of the car...because this photo is all about this vintage car!
The sixth AND seventh photo:
These two photos are opposites when it comes to getting the composition right. With the sixth photo, you seem a bit confused about which angle is the best, so you decide to get down low to try and show off the flowing, sleek lines of this beautiful car. After looking at this photo I realised that getting down low and trying to take a wide-shot with a cluttered background is never going to work. When there is clutter, the only time I would go down low is to zoom in tight on a specific detail of the car (such as the wheels, maybe a badging on the side of the car, or a fascinating crease/character line). From the angle at which you took the photo, it probably would have been better to simply zoom in a bit tighter and capture the rear-end of the car only to emphasize the chrome trimings at the rear as well as capturing the smooth lines flowing over the rear wheel. Don't get me wrong, I'm not implying I'm some photo expert, I know I would take the exact same photo and then later on realise this same problem. In this case, what I would do to try and mask the poor composition is to firstly make the photo completely black and white so that there isn't any 'competition' between various colours and tones (I know you desaturated the photo, but if it were my photo, I'd completely remove all colour). I would then crop the photo down to eliminate some of the unnecessary sky, as well as cropping the left-side of the photo to again squeeze in tighter on the car itself. Not much you can do about the ugly car and caravan/motor-home in the shot..so that's about all. I might try to select the outline of the car and create a new layer, and then try to blur the background a bit more...but that's about all I can think of.
The seventh photo however is very nicely composed! I like the higher-angle at which you've taken this shot, because not only does it give a sense of size to the car when compared to the other cars, it's also very good that you followed one of the 'rules' of car photography where you give the car 'moving space' (ie: leaving an area of the photo for the car to move forward into if it were in motion). Similar to the first photo, by including the dirt road in the photo it adds a sense of perspective. By having the photo shot at that high angle (compared to lower side-on shot), it gives the photo a bit of added dynamic and depth. Finally the post-processing of colour and lighting contrast is well done, although there is a little bit of blown-out highlight just under where the people are standing.
The eight photo:
I see what you were trying to do with this shot. You were trying to give full focus to the 230SL badging, but you were purposely placing it off-centre to create a more interesting composition. Being honest though, I don't think the vertical orientation of the shot helps because the badging is placed far too low in the photo, and because of this nothing instantly draws your eyes to the badging (which is what you want the viewer's eyes to do since you have got in tight and focused specifically on the badging). The lack of contrast in the photo also doesn't help draw the viewer's eyes to what you want them to focus on: the badging.
Here's an example of how getting in tight, using a horizontal orientation, and also including extra contrast can really draw the viewer's eyes to the details you want them to focus on:
View attachment 6b15e9b39cf82f055937d92441a9a739.jpg
In this photo your eyes are instantly drawn to the Camaro's light details eventhough there are other things in the photo would are interesting (eg: the Chevy badge and the Chevy license plate). Eventhough the car is read, the rear-lights still stand out (and would have stood out more so had the car been a different colour, or if I wanted to change the hue of the car's body in Photoshop). This photo wasn't shot with a dedicated macro lens, just with my 'go-everywhere' 18-200mm F4.5-5.6 Tamron Telephoto lens (I mentioned that just in case you were wondering if I had achieved such a shot using an expensive macro lens).
The final photo:
Composition could have been better by getting low, and similar to what I said about the Alfa+Ferrar shot (the 3rd photo), it would have been better if you got down a bit lower and got in a bit tighter on the face of that old black Ferrari. I can see you were trying to give the car 'moving space', but when the photo is composed to focus on the details of the face of the car, it pays to get in tight (you'll hear people say this over and over again... when you think you've got close enough, take another 2 steps closer to get in even tighter). There are some great details on that Ferrari, and all that chrome trimming is just dying to be shown off. I would have moved the camera a bit to the right to include the left-front wheel, and then zoom in tighter to where the face of the Ferrari fills most of the frame.
Example of getting in tighter to focus on the details of the face of the car:
Getting a little lower, and filling more of the frame with the car than the background. Notice there is no 'moving space' in this shot, it's all about the car and how it looks when its static. I find that getting the front corner of the car (ie: where the corner of the headlight is) placed at the centre of the frame gives a good balance of perspective between the front of the car and the side lines.
View attachment ce005ccba2d2cf009d5f6051382d93b4.jpg
Overall Dominic these are some very good photos, and the post-processing is a style I very much like and want to explore more myself. It's understandable that some of these photos didn't turn out as well as they could have because of the constraints you had in terms of background clutter, limited space and people walking all over the place (exact same problem as going to a motorshow when its damn busy. Very inconsiderate people at times!).
Very good effort...and definitely keep the photos coming! (Soon I'll have the Photo Feedback & Tips thread, as well as the Photoshop: Before & After thread going, so I'm sure you'll get more feedback from in that thread soon).
). As wimmer stated, the colour balance/saturation/contrast in the first particularly enhances the overall feel. (All of these shot on a Canon, wimmer, who would've thought?! 
