The Innards of a Pump: VW 1300

Last spring, as mentioned in previous posts, I took a photography class While taking, it there was an assignment on light painting. I took this opportunity to show my classmates and teacher the innards of an engine, a Volkswagen engine, in a creative way, such as the assignment required.

This, fine folks is looking up, or out, as it would be in a Boxer engine, like the volks has, through the cylinders and at the head of the engine, those two round things are the bottom of exhaust and intake valves which do all the breathing for the engine.

 That little whole above each set of valves is the spark plug whole which houses the neat little device that ignites all the gas fumes that come thru the intake valve. (Keep in mind I was messing with the white balance on some of these long exposures and had a jovial time of trying to correct it without taking all color out of the photo).

 This here is a shot of the top of the head. I really liked how the valve springs caught the light from my iPhone flash and the yellow light of a vintage flashlight as seen in the upper portion of this photo.

 Here's a fun picture of the one camshaft that goes in the VW Pumps. The other disco looking things on either side of the camshaft are the lifters which ride the lobes of the camshaft (the egg shaped things) and basically open and close the valves.

Whilst doing my first engine rebuild on this engine I learned a ton.. and I personally think some of this stuff inside an engine looks pretty stinking neat, and almost none get to see it. So presenting it in a medium such as this would be a kind of way to kill two birds with one stone.

This last photo of the shoot is by far my favorite. The night was cold and I was shooting outside. So after clicking the shutter open on the camera, I realized that it was cold enough to see my breath. So I strategically breathed in front of the flashlight. This made it so the light from the flashlight would bleed into the frame of the photo which I thought was pretty wild and actually got me a compliment from my photography teacher about, which made it even sweeter.

Joshua Sewell

Instagram: josh_sewell_photo