Statics are a fun challenge during airshows / Flyins! You have all the normal photographic challenges along with … people. We thankfully have many options for removing folks in post these days. And while they work great, they do take time, and when you have a day’s worth of images to process, that time adds up. My preference is to just wait a minute or two for folks to move on. They always do, the only question is, how long? If the light is killer at that moment, I click and deal with them in post. If the light isn’t great, I will wait up to ten minutes or more for the shot. In this case, with the V77, I had to wait only two minutes, and the folks left, and the sun kissed the Stinson. The image was a simple click with just a wait of two minutes (see the first scene below).

One of the big goals when we arrived in MT was getting involved with the DC-3 “Miss Montana”. Besides being in love with the DC-3 / C-47, “Miss Montana” is a remarkable piece of state and aviation history. Within the first week of arrival in MT, we found that our insurance agent for our new home was connected with “Miss Montana,” so the process began. Miss Montana was just back from the 75th D Day flights over the beaches of Normandy, a monumental undertaking for the DC-3. You see, “Miss Montana” is part of the Museum of Mountain Flying, a small museum with an operating budget a tad larger than the museum. “Miss Montana” only flies a few times each year as such and is not an airshow regular. Everyone connected with her has been very receptive and helpful all these years. More than once, we had an A2A on the calendar only to have it scrubbed minutes before because of wildfires. This past weekend, it made an appearance at the BTM Wings & Wheels event. Two weeks before, it had to scrub the Memorial Day commemorative flight because of a mechanical so there was no guarantee it would make it. But it did, and it was great to spend time on the ground with Miss Montana and its great crew. It was five years in the making and counting, a date with the lady.

It’s a quandary… backlit with a fireball or front lit and shiny? I’ll be honest with you, I don’t have the answer so the vast majority of time, I put the after burners on and move my butt around the ramp. My knees aren’t really happy after a morning like that, but my eyes are, and perhaps, that’s all that really matters. Thats because, I really love the big ball.

Day two of fly fishing had a huge shadow with the epic day of fishing of the first day. Besides having the time with the Mountain Goats, Jake’s new fishing hole for us to try was hot (though I thought he was not playing fair with the goat distraction)! On day two, he was taking me to another new place and one he’d been telling me a lot about since he first started fishing it last year. After an amazing breakfast, we hit the road to the lake. We’d arrived, got our chest waders on, when Jake said, “Jim said he likes to land here in his Faust”. Jim is a mutual friend we both know him and his aircraft well. I had just started to thread the line through the rod when we both heard the round image off in the distance. I was tying on a fly when, on the horizon, I spotted a plane on floats. I said out loud, “Again?” We continued to get set up, watching the plane come closer and closer. I said, “It’s a float plane,” and then Jake said, “Yep, it’s Jim!” It was high when it made a pass over the lake, so I assumed the lake didn’t look right for a landing. He did a 180 around the lake and flew off into the distance, and I went back to set up when Jake said, “He’s coming back, he’s coming down!” Sure enough, he was in the pattern. “You going to get your camera out?” Jake asked, and that’s when it occurred to me, distraction, again. As it turns out, it was my first aviation shoot with the Z180-600 and was a great practice run. Jim splashed, taxied around, and then launched again. I shot the whole thing, and as Jim left the lake, I noticed Jake had waded out into the lake and was already fishing. I just shock my head and said to myself, “two days in a row?”

Yeah, there was A LOT of polishing to get the shine in this P-51D Mustang. While I didn’t work on this particular fuselage, I did make the mistake and asked to be taught how to do it once. I don’t think my arm has recovered yet from that lesson. It is by no means simple nor quick, so I take particular care to say shiny whenever I can. You might think it’s just the light hitting the fuselage, and in part, it is. But it’s the background that really makes it scream shiny. The darker the background, the shinier the fuselage. Do some experiments on your own, making the background darker and darker, and watch what happens. You soon will be saying … shinny!

Following aircraft with your eye plastered to the viewfinder is a challenge and an art. Pushing this craft even further is the potential “grand” shot you hope will come. Panning is the key, setting your feet so you’re in the right body position for that “grand” shot. We twist at the waist when we pan, starting by cocking in one direction and unwinding to the other. When we unwind the pan, we often come to a stop, but the planes keep on going. What I’m suggesting is you sacrifice some of the approach images so that when you unwind, you still can photograph the aircraft as they head off. It means you start shooting when they are already kinda big in the frame so you can photograph the pass. That’s the skill. The knowledge is knowing what the performers are going to do. The luck is making the first two elements come together in the viewfinder when YOU want them to. It’s something to put in your bag of tricks, working the follow through.