The challenge and job, tell the story of this very cool AT-6 Texan in a series of photographs. Seems like a pretty clean-cut proposition, that’s until ya find out that the paint scheme is only temporary. That’s to say, the AT-6 is in the process of being brought back to historic accuracy, and this paint scheme is far from that. That might ask the question, why do the shoot now, why not wait? Often, aviation stories are told from the end, not the beginning nor the middle. The owner and I want to tell the story of the promise of a project this time, not the reward. I love the challenge, and it leaves me with a big question for the A2A coming up. It’s really a simple question, and then, not so much. Simply put, what stage to set for the star?

It’s really darn simple, too simple yet it drives me nuts. The space between the upper and lower wing and the horizontal stabilizer isn’t even! I gotta watch that in a couple of weeks, my next time. I can improve on that arse!

Light, it tells so much of the story and sets the mood in the story, I find myself constantly on its heels. Many aircraft from the Golden Era like this Curtis Speedwing don’t have landing lights for night landing. This means they need to be on the ground before dark. When you want that last golden light of the day, this clock can be a real crank putting pressure on getting the shots. When in this situation, the brief on the ground makes all the difference. Determining where you want to orbit for the shot needs to be direct and relatively close to the field. The choreography of the flight was well understood and execution was done to the best of all’s ability. We’ve done it many times, helps working with the best pilots around because they all understand that one thing about me. I seem to be always chasing the setting sun.

There are some weeks despite my best efforts my aviation photography is best summed up by this photo. Broken down and pushed to the back of the hangar forgotten. Mechanical issues, weather issues, personal issues, pilot issues, there are so many working parts in aviation photography it is common one of those parts don’t move. When that happens, the camera doesn’t come out and the flight doesn’t happen. I wish every plan had worked but last the last few weeks, I never left the house. It’s how it goes, then there are those weeks.

I’m mentally getting prepared for next month’s photo missions. Even though there is every reason to think the weather will scrub them, I do my homework now. The place I start is with previously taken photos. I look at what I like and don’t like, and most importantly, what did I miss I want now. You might be saying that’s great but you’ve not done an A2A photo mission, you have no library to take a loan from. But you do, you have everyone else’s photos to look at, take notes and learn from. You have my KelbyOne classes on this subject and others on aviation to draw on. It’s upon you to be the professional be it your first or hundredth A2A. It all starts with a search of your library of knowledge!

One of our challenges in photographing aircraft in flight is, saying they are in flight. Beyond just getting the aircraft sharp, prop blur, and the other aspects of the photograph, we need to speak about what the airplane is doing. These two photographs are from the same series, the Spitfire was launching from Duxford grass strip. In the top image, the camera is level with the earth, in the bottom photo, I turned the camera body as I panned to level the Spitfire in the frame. While Charlie was flying, I turned his flight from a climb to level flight, I changed the story to the one I wanted to tell. It is something always going through my mind photographing planes in flight. To turn, or not to turn?