I had a marvelous time last night with the Huntington Camera Club (thanks folks!). Real nice folks and we talked about a favorite topic of mine, aviation photography. The Jones Beach Airshow is coming their way shortly and during the Q&A, a marvelous question was asked. It would seem the entire airshow is backlit, the sun is behind the aircraft. “How do you make photos in this scenario? “While this can from time to time create some great photos, hours and hours of backlit subjects would get old, fast. What I do in this scenario is leave show center and head to the end of the performance box (the end with the best background) and photograph the aircraft as they make their return turn to show center. During that turn they will have sun on them and that when, like you see in the Corsair above, you can get out of the shadows. This is the easiest solution I know for the backlit airshow.

It was a great evening at the ranch in ID! The skies were pretty solid overcast which scuttled any A2A opportunity which lead to the bourbon getting brought out early. Then the sun made a brief appearance and disappeared just as quickly. It was like it was giving us a warning shot of grand things to come so I grabbed my camera and headed out to the grass ramp to see who was parked I could make a shot with. I saw that the horizon had a slit of clearing so knew the sun would appear, be super bright and the range of light leaving only one real shot, silhouette. That’s when I headed to the Staggerwing. Now the F17D is not a common version and this one had an amazing painting scheme. But you weren’t going to see any of that detail with the light that was coming. But the shape of the fuselage and the wings, anyone in aviation would know it was a Staggering. That permits me to be more “artsy fartsy” which is fun and grabs perhaps non-aviation viewer imagination. It’s one of the advantages of to tell the story with shape, not detail.

Background is everything in a photograph. When you’re at an airshow you have a great variety of aircraft, some that rarely if ever fly with each other like the Korean War F-86F Sabre and the modern F-35. It could be a splendid shot except for one big thing, that background. These could be models hanging from the ceiling since without a dynamic background, they are just hanging there in the frame. That’s why I’m so tight on them. I normally don’t like being this tight but by being this tight, I minimize the bla blue sky and zero in more on the pilots. You learn to work with what you’ve got keeping in mind a little thing makes a big difference.

Sun&Fun is a great gathering of planes, pilots, photographers and aviation fans! This annual event brings a boat load (should say plane load but just doesn’t have the same punch) of great photographic opportunities especially if you go prepared. One of the brilliant acts is the AF Thunderbirds. Knowing their routine which does change each year permits your to be prepared for those special moments. You can prepare by going one day, winging it (there’s a plane joke for ya) and then doing better on day two with that knowledge, or… Most aviation acts have their routine on YouTube which makes it easy to watch and learn their routine so you came make the most of every day of shooting. Knowing when they are doing any of their formations like you see here, prior to them on display helps knowing to shoot vertical or horizontal, at 200mm or 400mm. It’s really a simple thing you can do that pays huge dividends on the flight line. The weekend and airshows fun in the sun and around the corner!

Spring conjures up green fields and flower carpets in our minds, what could be the perfect stage to set our aircraft star in. You might drive past an airport and see a lush green strip of green and think, “What a perfect backdrop for a static” especially when everything else is brown. Well, that perfect green strip is for launching and recovering aircraft, a location you can’t park a plane for photography. And that brown area everywhere else, well that could be your only option which isn’t really an option. Why the brown? Airports tend to not encourage green grass everywhere for reasons from bird strikes to bugs to planes confusing them for a landing strip. You can see in the photo of the Stinson the green strip behind the plane and the lovely “grass” we had to park on. Yes, there can be green grass you can use but that’s the exception and not the rule. Spring doesn’t guarantee green.