You can add a special bang to your 4th of July fireworks with a cool foreground subject. One that comes to mind is aircraft. There are a number of displays at airfields because of the open skies, search one out. Then arrive early and walk the line. Find an aircraft or group of them that have a cool outline. Then simply plunk down the chair, set up the camera on a tripod on a remote, and enjoy the show. If it’s a good show, you’ll naturally squeeze the trigger at the right time and have the visual memories to relive it over and over again!

The van of Alaska is the Beaver. Able to carry all sorts of stuff and getting into places easily, it is a workhorse. In our case, it carried a bunch of photographers and their “stuff” up and over the mountains of Kodiak with no effort. Besides all of that, it’s just a really fun aircraft. And while I was there to spend time with Kodiak Browns, there was no way I wasn’t going to take some plane pics. Since it’s an amphibian aircraft, water had to be part of its story. What’s one great way to say water? Backlight it which works great for aircraft too!

The first thing you have to remember is, some highlights will be blown out, gone so get over it. Next, for the backlight highlights to show up, you need something dark behind them. Lastly, you need to get light into the side of the aircraft, be it reflected, opening up shadows in post or the best, a little of both. With all of that in mind, use the backlighted elements as a design element to tell the story and bring the eye to the subject. Backlighting is not what most think of as a light for aircraft but I use it all the time. Perhaps because most others don’t. When done right, backlight can be a gem!

We’d been concentrating on photographing Bison calves when I first heard that distinctive thumping of the air. Off in the distance I saw the speak that kept getting bigger and bigger. Then it dawned on me, the Helo from Ellsworth was coming into the small strip at Custer State Park. Well hey, Blackhawk in the Blackhills, how could I pass that up?!

We got in the truck and headed up to the strip. I knew from past experience that if the pilot noticed me out with a big lens, they tend to favor the lens as much as they can. Well darn, that didn’t work this time. They were doing dust off training so the first place we parked, we only got ass shots after it was done and taking the pattern again. So we repositioned further down the field to get the shots you see above. I was shooting the Bison with the D6 / 180-400VR so that’s what I had in my hand. I would normally go to Shutter Priority but didn’t have the luxury of time so being in Aperture Priority, I shut the aperture down to f/22 bringing my shutter speed down to 1/40. I got some rotor blur but not as much as I would like. And while these are not some great photos, they aren’t, it was fun to get in some panning practice after photographing the non-moving Bison. And heck, I never pass up adding a new bird in the Blackhills.

I haunt aviation museums for so many reasons but the main one is doing homework so I’m a better visual storyteller. That’s why at the end of our Chickens & Grouse Adventure in NE, I took a couple of hours before flying out to visit the marvelous Sac Museum. I never go into a museum thinking I’m going to come out with amazing photos, it’s a learning and not shooting op in my mind. But I always go with a camera and in this case, the Z 6II / 14-24f2.8. I was there to check out the B-29, one I believe my father actually flew in. After soaking that all in, I checked out the marvelous rest of the museum (including the B-36!). I was looking at the C-54, looking at the angle I had and the lighting and thought I might be able to make a cool shot. The dark foreground and light on the other aircraft caught my imagination (what you want to look for when sizing up a shot in a museum). What you see is just half of the hangar, a large hangar door separated them and it was slightly open so I could step back an extra five feet. I was just looking at doing that when a person working for the museum greeted me.

He saw the camera, saw me thinking over the situation and I think he saw me shooting other aircraft prior. He asked if I’d like to shoot the C-54 from the other hangar so I would be further back. I assumed he was just going to move the rope that was behind me so I could have a few more feet. Instead, he completely opened the hangar doors so I could walk to exactly where I wanted to be. I folded out the monitor, held the Z 6II / 14-24f2.8 over my head and shot. Then the conversation began between me and the educational director for the museum. The take away from this all will help your photography. Go to the museum to do your homework and light the imagination. Take your camera and have in the back of your mind light and interesting angles. Follow those instincts and be ethical in your approach. You will be noticed and often afforded opportunities otherwise not available. And always, always have that business card you can put in that person’s hand and follow up with pics. It makes that museum shoot cool!

Smoke from pyrotechnics at an airshow can be a God send or curse. It all depends on you and in some part, the wind. Especially on bald sky days, smoke brings a visual depth and if handled correctly, drama to an otherwise stale photo. Along with being on top of your photo game with solid Panning and exposure, you gotta think like a pilot, act like the control tower and depend on your senses to make magic from the smoke. Here’s how …

Putting yourself at the right place on the flight line is EVERYTHING when it comes to making magic of smoke. How do you determine this PRIOR to the airshow even starting? You gotta look at the in field and watch the folks setting up the pyro. By watching them you can determine if there is none, a little or a lot. If the amazing CAF Tora Tora Tora group is there, you know there is going to by pyro. Look at the guide, see what acts are flying and then do a little looking and you’ll see where their pyro is set on the field. This will give you an idea about what the pilots are thinking as they need to fly through, around, above or away for the explosions. Next, think like the tower, how are they going to direct the planes through the smoke? You might need to do a little research before even arriving at the airshow to come up with the needed info. Talking to a pilot that uses pyro is also a great idea. Then you have to look at the winds, which way are they going to blow the smoke. All of this tells you where you need to stand.

For Betty, it was a real still air day so the smoke was going to rise and rise fast. That’s because of the heat of the explosion causing the smoke. Looking at the pyro team, I knew I wanted to stand near show center as that’s where the biggest bang for the audience buck can be spent. For the P-40, I knew that the Tora Tora Tora pyro team puts up a wall of fire near the end of their show. Looking at where they set the pyro, the direction of flight of the P-40 and very importantly this day, the direction of the wind, I was as far left of show center as I could get to make the shot. No two shows even with the same act are the same. Think it through and you too can make magic of smoke.

Panning in its most basic form, is moving the film plane in sync with a moving subject to capture it sharp in the photograph. This synchronization nullifies the movement of the subject as far as the camera is concerned so we have effectively, frozen a moving subject. This is a very old technique and for it to be effective, as far as rendering a sharp, frozen moving subject, it must be practiced on a continual basis. I’m talking about a minimum of once a week in order to make it a tool in your arsenal that will serve you whenever you need it. This is basic, human, muscle memory training which is what panning boils down to in its most simplest terms.

But just capturing a sharp image cannot be an in point to our photograph, its just the start. We must push our craft past just sharp so then panning becomes a means to art. These photographs of a FG-1D Corsair and F-22 Raptor are an example of what I’m talking about. Shot on a gorgeous days when the background is as much of the photograph as the plane itself. Where panning is including them to finish the story, becoming art. The fall color and great clouds all being brought to life with gorgeous light. Shooting handheld with a D4 / 200-400 and D5 / 180-400VR is a big part of the art. I put myself in position so when the aircraft made its pass, the gesture of the aircraft was set against the background I wanted, the background making the aircraft pop out with the light bringing it all to life. Yes, panning is why the Corsair & Raptor are sharp but moving past the technique and to the art, panning is what brought all those elements to life in the photo. Push your technique so it is the building block to your art and then your photography will take life. Panning is more than a technique, panning is art.