Sep 5, 2016 | Aviation
Last weekend, B&H & Lexar hosted a marvelous event at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome. It was a marvelous time with some great folks and aircraft. It was a very target rich, photographic satisfying location with marvelous subjects and backgrounds lending themselves to storytelling. I posted a couple of images and they got lots of notice and comments. The “feel” of being a daredevil going fast in old flying machines comes through the photos and many have asked how I made that happen. Well, here it is.
First is the light. The three aircraft are in sun where the backgrounds not so much. Next, the aircraft are a good distance from the background, that is important. This sets up the rest of the technique. Shooting with a long lens (80-400 at 300mm) and with a camera that can rip off the frames (D5 at 12fps), you next want to rip off the frames at a slow shutter speed (1/50). This combination means that when the subject travels in front of the background and your panning is solid, the subject is frozen by the panning action while the background blurs. Understand, and this is very important, practice is everything to make this all work. This combination communicates speed. And that simply, you’re bringing speed to the still!
Aug 30, 2016 | Aviation
Sunday at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome was simply, amazing! A Lexar sponsored B&H event, we had 75 photographers out in upper New York having the time of their lives. We had the company of a WWII B-25 pilot, Marty Biener as well as the classic “antique” aircraft of the Aerodrome. Sharon and I have been on the go since the event so unlike normal, I’ve not gotten to even look at all my photos yet. Saw some great images yesterday at the B&H Crit and more have come in since so I’ll have more to share shortly. Like, how did I make this reall old, slow 1910 Hanriot look like it’s going real fast? But wanted to say thanks to all who came out and made it such a fun day, especially the Aerodrome! mtc
Aug 11, 2016 | Aviation
The plane might look familiar, it was featured in EAA Sport earlier this year and in our Pilot Portrait class on KelbyOne. We got to know these great folks a year back after I first saw their completed Starduster Too. They were so kind to let me “invade” their lives with my camera on so many occasions. So it was great fun when at Oshkosh last week, Bob, Sherri & Gannon appeared from the crowd cause we didn’t know they would be there. Even funnier was Bob telling us that he entered their Starduster Too in the competition for aircraft construction. The best was when the last night of Osh, Bob sent me the text photo of his trophy! That was a highlight of my week at Osh. Not only is their plane gorgeous, but they are such a great family. Congrats to you all!
Aug 5, 2016 | Aviation
I posted this photo yesterday on my Instagram account and someone said they would like to know how it came about, the planning and the like. When I read that, I had to laugh. Why? Here’s the BTS of the photo so you can laugh too. It was our last night after 13 days of shooting on the road. There was little left of our crew, we were all totally wiped! So wiped, one shooter in our bunch just wanted to sit and watch the show and didn’t even shoot. Knowing there were going to be fireworks, while eating dinner I looked for an aircraft to be in the foreground. Parked there was the Howard 500 so I texted the owner and asked if the plane was sticking around. He said yes and have fun. So we ate our dinner, strolled over to the plane with our chairs, planted our butts down and when the show began, hit the shutter release. This shot was a 25sec exposure with the trail being created by a single aircraft doing its act. And that’s it. No real planning, no real thought other than being weary photographers and wanting to take a photo with as little effort as possible. And it was that simple because, simple was all we could do.
Aug 3, 2016 | Aviation
Alan (TFLM B-25 pilot) sat there and told me this long story of this WWII vet he had meet many years earlier in Sioux Falls, his name was Wendell. Wendell was a B-25 pilot during WWII flying the Hump as well as the Pacific (flying for a time a B-25H … a bird with a 70mm canon in the nose). Wendell had one helluva lot of adventures during WWII and could spend days telling them and not run out! Well, Alan had the honor at that meeting years ago of taking Wendell up in the B-25 as SIC which was a thrill for the then 90yr old. But as happens all too often in life, Alan had lost contact with him. He tried and tried to reconnect with Wendell but was never able to find him again. Alan was sadden by the thought his friend might have passed away.
Alan had told me this story just before he headed off for the brief for the Sioux City AirShow a week ago. The Texas Flying Legends Museum had their six ships at the AirShow which includes their B-25J “Betty’s Dream.” It was shortly after he left for the brief, a gentleman came up to me while I was at Betty asking if Alan was around. I told he was not and he said his dad Wendell was hoping he was there. I stood there for a second when the dots connected. I texted Alan that Wendell was at Betty and soon, the long, lost friends were talking up a storm. That jacket Wendell is wearing he wore during the war. The inside has the original cloth placards that in Chinese said he was an American and provide him safe harbor (in case he was shot down). It’s an honor to meet these vets and record their story they share! This is what photography is all about, recording in this case the reunion of friends, the sharing of their stories with each other and us, our special moments!
Jul 26, 2016 | Aviation
Claude Hone
with photo of his unit, he is on the far right
Claude Hone is so typical of so many WWII vets. He served simply because it was the right thing to do. Claude is not a hero, not an ace, just your basic aviator who did his job under some of the most difficult conditions we could never imagine and came back home to help build a country afterwards. I had the honor and pleasure of spending quite a bit of time with Claude over the past three days (as well as his delightful daughter Nancy) while in Sioux Falls, SD. Originally, it was just going to be for an afternoon for recording his story on video and taking his portrait. Well, we all simply seemed to hit it off and for the next three days, Claude wowed and amazed us with story after story.
Claude Hone
with his WWII memories
We’ll be posting many of his stories we captured on film, but wanted to share this simple yet dramatic one. In the top photo, Claude was very proud even in the hundred degree hangar to show he can still wear his fight jacket from WWII. Above you see the original aviator Ray Ban sunglasses Claude was issues seventy-one years ago. They are still in their original case and Claude can still wear them. Though he will be 96 years young shortly (doesn’t seem a day past 16), he talks about his days flying a Corsair from Henderson Field and then P-51Ds with Joe Foss in the SD Air Nat’l Guard like it was yesterday. With Claude though, it’s the brief stories that get you. See that watch he’s holding in the lower photo. That is the original aviator watch the Marines gave him 71 years ago and its still ticking. The watch band though, that’s the real piece of history. That’s made from the skin of a Zero that was shot down at Henderson Field that he has had all these years! We meet some amazing and memorable vets this past weekend at the Sioux Falls AirShow, but it’s Claude who we struck a real friendship with. An amazing gentleman and vet, a true American that we now call dear friend!
