How’d You Get That Photo?

Jul 2, 2015 | Aviation

Ever since I posted Fadin Fast, a whole bunch of emails have come in asking how I got the photo. It is something you all can do! The very first ingredient in getting the photo is establishing an amazing working and personal relationship with a special group of plane owners and pilots. That relationship with your subject, be it person, place or thing is essential cause that’s how YOU become the storyteller. Then it’s having the basics well established along with viable tools, that’s handholding and panning. Then there is an imagination that hooks up with what life is presenting. And finally, putting that together when a pilot says, “Want do you want?”

In this case, I was at a private airstrip for an evening BBQ with a special group of friends. The day’s work was done so to relax and celebrate the great freedom we are so fortunate to enjoy, the Piper J-3 and PA-11 are pulled out, preflighted and take to the air. No ceremony, it’s just what we do and it’s like no other place in the world. You have some of the world’s best pilots showing their craft, you have others teaching and others who just soloed and those who want to all coming together in a celebration of flight. And then there is me, there with my D4s / 80-400VR3 telling the unique story of the evening. Smoke from wildfires in Canada had blown down, filling the beautiful skies with its brown muck.

As the sun tried to set in the smoke, it was set a blaze creating a fireball. One pilot sitting there watching me shoot, asked what all the body English was as the PA-11 went by. I said, “I want a shot of the plane going into the sun, I’m trying to will it over.” With that, Bernie hoped into the J-3 (which I had earlier received my first flying lesson in from him) and said, “We can do that.” And that’s how I got the photo. And now you know how, you can make the same thing happen cause the possibilities for us all are endless!

Flyin “Dirty”

Jun 30, 2015 | Aviation

If there is one better reason than common sense why to constantly practice your panning, it has to be the unexpected opportunities. This past weekend is a prime example. There we were in the midst of our K&M AirAdventure when there was a need for a maintenance flight for the FG-1D Corsair. We were offered the opportunity for the whole gang to head to what’s called “Moose Stump Hill” to photograph the Corsair at evelevel and lower. Well, with such an opportunity, off we went!

Showing the speed of the Corsair is REAL easy when you use a slow shutter speed. Blurring the prop to show motion is real easy with a slow shutter speed. Getting a real sharp image at a slow shutter speed when you panning while composing the moving subject is really, really hard. Hard if you don’t practice your panning all the time. Because when you have an opportunity like this is not the time to practice. Unless you want to hate yourself in the morning. So shooting with the D4s/ 80-400VR3 which I shoot with quite often, this was a stroll in the park, and a ton of fun!

Oh, and flying dirty, that’s an aviation term. It refers to lowering flaps to cut your airspeed, and if you need to drop more speed, dropping the landing gear. The top photo, that’s what a Corsair looks like just prior to slamming on a carrier deck. So everything is down, from flaps to landing hook and canopy is open in case of a bad landing, the pilot can get out faster. This is text book carrier landing at its finest flown by my dear friend, Warren Pietsch. This photo now is the wallpaper on his computer, one damn fine reason to never let the panning get rusty!

Fadin Fast!

Jun 29, 2015 | Aviation

Bad Light Color Too

Jun 23, 2015 | Aviation

On the opposite end of the spectrum of Bad Light is the solid overcast. Color needs light to pop in our images. While our mind’s eye (combination of our vision and brain) make it possible for us to see color in any light, the camera, not so much. The color is there, in fact in overcast light the color can be really saturated and more vibrant than normal if you know your craft and recognize the light source for what it is and shoot accordingly. I put up these examples to illustrate my points.

The first thing to take advantage of the saturated color in this bad light is your White Balance. You might think since there are clouds, switch to Cloudy which is an option (that’s 6000k). I went to the Sunny or more importantly, 5500k for my White Balance. Why? Using Auto White Balance (AWB) will get you in a situation like this, about 4200-4600k which to the untrained eye, an ok looking photo, color wise. But we don’t want just ok, we want the color saturation the light is providing. Simply going up to 5500k will bring out that color. I like simple. Next, exposure. You might want to not underexpose but be at Zero comp or with the D4s, at +1/3. It all depends on the deepness of the overcast and as you can see here, we had true English deep overcast (all these photo taken during our England Aviation Class at Duxford in April).

One final thing I like to do, and this is a little harder to previsualize and that’s the placement of the color. Color Contrast is something I use in my photography ALL the time. In this case, I looked at the “shades” of gray in the background and shot when the aircraft were not in front of a solid shade of gray. Shooting with the D4s / 80-400VR3 and shooting with both eyes open, seeing what is coming for a background something I do in my shooting to maximize my results. The key here is to understand the nature of the light and make it work for your photography. You’d be surprised how there is in bad light color too!

Knowing Wx is Essential!

Jun 22, 2015 | Aviation

One of the most influential elements to our photography is weather. If you watch the TV for weather information, you often look out your window and wonder what they are looking at. Weather is constantly changing and with it our photograph. From the clouds overhead, the light and many other factors, it can make or break your photography. I offer up these three images taken in England in April to illustrate my point. This Dragon Rapide offering rides at Duxford is a cool looking aircraft. Any plane called a Dragon has gotta be cool, right? With bald skies, it would still be a cool aircraft but the photograph, perhaps not so much. These photographs were taken over a 15 minute period of time. Looking at the first image, would you guess the third image is just 15min away?

With the influence of clouds on our photography, learning to understand which way they are traveling helps. On an aerodrome such as this, you can look at the windsock for a hint on the ground winds. You can of course just look up at the clouds and watch which why they are blowing. The point is to look at what you’ve got and to look to see what you will have and plot how this will effect your photograph. You’d be surprised how quickly if you start looking up and staring for a few minutes how it will help your photography.

I was shooting with the D4s & D750 with the 14-24AFS during this time. I closed the lens down all the way to get the slowest shutter speed to blur the props. I would switch bodies because I needed the swing out monitor at times so when I leaned over the fence, I could shoot at ground level and see the plane. Then I looked up and saw the clouds that were coming and planned my shot, looking at where the plane was, the clouds would be and the shot I desired. While I like the light on the Dragon in the first photo, I love the clouds in the last so of these three, the third photo is my favorite. Is it the best? NO, just the best of these 15min. By looking at the weather, I knew to stick to my guns for this shot and that’s the point. Learn to read the weather, it will improve your photographs.