Apr 29, 2014 | Aviation
I actually took a whole bunch of clicks of the Planes on a Stick at the Grand Junction airport months back. The simple reason is because of the skies and the light. If they weren’t as you see them, I simply would have passed up the aircraft. What’s so special about the skies and the light? When it comes to aircraft, on a stick or otherwise, clouds make all the difference in the world. When we look up at a flying aircraft, we all see them up against clouds (if there are clouds in the sky). With the clouds, there is the start of magic of the stationary aircraft taking flight in our imaginations. The other great benefit of clouds is the diffused light. The combo had me out and shooting.
When it comes to making the actual clicks, I have my own thoughts process there as well. Keeping it fun and light, I shot with the Df / 18-35AFS. With that, I then got myself in a position where in my imagination, I would like to be in an air to air but might be a bit dangerous which means being close and wide. And with the Blue Angel, be on the deck of that flattop where there is no way in hell a sane person would be during a catch! I wanted that attitude to come out in the photo. At the same time, I’m looking at the background to maximize the clouds while minimizing the stick. And that’s the thought process behind the camera clicks.
Now about the computer clicks. As you can see from above, there was a bit to remove. First was the main work roughed out in ACR. Then in PS, Content Aware Fill did most of the heavy lifting. I start by selecting the aircraft with the Magic Wand and do a Sharpening for Content High Pass on it. With that mask made, Cmd-Click on that mask selects it. Cmd-Shft-I to inverse the selection and with the Clone tool, make a small path to remove the stick from the plane right next to the plane. Then with Lasso, select the stick and Content Aware Fill makes it all disappear. Both of these photos I knocked out in less than 30min. And with that, it’s back to work I’ve gotta go.
Apr 18, 2014 | Aviation
The day before started at 04:45 and ended at 00:30 the next day and nearly 10k images on the hard drive. It had been a very good day. I’m very fortunate that my relationship with my boys continues to grow even though they long ago left the house. On this occasion, Jake and I are at the Dixie Wing CAF working on three editorial pieces (and Brent will receive all the video to work his magic with). Again at it at 04:45, we head back to the Wing for an early morning flight. There was a fire the day before and the dew point was pretty low, so I was hoping for a moody start to the day. It did not disappoint. at 07:20 the engines are turning and we’re at the end of the runway warming up engines.
I’m sitting in the back of a SNJ which is the photo platform. Jake is in the back for a Japanese Kate piloted by the very talented “Legal Al.” Above, I’m rattling around in the back of the SNJ during warm up while the Kate (a repl created from a T6 long ago for the movies) is next to us warming up. I laid on the shutter of the D4s hoping to get just one sharp image. You see, the dew point creates the “smoke” off the tip of the props as it spins. But both aircraft are rattling around as the engines are warmed up. Of the 48 images I took of this one moment, I only had two that are sharp (I love the D4s buffer!!!). Once the runup is done, Legal Al turns the Kate broadside to us. This is when I count my blessings because I see my son there, sharing the same passions as dad and that we’re able to share them together. What a great way to start a Sunday!
This was my first air to air with the D4s and I had connected to it my faithful 80-400VR3. I shot using Auto Area AF and the metering set to Face-Priority Matrix. This combo along with the big ass card in the camera (Lexar 128GB) took care of me the entire flight. Here’s the deal, when you have such aircraft and pilots with the possibility of some magical light, you need to be able to focus completely on the moment and not the gear. So as we take off, the sun starts to crest the horizon. We were first to take to the skies, the Kate behind us. Watching for every possible great moment, I see this as the Kate rises in the sky. it’s why I get up early. The best part is that I was able to share the moment not only with my son, but the photos and story with you!
Apr 15, 2014 | Aviation
Well, we’re finally back home from Photoshop World, it was a heck of a ride. The 10hrs of travel that turned into 34hrs with mechanical and weather issues (United did a great job with this mess!) isn’t really the story. It’s what Sharon, Jake and I did during the three days in between the end of Photoshop World and travel that was Sooooo amazing! It all started last summer when we first meet the folks from the Dixie Wing CAF and I photographed their SBD Dauntless air to air in WI. It was then we started to plan the Photoshop World Precon and the bill that needed to be paid to make it all happen. Gotta pay to play so to have access to the Wing’s aircraft for Precon, Jake & I shot for three days to create three different magazine articles. Let me tell you how we suffered with this deal :-)
We started shooting Friday just as soon as we left the convention center and arrived at the Wing. The volunteers at the Wing are simply, the best! They had all the aircraft already pulled out of the hangar on on the grass field ready for us. The airport the Wing is located at is gorgeous making static shooting simply amazing. After shooting until long after the sun set, the guys left aircraft in place so we could do an O’Dark thirty shoot. What you see above is the Zero just after sunrise. The guys at the Wing were great, they followed us around in the Tug with three different ladders and would set them up and move them sometimes before we even said anything. I shot all the statics (4357 images in total over the 3 days) with the Df / 18-35AFS or 24-70AFS which does such an amazing job and being small, gets into places the larger D4s can’t but with big image quality. I was saving the D4s for the big event anyways.
We flew two air to air missions, one Saturday evening and the other on Sunday morning. I had the SBD Dauntless, F4U-1D Corsair, Zero & Kate as subjects. What you see above is the Corsair flying top cover for the Dauntless on a bombing run in the So Pacific. This is just one of the 9896 images I kept from the two missions. This was my first photo mission with the D4s which simply was a great, great tool for this! The metering in this case really was great and the AF speed, amazing! Continuing with my new approach to air to air I started last fall (which you’re not seeing here), we flew both missions successfully producing some really special images. Soooo I’m back home getting through all the images so I can get them finished, articles written and all made happy. Other than that, not been doing much for the last few days. Phew!
Apr 11, 2014 | Aviation
We had a marvelous time at our Photoshop World Photo Safari adventure to Dixie Wing CAF. All you great folks really had me hoppin so I didn’t get to really shoot that much. As you know, I went light, just carrying around the Nikon Df / Nikon 18-35AFS but I did take this one image of the Zero which gives me the opportunity to share a little on how I finished it. I’ve posted the steps on my Behance page which starts with the Raw image. You can then click through the 5 steps I used to get to the image above. Thanks again for joining us, cya in Vegas!
Mar 28, 2014 | Aviation
“Planes on a Stick” is what I call those aircraft placed on poles. There are actual books telling us the locations of all these planes state by state, so I’m not the only one whose been sucked into them. Now I don’t go after every single one I see, there has to be a couple of criteria. One is when I’m kidnapped by my best friend Kevin and on this occasion, it was a good time to do planes on a stick. What made it a good time? The direction of the light on the aircraft and the clouds in the sky. Shooting with the Df / 18-35AFS at the Grand Junction airport, I simply walked up to make the shot. Now the gesture of the aircraft comes in part from how the aircraft is mounted on the poles. The rest came from the tilt of the camera when I shot. Other than removing the poles in Photoshop, the images was processed just in ACR. And the reason for taking the photo? Just fun.
