The Panning Game

Mar 5, 2014 | Aviation

Panning is such an essential technique in photography. It is so important, it must be practiced over and over again! When you feel you have a solid panning technique, you need to then push it forward. How do you do that? You find faster subjects and get physically closer to them. I was fortunate this past weekend to have Larry in his “The Ghost” scream by me while I was on the strip to do just this, practice with a close, fast subject. When he’s screaming down at me like in the above photo, there really is no panning happening at all. It’s a snap for today’s camera technology and technique.

Shooting with the D4 and 80-400VR3 as The Ghost came alongside, its speed vastly pushed the speed of my panning action, causing me to swing much faster and really challenging my panning skills. How challenging? You don’t see the broadside images of The Ghost here because I missed the shot, I only captured part of The Ghost as it came directly broadside. It’s simple geometry really. As the subject gets closer and you’re shooting with a longer lens, the speed of the subject passing you by greatly increases the closer it comes. It’s that speed that we need to practice for because some of the great shots with the best blurred background is when the subject is broadside, like this photo of The African.

So why did I capture that shot the day before and missed it the next day? Because I was MUCH closer the second day so when The Ghost went passed, it was hauling ass. The day before when The African went by, it was MUCH further away and going slower. This is all part of the panning game and if you want to win, you’ve gotta practice. Why? There are few times when you can set up the pan, controlling a subject to go by as a set distance and speed like I had with these aircraft (Thanks Larry for the help!). Most of the time, you’re photographing a free wheeling subject, a subject that can do whatever it wants to do. In those cases, you want to nail the photo the first time because you usually don’t have a second chance. Like any game, the more you practice that better you are at playing.

Gone West – Ray

Feb 19, 2014 | Aviation

Access is All About Relationships

Feb 11, 2014 | Aviation

When you start in photography or been doing it for a while, you often look at some photos and just wowed by the subject matter. Often you simply ask the question that hit my inbox today. “How do you gain such access?” That email came in response to a photo I had posted over on G+. It’s hard to imagine being so close to something so cool. Many moons ago when I started out in photography and I saw some amazing images of critters, I wrongly assumed as many do that you have to have a big name to gain access. I quickly learned that one could gain access to the critters or anything really desired by simply having the passion. As they say, it is infectious and it sure does open doors faster and wider than f/stops and shutter speeds. Our shoot with these two legendary aircraft is just such a story.

I meet the Odegaards just a 18 months prior to this shoot with the two Supers. In a very short time though, we struck up a dear friendship that led to (and continues too) many grand aviation adventures. One of them dealt directly with #74 F2G-2 Super Corsair that the Odegaards were restoring to airworthy. They had already successfully restored and raced at Reno Cleland’s Cleveland racer #57, F2G-1D Super Corsair. The work on #57 had long been completed before I got interested in Supers but the restoration of #74 was in progress. And as it worked out, the first time that giant corn cob turned over for the first time in Kindred, ND I was there documenting the story of the family and the aircraft. A cherished memory I was honored to be apart of. I was then there at Reno that fall as the Odegaards raced #74 the first (and only) time and then again a month later when we did the first air to air shoot of #74’s career. All of this was from passion, no pay. So then because of who Bob was, he arranged for a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to photograph air to air the only flying Super Corsairs in Dec, ’11.

The day after Christmas, Jake and I made the drive from Mammoth down to Falcon Field, AZ. Unknown to us, Bob & Casey had arranged an sunset shoot for us with both Corsairs. Bob knew how I love to work statics so made the opportunity available just to us. And in case that wasn’t enough, he had the scissor lift there so we could work all angles that evening. Here the next generation of aviators and photographers are working together, Casey and Jake up on the scissor lift as the sun is well below the horizon. Bob and I were on the tarmac enjoying it all which was the normal MO. A special evening with two gorgeous aircraft. And then we got to talking about the next day’s flight in which Bob said, “It’s something you’ll probably never see again.”

Pilots are typically not early birds, especially if flight is not involved. None the less Bob & Casey were at the hangar long before sunrise pulling out the two Super Corsairs and getting them into position for us. These two aircraft’s history together is nearly legendary, having both once being part of the Cleland Race team in the late ’40s at the Cleveland Air Races. While the Super Corsairs never saw any wartime battle, they say plenty of air racing battles. It was that history that was the main story I wanted to tell in the photographs along with a family’s passion to preserve our aviation heritage. It was a magical morning on the ramp followed up by a great breakfast in prep for the big flight at sunset.

My client this entire time was Bob who wanted just the fun and passion of aviation captured and the story shared. Bob told me from the beginning that these aircraft belong to everyone which I always carry with me. Well, the day unfolded as most plane stuff does. After a quick spark plug swap, Larry Perkins permitting a switch in pilots so Bob & Casey could fly the two Supers for us and the great light of the AZ desert and as they say, the rest was truly history. And sadly Bob’s statement came to be true. This would be the one and only air to air shoot for these two aircraft together. The following year, we lost Bob & #74 except in our hearts. And the access to take these photos and share this story with you came from just that, the heart. Now don’t get me wrong, once that door is open, you have to walk in and with all the skill and passion you can muster, you need to come up with the photographs to tell the story. But if that door doesn’t open, the rest is really very irrelevant. This means that these opportunities are available to all of you! Open up the heart and open up the doors and than share that with all the rest of us.

Your 1 Click will bring them $25k!

Feb 6, 2014 | Aviation

My friends at Sandbar Mitchell Project just told me they need help winning a $25k Grant. All it would take is one click from you. Please help them and all the kids they help in return! Click Here and thanks!!!!

Is There a “Best” Light for Airshows?

Feb 6, 2014 | Aviation

Airshows fly their demonstrations at the best time for the masses, not particularly for photography. Since they are there in part to make money to keep flying, that only makes sense. But we want to take photos so we need to work with what is provided us. And when it comes to the light, that typically means, highnoon blaring sun light. Highnoon light has a really bad rep and for good reason, it’s a very hard light source. Just so we’re all on the page, the basic definition of hard light is there is a dark shadow, a bright highlight and almost no light shades in between. It is also known as contrasty light, HDR light or as I commonly call it, nasty light. No matter what you call it, we need to work with it if we want to come back with the photos we love.

Since we are “stuck” with the highnoon scenario, how do we get the best light from it? You might notice there is one element in common with all these highnoon photos. Clouds … clouds can make all the difference in the world and for so many reasons. The biggie being, diffusing the highnoon light. When you have that hard sun light streaming through clouds, the clouds became a giant diffuser wrapping the light around the aircraft. It lowers the range of light by softening the highlights and pumping light into the shadows. Clouds also bring a life to our stills of moving aircraft especially jets which have no props to add to the illusion of flight. But we often don’t have clouds, what then?

When dealing with clear skies at highnoon the best light comes from direction of the light striking the subject. We can’t change the quantity or quality of the light but we can work its direction. Most airshows will have the aircraft fly a pretty predictable course. You want to look at that course and look for when the aircraft have light that is coming over their back and partially on the side. You can do this by simply flying your hand on the same course and look at the light striking it. This is not front lighting, side lighting or back lighting but a combo of side and back lighting. This light pattern as you can see brings shape and texture to the aircraft and by doing that, brings life to them. It also brings out unique characteristics that make that plane unique.

Now, you might have to physically move to make use of this pattern of light. You might have to move even more to work this lighting pattern and the best background that is available to you. Using the basic airshow gear (my preference being D4 / 200-400), you need to take these two elements, light direction and background, into consideration with your gear for the best position. You will see many get to the rope line real early to stake out their position to never leave it all day. If you were to watch Jake and I shoot a show, we are constantly moving to work the light direction and background for each aircraft. I’m planting these thoughts with you now because like so many things photography, you want to practice them prior to actual application. Think about this in combination with these ideas for shooting action and you’ll be ready to make the most of what the airshow has to offer you!