Shooting up on this Sea Fury, you can’t see the kangaroo emblem on the side of the fuselage. Take a guess at what country paints a kangaroo on their fuselage? Now look at the photograph. Could the Sea Fury be flying in those skies? Of course, because clouds are universal. You have no clue it was actually flying over the skies of California’s Central Valley. When you need to tell their story accurately but the earth below isn’t it, head to the clouds. Cause that can be anywhere in the world.

The Cessna 195 is a favorite aircraft of mine. I saw this one years ago at a Fly-in and as good fortune would have it, years later, I became good friends with its owner. I went to his home in Calgary after reading Wings of Mercy to learn more about the role of this individual aircraft. My end goal was to bring this story to your attention in an article that was just published in Vintage Magazine.

The morning of the flight was picture perfect, clear air and great light. We launched at sunrise and had a marvelous hour in the air over the northern Rockies. There was just one issue, it was the wrong side of the plane! Your basic A2A flight is the photo platform/photographer in the right seat photographing the subject plane and its pilot on the left. The issue was, the SAS emblem is on the right side of the plane! The heart of the story wasn’t part of the visual story. Yikes! We believe they put it on that side so when loading patients, there was no mistake it was the air ambulance. Well, that problem needed to be corrected so we needed to go up again!

There is one certainty of an A2A, the clean sensor you started with will be filthy in the end. Dust is forced in from the open door finding its way onto the sensor. So I changed bodies, looked at flight maps to plan an afternoon flight and waited for the sun to move across the sky. We got the shots, which include the cover on that afternoon flight, and had a great time, truly a great time! And I learned one very important lesson, photograph the correct side!

I first saw it in the hangar tucked in amongst the warbirds. It immediately caught my attention and that’s when I learned about Bob and his plane. Now a dear friend, his love of aviation can be seen in his plane. It started as a “kit” but it’s not a kit you’d pick up at your local hobby store. The precision of the craft Bob put into his Starduster Too was recognized at Osh with his winning of the Golden Wrench. I’ve always thought of the Starduster Too as summer. That’s because in the winter, it’s well below zero, not great flying time. In the spring, it’s time to tend to the fields as it is in fall. So Bob flies the most in the summer. Great plane, great guy, the Starduster Too, it is summer!

Yeah, August light is simply a challenge, especially at midday. The issue is simple, the range of light is huge, creating either nasty highlights or deep, dark shadows. Shooting B&W is one way to work in this light, lots of drama. Knowing the pilot and meeting him at MSO as they flew cross-country, I made the most of the opportunity. I prearranged for Addison to park right next to the closed hangar door of the Museum of Mountain Flight with the Speedmail pointing towards the sun. He was kind enough to do just that. Then I shot from a low angle. The hangar door bounced light into the fuselage, the strong side light provided direction and shape and the low angle minimized dark shadows. Not a super romantic photograph, but it’s darn clean. It’s just one way to work with that hot August Light.

It is a gorgeous plane! It’s kinda rare too, but what makes it special to me is, I’ve flown it and more than once. A few years back, I did an article on this amazing plane and it’s always the photographs that are most important to me in telling a story. I knew when I first saw the EQC that I wanted to shoot the static at predawn (what was also used in the article). How’d I know that? Look at the color of the leading edge and cowling, they scream predawn light and color. The cabin color then jumps off the frame and well, it was just that simple. Fortunately for me, the plane’s owner has a son (and great pilot as well) who was more than happy to meet me at the hangar at o’dark thirty to pull the Waco out. Ryan was a huge help, though he didn’t quite understand the predawn requirement until he saw the photos. I will always though remember Dad saying, “It has to be predawn?”

Them clouds, I mean, just look at them clouds! I had to have them in the frame, it was the simple, so I walked to the N3N-3 to incorporate them in the frame. Jake was with me for the same reason, and not knowing how soon the N3N-3 would take the taxi way, we shot from eyelevel. We were on a slight slope, so I walked down it to lower my angle to grab some more of the sky. Then I saw Jake take a knee, and I knew, I needed to do the same. Getting down isn’t really the problem, I just don’t do it as quickly as I once did. It’s the getting back up, popping my knee is just no fun. As you can see, the clouds won as I took a knee. I lucked out that the N3N-3 stayed in place long enough for me to get down, and lucky for me, I was able to get back up. The angle of view matters, those clouds mattered, but it will always raise the question in my mind. Take a knee?