I sat down by the fire last night with the latest magazines from Mr. Postman and the first one I opened, I said, “I recognize that photo.” Sure enough, the great front and rear cover and inside spread of the latest Dispatch is by Jake. To see the piece, you need to be a member of CAF, a very worthwhile organization. Great job bud!
Sharon & I took what, at least as of this moment, is our last commercial flight for 2012 up to WA to spend Thanksgiving with the family at Brent’s. This, after 21,433 air miles just in the last 3 months just in the US (doesn’t include all the driving). Now I’m told I’m on vacation since I don’t have a teaching, speaking, shooting gig but the computer is humming and the cameras have been clicking. I brought all my gear up in the Think Tank Airstream, which rocks because it holds the D4, 200-400, 70-200VR2, 24-70, 24f1.4, 18f2.8 & SB-900 with accessories and still fits under the seat of the small Dash 80s we flew in. Ya, they wanted to take it from me to put in ALa Cart but with a smile and reassurance that it fits under the seat, I was good to go. (D600 was in the Disguise 60)
Oh, no, we didn’t fly up in this DC-3 nor do I include the air to air shoots coming up as part of my “flying” since air to air is fun, travel commercial isn’t always fun. This photo is from one of the many air to air shoots I did a week ago. While I’m on “vacation,” I’m getting all the images processed from those shoots. The DC-3 was a quick 23min flight but I have 100 cool images to send off to the client. I would have loved to have puffies in the background but the desert dust at the bottom of the frame works OK, better than bald blue sky. My good friends Dale & Brian are at the stick and shooting this old bird was a hoot! This was a quick “ID” shoot, have plans for some others with this great old plane. This photo was a simple click, D4 / 70-200VR2.
Jeff has this great, authentic radio operator uniform that we normally have him don once the light starts to get hard. We then typically get out the light modifiers, flash and other “stuff” to deal with the light. I simply wasn’t in the mood this morning so I started to look around at my options for shooting without working hard (what a horrible attitude!). Jeff was over by the door to “Sentimental Journey” when I asked the AZ CAF folks if the hatch could be opened so Jeff could hop in.
Shooting with the D4 / 70-200VR2, when I put the camera to my eye, I wanted to tell the story of a young officer getting on board and ready for a flight. With the DC-3 / C-47 in the background, to me is seems like a believable recreation of a 1940’s airfield occurrence. So I worked Jeff in the hatch doorway along with the DC-3 in the background to make the shot. I asked Jeff if he was OK holding himself in this awkward position because I just had a what if moment. I says to myself, “I wonder if while I’m here I should shoot tight?” I wanted to tell the visual story of a time gone by, but then the light though hard was not so bad for just the portrait. So then I started to physically move in closer.
As it turns out, I kinda like them all. But it leaves me with a problem for the further. Do I set up for the story or for tight? If I had brought in flash, set up for the story would have been different from tight. And could always for with no flash like this time but I know that more times then not, I need flash. It could be argued, and I wouldn’t disagree, that flash inside the belly of Sentimental Journey would have helped this photo series. This is not my strong suit when it comes to photography, so I keep shooting, thinking, shooting and working towards finding a solution for my style that, well, is simply the easiest for when I’m shooting on the move.
I have one fatal flaw, I’m real lazy when it comes to flash. I mean, if it’s a critter I’m all over flash if I need it but otherwise, I just can’t get with the program. While I had it all in the truck, I prefer to find the light that works and use it instead of doing what I really should do and that’s get the lighting gear out. So a week ago when worings with my buds from the AZ Grnd Crew, when I saw the light in front of Maid in the Shade, with D4 / 70-200VR2 (@f/2.8), I grabbed Murph and did the whole nine yards. For those who do not know where the saying “The Whole Nine Yards” comes from, it’s WWII term. When the fighter pilots wanted to know if their ammo was loaded, they would ask, “Do I have the whole nine yards” because that’s how long the entire belt of 50cal happened to be. They could have asked, “Do I have the whole 80lbs” because that’s how much the belt weighs, but that doesn’t sound as good. As for Murph, he was two inches shorter after this shoot, but it turned out good, even if no flash was used.
Dale is simply a great friend. Dale is a great friend with great toys! And Dale loves to fly so I know that when I’m with him, I’m going to have fun and this morning was no exception. What you see here is an example of what I’m talking about. The Churchills (Dale & Brian) installed a new feature in one of their T-6s and wanted me to give it a test run. I was more than happy to going flying to test a new photographic platform so off we went!
What was new was our ability to shoot basically straight down, literally, shooting with the D4 / 70-200VR2. Now it’s really hard on the pilot of the subject aircraft since they are really cranking their neck skyward to watch the photo platform. The photo platform pilot has to fly the brief because they cannot see the subject aircraft. Then I have to watch the best I can the subject aircraft and report its position to the photo platform pilot while taking photos. And as photographer, the biggest challenge is not being able to see anything since I’m basically looking through a tunnel. I have no idea of what backgrounds are coming up until they are gone. And flying doubled over in a fuselage is anything but comfortable. And with all of that said, the shoot went off without a hitch as you can see. Dale wanted two photo, the “glory” shot of him flying and the “far away” speedster shot. Now they aren’t perfect, the light is hard, background for the glory shot sucks but we learned a lot, got some shots and landed safely. It’s just a crying shame that we’ll have to go back up and work on making it perfect!
What do I want to perfect? The symmetry in this photo is off…while you can see our photo platform in the cone, the subject aircraft isn’t perfectly centered. But you sure can see Dale’s smile and if you look hard in that reflection on the cone, mine!