While at the Wings Over Houston, I managed to get in a portrait continuing my pilot portrait series. This time the target is our dear friend Alan, a pilot with the Texas Flying Legends. While it sounds rather straight forward, working the light AND arranging aircraft to make the portrait is simply, challenging! Now one aircraft, you could in theory move it quickly with the changing light but two planes, you’re locked in, nothing is moving quickly. This is especially true since they are special, unique and expensive. So long before the sun is right (my “fill” light), I figure out where its going to be when I want to go click and position the aircraft. In this case, I used a hangar to create a shadow in the foreground which couldn’t be seen until it was time to go click (the final photo not shown here).
So with the planes in place, getting the camera and me up high was the next step. There was a big wind blowing and having done these before in a big wind, working from a ladder wasn’t something I wanted to do. As you can see, I used a tug as a platform which worked perfectly for me. I shot with the (D750 / 24-70f2.8 on a Gitzo 5562GLS) to get it high. Then it was time to get the pilot, our good friend Alan up on the plane. Now until you read the book, you won’t know the whole story but it’s hinted to really strongly here in the photo. Then I used the Profoto B1 / Magnum / 10 degree grid (with a human sandbag attached) to light Alan. After all that, it was really easy. Waited for the sun to go down, shooting TTL (with the Profoto TTL) and just go click! It was a ton of fun which I think I’m doing this project more than anything else. And after the fact, I heard some “fans” like Ian were behind the fence recording it all. We were, caught in the act!
photo by Ian Wright … thx!