Morane Saulnier 230 captured by D800 / 70-200f2.8
My good friend Ed and I were down in Florida shooting sunrise at Fantasy of Flight. The power plant magician Andy who worked there chatted me up after a great shoot on the ramp. He told us that later that afternoon his friend Tom would be doing the first turn over of the rebuilt engine Andy had done on his Morane Saulnier. Andy invited over to photograph the happenings which I said emphatically, “we’ll be there!” I had NO clue was a Morane Saulnier was, I just head “plane” and that it had appeared in an old movie, Blue Max.
Tom just emailed and reminded me of that afternoon. He went on to say, “You took some fabulous ground shots that day and I still cherish the pdf of photos you sent me of the day. Sadly, the Morane was destroyed by the new owners in France in 2016, if memory serves. Very sad as that was the only original surviving aircraft built in 1940 to survive the war. It was one of 300 ordered built by the German Luftwaffe in occupied France.” Getting it right in the camera is important for so many reasons, this is just one of them. It also goes without saying that just show up, you might be recording history!