Maj Gen George Harrison (ret) is a really, really cool guy! We meet him a year ago and we instantly took to this very genuine American. When I saw we’d be in the neighborhood again this past week, I contacted George to ask if he’d be available to have his portrait made. We’ve been working for nearly a year on our Pilot Portrait project and George is a great and natural addition. In 1975, he flew the last fighter mission over Vietnam in his F4 at the last of the evacuation. Here, he’s standing in front of his gorgeous 1946 Swift that his has owned for nearly fifty years. He had such great stories and passion for aviation, it’s a real honor to know him and ability to include him in the project.
Being a Georgia resident, where he flies and what it does is why the location was selected. The time of day was based on those elements but what you can’t control with advance planning is the weather. I was concerned with the rain George wouldn’t bring out his polished Swift since it takes two days to polish it all out. Luckily for us, it had just stopped before he taxied over. We left the conference at 0430 and drove so we were in place and set up prior to sun up at 0654. I planned the shot on the slight chance the sun would shine but no such luck. That meant I had to light the Swift as well as the General. You can see from the diagram, one Profoto B1 with a 1×4 Strip was left of the camera. The other Profoto B1 was camera right with the Magnum and 10% grid. A 1/4 cut was in that light to warm up its light. Shooting with the D750 / 85f1.8 / Air Remote, it actually was an easy shot. We’ve done so many now, we had set up, shot done and torn down in 40min (we is me and my great assistant, Sharon). To see the shot for the project (shot with 24f1.4AFS), you’ll just have to wait but wanted to share this moment of fun with you now.