Thoughts on Osh

I wanted this image bad! I can’t remember now how many events I went to with the Tora Tora Tora performing and I saw that wall of fire only to capture an empty sky in the background. Then the lightning bolt struck and the brain engaged. It’s really simple math, so simple it went flying past me, literally!

Osh is around the corner where this series of photographs were taken and now is the time to get your game plan figured out. The first elements are the lens and body you’re going to use and practice proper handholding and panning. Osh is a long airshow each day so you must have some muscle, literally to get the shots all day long. With that in your back pocket, you head to Osh. There you need to WATCH not the planes at first but the folks and where they are setting up the pyro, the wall of flame. The vast majority of the time it’s show center, but not always. Then you gotta, and this is a BIG one, figure out the wind! With those two pieces of math, you walk the flight line so the wall of flame when it goes off, the plane is in front of it. In this case, I was at the far left end almost to Warbird Alley! That’s way off show center.

Once I figured this all out, no matter what event I was at, I could nail the shot. And man, is that fun to do! For now, that’s my first thoughts on Osh.