Ever since I first saw the Monocoupe 110 Special a couple of years back, it has been on the top of my list of aircraft to photograph. This individual plane is a very historic aircraft. The badass of the 30’s built by a farmer, it just has the meanest lines. So when photographing it as a static, making the most of those lines is essential both in telling its unique story and being photographically pleasing. At the same time, planes are meant to be in the sky, not sitting on the ground. So that needs to be included in the storytelling as well. Hard for one photograph to do it all. Then there are clouds.
We started the morning “trapped” in the hangar by a huge thunderstorm. You don’t take such aircraft as this out in the rain. So after the sun had kissed the horizon, we pushed it out and into place. Actually, we pushed out four aircraft his morning for the folks of our AirAdventure to photograph. Being the most esoteric of the planes (two others were a Zero and Corsair), I figured I’d be the only one wanting to photograph the Monocoupe. Wrong! All saw the beauty in its lines as the morning unfolded. With a wet tarmac, a basically clean background wherever you point your lens and light that didn’t suck, the photography was easy. But then if you go with making the uncommon out of the common, the challenge arose.
The top frame was taken at 05:45 and you can see the skies, pretty bald. The thunderstorm let go all their energy so the clouds dissipated. Once the sun rose though the cycle started over and clouds started to build. Shooting with the D750 / 14-24AFS, the newly formed clouds made for a gorgeous background. But this was still a common shot, no more than taking a knee and shooting up. The second photo was taken at 06:15. Watching the winds, the clouds not only behind the Monocoupe but behind us as well to predict the light, waiting and physically moving was called for. The third photo, the one I wanted was taken at 06:22. If you have a wild imagination you can see an outline of a plane in the clouds. All three photos were taken with the same gear and finished the same way (ACR & Color Efex Pro Contrast + Tonal Contrast + Darken/Lighten) but all three were taken at different angles based on the clouds. So while clouds in themselves make a photo, in order to make the uncommon, you gotta work the clouds!