Simple Click – Albatross Landscapes

From the ground or from the air, great light is great light!

Simple Click – Splash Down!

We did five touch downs in Lake Tahoe, just too cool for words!

Simple Click – Sierra Skimming

Yeap, we’re just feet over Lake Tahoe making a pass during our flight.

The Albatross is an Amazing Shooting Platform!

Yeap, that’s a massive hole in the side of the plane Jake is shooting out. Wouldn’t you risk your camera to shoot out that window if you had that gorgeous Lake Tahoe blue below you?

The interior of the Albatross is massive permitting all sorts of movement about the cabin. The hole we’re shooting out is actually the top half of the doorway, a very large door because one of the principle roles of the Albatross is Search & Rescue. It has a draft of only 3 feet and in order to get the rubber boat in and out of the cabin and rescue folks, a large door was built. It works great for us, we could both shoot out of it without any problem.

Yeah, that’s a saftey harness you see Jake wearing. We wore those for about five minutes. We moved about the plane so much to shoot, we gave up on putting them on and off. Needless to say, I’m here to post which means I made it as well as Jake. And the cameras, they made it home too.

Photos captured by D3x, 14-24AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

The Joy Ride

Dennis loves to share with others the amazing locales he finds from finding over the Sierra. This is one of the jewels he shared with us today. For the life of us, we can’t remember the name of the lake but we made a couple of passes around it so we could photograph it. Simply spectacular!

Photo captured by D3s, 16Fish on Lexar UDMA digital film

Albatross Spotted in Carson City

Received a great call yesterday, my very good friend and pilot Dennis called to say he was taking the HU-16 Albatross (gotcha with that title, didn’t I?) for a flight and he had two seats. Did I want to go? I simply said what time should we be at the hanger? This is a great plane which not only has an amazing history but just simply is a whole lot of fun. Dennis pulled it out of the hanger and parked it just perfect for some static work.

Static aircraft are such a freaking challenge when you don’t have a clean background. Be it a bird, big game, person or plane, background is everything and while we had great light and clouds, the background just worked me over. Jake did some nice stuff getting up close, but I needed to get a portrait for the owner. This is when I pull out my secret weapon to make that background disappear. Tomorrow, Stephanie gets the file, my secret weapon!

When Jake & I were in Chino this past weekend shooting the Avenger, I learned something from Jake (I do quite often). He took this sweet shot with just a sliver of the canopy. I really liked that shot and remembered it when shooting the Albatross. You can’t really see it here in this small image, but the windows are a little slits making the front look like a raptor. Just a little aviation fun from a learned lesson.

Photos captured by D3x, 14-24AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film

Simple Click – Knowledge is Fun!

An image from last year finished entirely with newly learned this year techniques in ACR.

The Fortunes of Dues

I’ve written many times about time and it’s importance in photography. There is one aspect of time though that I’ve barely brushed upon, a benefit that we really have no control over yet rewards us when we least expect it.

You poor folks have had to suffer for a week looking at my aviation images, a simple pleasure I’m incredibly fortunate to indulge in at this point in my career. Putting in the time, paying the dues is part of the process and for the most part, it is just part of the evolution of a career. But then when you least expect it you get a reward for paying those dues. Being incredibly fortunate, I’ve had more than my fair share and this past week is a prime example.

The Reward

The Reno Air Racing Association sponsored a fly over of five T6 Texans over the Reno Rodeo and the traveling Vietnam Wall Memorial in Reno. My good fortune was I was asked to ride in the backseat of #5 in the formation of the T6s. Even more fortunate was that all the pilots are friends so to and from the fly over I got some air to air time in. It was a great flight with great clouds and light. The pilots being great formation fliers hammed it up for me providing amazing photo opps. This opportunity only came from putting in the hours, learning a new craft and pushing that craft. I know that in a year or two I’ll look back at these photographs and wish I’d done better. Oh don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly and completely loved the ride, you can see that in the hero shot. I just know that in time my photography will improve because I will continue to push my craft and learn more, continuing to pay my dues and improve. Mistakes I made during flight I won’t make next time improving on the past but making new mistakes to improve on again. I hope to learn enough about air to air photography that I am able to pass that on to you. I’m just not there yet so in the meantime, you will have to wade through my efforts and growing pains and understand that with time, you too will experience the fortunes of dues.

A Glimpse into Pylon Photography

Pylon shooting is what you do at PRS (Pylon Race Seminar). It’s a long, 8+ hour day in the sage desert north of Reno. It is a photographic experience like none other I’ve had the privilege to participate in.

Here again is that same F4U Corsair that I so love photographing while it was running the course during the Unlimited Class run. Well to bring to you a little of the pylon experience, I strapped the Moose Cam on, but not in it’s normal position. Shooting with a 170 degree fisheye, it takes in everything. So here’s a little taste of Reno and don’t worry, it’s not 8hrs of video.

Simple Click – Seriously, Keys?

Taking off from some Pacific atoll in WWII, the Corsair hit the skies. Flying or static, just darn cool!

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