At commercial airports you want to get as close as you are allowed. This offers the opportunity
to take portraits of beautiful machines, close ups of details and mechanics. Use almost any lens in
your arsenal. Ground-to-air usually requires a zoom/telephoto lens. Air shows are really prolific
places to do this. Propellers and jets maneuvering over large crowds can be tracked, panned and
frozen with faster shutter speeds.
A client sent me to Seattle where I shot the chief engineer of the first Boeing 777 with the
prototype in the background. Its modern technology, functional curves and state-of-the-art
design just blossomed before my lenses. I was in love with my job all over again.
There is less chance to do air-to-air photographs. You will need two aircraft flying in tandem,
with additional expense, a great deal of preplanning and a good gyro stabilizer or VR telephoto
lens, but this is the pinnacle. The sky is the limit.
With a great deal of difficulty I was assigned to photograph aircraft carriers during war games.
I was excited to land several times on different decks – it was a longtime dream of mine. Just
before making the first landing, the female newspaper photographer seated next to me grabbed
her eye and started screaming at the top of her lungs. With great difficulty I got the crew chief’s
attention and he contacted the medical staff on the ship below. They diagnosed that during the
rapid descent she developed an air bubble behind her eyeball. After stabilizing back at altitude
we landed without further incident but I think I was rattled more than she was.
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