Musings of an Aviation Photographer

If you live around Long Beach, California, no doubt you’ve heard them lumbering through the skies announcing their arrival with loud roars.  If you’ve been to airshows, you’ve seen them performing incredible maneuvers during their demonstrations which never get old and always make the crowd’s mouths hang open.  It is the second largest airlift aircraft in the United States Air Force (and the entire military all together) created by a company no stranger to large complex aircraft through the history of the United States: Boeing.  Serving with 6 different counties including the United States, this massive aircraft has set the bar for all future transport and cargo aircraft from now on, paving the way with it’s four massive Pratt & Whitney F117-PW-100 turbofan engines that provide an amazing 40,440 … [Read More]

Warning for those of you used to my normal posts, this one is a true musing and rant.  I’m not one to get into political debates or really dive into the any sorts of politics domestic or abroad. I have my opinions on things, and I’m always going to be in support of our troops till the end of time.  I’m as patriotic for the country I live in, the good ole’ United Sates, as anyone else if not more.  I have a greater appreciation for this countries history than many people, sadly, do in this day and age; but I’ve started to notice a trend for us photographers in the world of today… we’re being seen as the new terrorists of America.  If you … [Read More]

HDRI.  You either love it or you hate it, if you know what it is.  Probably one of the biggest debates in photography right now gets to the essence of what HDRI is, and if it truly is photography or just an art form. HDRI has it’s pros and cons, each one pretty significant.  Done correctly, you can create some beautiful images with the HDRI process, but you can also create some hideous shots that go well beyond the realm of normal and into grunge art or even worse destroy the concept of the photograph. Walking around the photo showcase at the recent Orange County Fair in Costa Mesa, California this past July I noticed that HDRI images are on … [Read More]

Occasionally, you’ll shoot that one photo that really stands out above the rest.  Sometimes it can be totally unexpected, and you don’t even realize it until you see the photo on your computer.  Other times, you can see the photo falling into place allowing you to click the shutter button at the exact moment that you know you’ve caught your own personal masterpiece.  Ever so often I’m going to showcase some of what I personally think are interesting and pretty cool photos I’ve taken, with a bit of info behind the photo and how it all came into place. The thing about sunset shots at airshows is you have to stay late after the airshow … [Read More]

A quick blog update to announce the opening of the brand new Warbird Photos Aviation Photography website! After a few months in the making and an incredible amount of programming to make the website almost entirely automated, the new site is up! Spanning back to 2003, the new Warbird Photos Aviation Photography website contains over 5,000 photos located in Airshow, Air-to-Air, and Museum Event galleries. New galleries will be added as airshow or aviation events happen, and I hope to double if not triple the number of photos by this time next year. It also begins the connecting of this Musings of an Aviation Photographer Blog, Warbird Photos Photography, and soon be started Airshow Review websites! Future … [Read More]

Occasionally, you’ll shoot that one photo that really stands out above the rest.  Sometimes it can be totally unexpected, and you don’t even realize it until you see the photo on your computer.  Other times, you can see the photo falling into place allowing you to click the shutter button at the exact moment that you know you’ve caught your own personal masterpiece.  Ever so often I’m going to showcase some of what I personally think are interesting and pretty cool photos I’ve taken, with a bit of info behind the photo and how it all came into place. First up is a photo from recently, in fact it was from last Saturday (August 7, 2010).  I was at the Naval Base … [Read More]

When I first heard about the Airshow taking place at the former MCAS El Toro base in Irvine, California, naturally it really peaked my interest.  Having grown up next to the former home of the Third Marine Air Wing, I was beyond excited to not only be able to step foot on the base once again, one of the first times since the 1997 last El Toro Airshows, but to also see aircraft flying over the base.  I used to fall asleep to the sounds of F/A-18A Hornets taking to the skies on night missions, and since the base closed finally in 1999 and was sold to a Miami developer and renamed into the ‘Great Park of Irvine,’ a silence has fallen over the area … [Read More]

Being an a photographer who loves aviation, I always love shooting photos from aircraft.  Thankfully, given the chance to travel a few times per year on airliners or smaller civilian single engine aircraft, I naturally take every opportunity I can get to take photos from the air of the world below.  There’s something so fascinating to me about being up in the air beyond the heights your mind can comprehend realizing just how small you really are in this great big world, and to see how the human race and mother nature creates these extravagant patterns and magnificent shapes on this planet earth. I’m always amazed at how structures, cities, buildings, etc can come together to form these intricate patterns and shapes that are never … [Read More]

In the field of Aviation Photography, I’ve had some pretty amazing experiences.  I’ve gotten to not only see some of the world’s rarest and most famous historical aircraft fly along side me during air-to-air shoots, but I’ve also had chances to ride in some warbirds as well which served as camera ships for shoots.  Air-to-Air photography is a special type of photography, where you get to capture aircraft in their prime as they should be captured! I’ve had the chance to fly in various parts of a World War 2 era North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber, which in itself is an adventure and experience all on it’s own with the cramped space to move around.  But the views are spectacular. But no matter how … [Read More]

When many people think of Pin-Up Art from the 1940s and 50s in this day and age, they often will think of Alberto Vargas’s work, which goes from the classic PinUp look to the dawn of the Playboy style art.  However, if you were to ask someone from World War 2 into the early 50s, you’ll find they remember a different type of PinUp: The Petty Girl.  The Petty Girl was not just art for the fancy of men in magazines, but she was a symbol for a homesick GIs at war and a metaphor for the innocence of the times.  The Petty Girl captured the classic PinUp look that has, in my opinion, never been matched since and it’s all due to one … [Read More]