Musings of an Aviation Photographer

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]

Tilt-Shift Photography
It’s all the rage these days, tilt shift photography and video.  But what is it exactly?  Tilt Shift is the process of taking a normal image, or video, and mimic a shallow depth of field in order to fool your eye to think the image is of a small miniature.  Uhhh, what?  Basically, if you’ve ever tried to take a picture of an action figure, micro machines, a lego car, etc you’ll notice that the depth of field, or how much of the image is in focus, is very limited.  Usually just a part of the subject is in focus, with the things nearest to the camera and the things behind the subject completely out of focus.  That’s how we’ve all been brought … [Read More]