Looking back at 2011 through my hard drives and piles of DVDs worth of photography, I realized that I somehow managed to branch out, and take less photos this year. Aside from some major events that really stood out above all others, I found I shot less photos and was present at less events. Airshows were on the decline this year, with a lot of shows opting for the new style of only happening every other year, in stark contrast to the large abundance of shows I attended last year.  This year focused primarily on Aviation and Pinup photography throughout the year, and less on Disneyland and Comic Con/Convention photography. As with 2010, I decided to put together a ‘best of 2011′ list chronicling the best events to happen and be photographed during this year, which seemed to pass by as fast as a Compact Flash card can be filled with a camera that shoots 10 frames a second. There were some pretty epic events this year, which make up a bit for the otherwise slow year in photography. So without further ado, here’s the pictorial list of the best photos and events of 2011. Let’s get started!

Best Photography Moment #1:

Tiger Cruise Air Wing Launch

Standing out above all other events this year was one in particular, one that very few get to do.  I was incredibly fortunate enough to be invited to join the United States Navy on what’s called a Tiger Cruise aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) Aircraft Carrier. Taking a one-way trip to Oahu, Hawaii I boarded the USS Abraham Lincoln and spent nearly 7 days living on board as we sailed from Oahu to Naval Station North Island in San Diego, California. The journey was one of the most incredible experiences of my life, one I’ll remember forever. Eating, sleeping, and taking photos of the life of the giant floating city that is the Lincoln was quite amazing to behold. And while this entire top 15 moments could JUST be about the Lincoln’s experiences, I decided to narrow it down to one specific event on the Tiger Cruise during the trip: The Carrier Air Wing flyoff. On the sixth day of the journey, before we reached San Diego, it’s customary for every aircraft on board the Carrier to be launched off so they can head to their home bases (which in this case for most of the aircraft was NAS Lemoore, CA).  The reason for this is simple, the Carrier has to be speeding along at over 35 knots to launch the aircraft (the wind and speed help the aircraft with the incredible amount of aerodynamic lift needed to be catapulted off the deck). So when the Carrier is in port, there’s no wind to help the aircraft and as such they’d be stuck on the Carrier until it goes out to sea again. So, on this 6th day the entire Air Wing on board the Carrier was launched off. Several full squadrons of older F/A-18C Hornets and several newer F/A-18E/F Super Hornet squadrons along with one EA-6B Prowler, E-2C Hawkeye, and C-2A Greyhound squadrons also were launched. I was fortunate enough to get the ‘best seat in the house’ to photograph the entire launch that lasted several hours. Getting to the spot very early in the morning, before most of the deck crew were even prepping the aircraft, I had one of the most amazing view from up on the ‘island’ of the Carrier watching the sun rise over the deck of packed Hornets. After prepping the aircraft, one by one they were launched off the deck in a strategic manner and with amazing precision. No matter what other aviation opportunities come my way in the future, this one day will always remain one of my all time favorites.

You can see more about each day of the Tiger Cruise with stories and photos:
http://www.warbird-photos.com/report.php?ID=1

Best Photography Moment #2:

Centennial of Naval Aviation Celebration

2011 marked the 100th year of Naval Aviation in the United States Military. For this huge milestone, a year long special ‘celebration’  was thought up for all airshows and aviation events throughout the year that featured Naval Aviation. On top of that, a large assortment of various Naval and Marine aircraft that were already scheduled to get new paint jobs were painted up in retro colors for the celebration.  Retro colors being paint jobs of aircraft from different squadrons all throughout history. Modern F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets painted up in the paint schemes of World War 2 warbirds.  Several dozen of these ‘CONA Birds’ (as they were called) were carefully researched and painted for these celebration, and sent out to attend airshows all over the United States. To start the Celebration, it was decided to have a very special kick off ceremony and airshow at the birthplace of Naval Aviation, Naval Station North Island on Coronado Island, San Diego, California. This one day celebration was incredible due to one major fact, the NAS North Island base has not held a public opening for an incredibly long time. Hundreds of photographers, media reporters, and pretty much anyone who could spread the word were invited out to NAS North Island the day before the big show (which took place February 12, 2011) for a ‘media preview’. This was an incredible day of no crowds and just aircraft. The media was able to view all the aircraft, take photos, interview pilots, etc with little to no people in their shots… a DREAM for any photographer! We were able to witness the arrivals of all the special CONA Birds and preview of what the next day’s show would be like. The Airshow itself drew in thousands upon thousands of people from all over the state coming out to see this rare show.  On top of all the aircraft on display, a US Navy Destroyer, US Marine Amphibious Attack Carrier, and a full Aircraft Carrier were docked at the base for the public to come aboard and tour. Amazing as that was, above everything else the one event that stood out for this kick off party was the ‘Parade of Flight’ that took place later in the day. Starting with early pre-WW2 biplanes, just about every single type of Naval and Marine aircraft through history paraded by in a massive hour long flyby.  After a flyby by the USN Blue Angels to lead the parade, every aircraft following the biplanes took you a step closer to modern day.  World War 2, the dawn of jets, massive electronic warfare aircraft, and finally to modern rotor and fixed wing aircraft filled the skies. It was an impressive sight to see. Finally, the last flyover was the entire air wing of the USS John C Stennis Aircraft Carrier, basically every aircraft that lives aboard the Carrier in a formation that stretched several miles.  An incredible day for all who showed up to celebrate 100 great years of aviation!

For a more comprehensive review of the show and full photo gallery, head on over to:
http://www.airshowreview.com/review.php?Airshow=2011-NSNI

Best Photography Moment #3:

Retiring the Sea Knight

Yes yes, another airplane entry! With each passing year, it seems, another military aircraft is retired in favor of newer models or totally new aircraft all together.  With many aircraft in the US Military dating back to the Vietnam era, these aircraft have long outlasted their ‘service life’ and in many cases have soared beyond them with the addition of upgrades and refitting of the aircraft. This year, the casualty is a old friend for many Marines out there who have served over the years. The Boeing Ch-46E Sea Knight is a familiar sight to anyone in Southern California with several bases housing squadrons of the Sea Knights. One such base, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, California used to have about 5 squadrons of CH-46s, but as the Sea Knights have reached the end of their service lift, a new aircraft that has been loaded with many troubles (that are finally now fixed) has come in to take the Sea Knight’s place. Passing the torch, the Bell MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft will be taking on the load of the CH-46s, with many advancements and better capabilities over the CH-46. As cool and interesting as the Osprey is, I will miss the CH-46 Sea Knights buzzing around the Orange County skies.  The distinct sound from their twin blades is unmistakable and their shape unlike any other aircraft (minus the Chinook, the Army’s much larger Sea Knight cousin). At the 2011 MCAS Miramar Airshow this year, the final Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) demonstration to include CH-46s was put on all three days. For photographers at the show, it was one of the final times to snap away at the CH-46s before their complete retirement, which at MCAS Miramar has come and gone now. Two MV-22 Ospreys from newly converted squadrons took part in the MAGTF demo as well alongside the Sea Knights, as if to be a final transition of the torch from an old bird to a new one.

For more photos of the 2011 MCAS Miramar Airshow, click here:
http://www.warbird-photos.com/gallery.php?Airshow=2011-MCASMiramar-1

Best Photography Moment #4:

Satin Dollz Tiki Shoot

Making the list a second year in a row, the lovely and charming Satin Dollz pinup dancers made the top five with a photoshoot done in September at an incredible Hawaiian and Tiki themed house in Camarillo, California.  When I got the call that we were going to be shooting at this ‘incredible house that’s tiki themed everywhere,’ I didn’t realize that would be an understatement. This beautiful house, tucked in a normal neighborhood has an enormous backyard with not only a Koi pond, several waterfalls, hidden shipwrecked boats, giant tiki idols, and countless other gems and perfectly picked and placed plants; but it also has a complete ‘tiki cabana’ shack and bar that is incredibly furnished with themed items in every nook and cranny. Even the restroom in this little shack has water facet knobs made from a shrunken head and beautiful seashells. I don’t think a pinup photographer could ask for a more amazing and perfect place to shoot! With nearly endless locations in this yard to do photos, we spent the day shooting all the Satin Dollz together and individually. It was a pretty incredible and fun shoot, with themed music to boot! The house has been featured in many magazines, and it’s easy to see why! It’s a photographer’s dream setting!

Best Photography Moment #5:

C-47 Air to Air

When the word came out about another C-47 day at the Lyon Air Museum at John Wayne Airport (SNA) on December 10, 2011; I thought to myself, this is a perfect time for an air-to-air shoot! Up until then, the largest aircraft I’d done an air to air shoot with was P-38s and a F/A-18 Super Hornet. I’ve always wanted to do more air to air work with larger transport and bomber aircraft, especially from World War 2. A lot of logistics are involved with air to air photo shoots: planning, scheduling, safety, and the biggest thing of them all being fuel. Unfortunately, these planes don’t use rubber bands or helium to fly, they use a specific type of aircraft fuel. Warbirds, especially, guzzle up fuel like there’s no tomorrow which is something most people don’t think about when they head out to an airshow. For example, the T-6 Texan WW2 trainer eats roughly about 30 gallons an hour of fuel. Break that down and you get a gallon every two minutes of flight. Imagine if your car guzzled that much? Most cars have roughly 11 gallon tanks, and if you travel 60 miles per hour on the freeway, doing all the math you would basically get about 22 miles in 22 minutes before you run out of gas.  For an air-to-air shoot, there’s the challenge of paying for not just the subject plane’s gas, but also the photo plane’s gas. It adds up real fast! So why mention all this?  Well for this shoot, I opted for a T-6G Texan/Harvard II trainer from WW2, flying out of Fullerton Airport and meeting up with a beautiful Douglas C-47B Skytrain and a smaller but fun Cessna O-1E Bird Dog over the El Toro area for the shoot. Thanks for the wonderful pilot of the Texan, Daniel, we were able to keep the gas guzzling rate of the Texan down to a minimum for the flight and still have a lot of fun and a wonderful fun flight. This flight marked a few ‘firsts’ for me, 1) being it was the first time I’d paid for the fuel for an air-to-air flight of the photo plane, 2) first time I’d shot with the canopy open while in flight from the back seat of the Texan, and 3) of course the first ‘large’ aircraft I’d shot. The shoot went off very well despite a lot of shooting issues with a very hazy day!

For more photos of the Air to Air shoot with the C-47B Skytrain and O-1E Bird Dog, click here:
http://warbird-photos.com/gallery.php?AirtoAir=2011-12-10

Best Photography Moment #6:

Petty Project: Indian

Last year, I started the very successful Petty Project (website) where I set out to recreate all of the famed pinup artist of the 40s and 50s George Petty’s artworks. Considering him as the pinnacle of pinup artwork, it was my way of honoring his wonderful work and have a lot of fun doing it. These recreations are a mix of photography, clothing/prop ingenuity, and heavily photoshop. Like piecing together pieces of a puzzle, these complex recreations take hours to do both in studio and in photoshop. It’s a very slow project, as it takes so long to do the post work in photoshop. So while only two dozen or so have been completed, I’ve shot in the studio over 40 of them. I was fortunate enough to have an amazing model, Tiffinie, who not only did a wonderful job as a ‘Petty Girl’ but also was invaluable in the fact that she HAND MADE the outfits for the shots she was to recreate. A lot of work on her and her mother, both of who are very talented seamstresses, to get all these outfits made from just a single picture (and some of them not very high res) as best as they could. The result was beyond anything I could imagine making my post work in photoshop a hundred times easier.  One of these recreations with Tiffinie was the always popular Indian. Hand making the outfit down to the shoes, we spent quite some time in the studio shooting this one to make sure we got it right, and it presented several issues we had to work through. But in the end, after post work in photoshop piecing all the pieces together, the final result is one of the best recreations so far in the project.  You can  view the original Petty Indian artwork HERE and view the Petty Project website located here.

Best Photography Moment #7:

Helicopters at Dusk

From the ashes of a once powerful United States Marine base on the west coast, the airshow event held on the former MCAS El Toro lands, now called the Great Park of Irvine, has grown with each year into an airshow to not miss. While it’s still an infant compared to the world class airshows that were held on the former base, the city of Irvine and the hundreds of volunteers for the upcoming aviation museum at the park have pulled together an impressive assortment of aircraft on display and in the sky.  In 2011, the US Marines decided to be heavily represented at the show, sending out two CH-46 Sea Knights (one of which was actually stationed at MCAS El Toro), and two of their newest helicopters: the Bell AH-1z Viper (an upgrade from the AH-1W Super Cobra) and a Bell UH-1Y Venom (an upgrade from the UH-1N Huey).  Having all this military presence at the former base made a big hit with the crowds that visited, with people surrounding the aircraft all day long.  It wasn’t until the light began to fade, however, when the real opportunity came up. Both the Viper and Venom were scheduled to depart at dusk and head back to their home base at Camp Pendlton. Thanks to the help of Frank, I was able to be front row center beyond the crowd lines for an incredible opportunity to catch these two powerful birds as they departed. With the light JUST perfect, they made for some incredible shots and my favorite helicopter shots of the year!

For more photos of the MCAS El Toro / Great Park of Irvine photos, click here:
http://warbird-photos.com/gallery.php?Airshow=2011-MCASElToro

Best Photography Moment #8:

Corsair

For the first time in may years since the Planes of Fame Air Museum Airshow was moved to it’s current May dates, rain threatened to fall. The few days before the two-day airshow as the prep work began to transform the Chino Airport into this world famous airshow, the sun was bright and hot. But the clouds began to roll in on Saturday morning and rain seemed on the horizon. While Saturday went without any water droplets, the Sunday morning was a different story. Rain started to fall in the early morning off and on, sometimes heavily. Thankfully, by the time of the first act the rain had stopped, and didn’t return the rest of the day. By the end of the airshow, the rain clouds were all but non-existent. Rewinding back to that morning, while it did scare off many people from coming early, those who did show up early and waited under whatever shelter they could find were treated to a photographer’s delight… that is wet grounds and contrasty skies. Reflections began to appear on every surface, and the normally ‘usual’ photos turned into works of art.  As I was walking down the hot ramp flight line making well use of this liquid enhancement to my shots, I stopped in front of this Vought FG-1D Corair.  With the most amount of water in front of this Corsair compared to any other aircraft, I knelt down on one wet knee and shot a few shots with the rather dramatic clouds that were taking the rain elsewhere. The resulting photo was pretty awesome, but for once I decided to play around with the photo. I don’t normally add filters to my shots, but this one seemed to be asking for some post-work.  After adding  a special filter to the image in photoshop, I was left with this incredible contrasted image which made the photo almost like an incredibly different shot!  Prints of this photo will be available soon for purchase on http://www.warbird-photos.com

Best Photography Moment #9:

Man the Guns!

I’ve always been a big fan of the World War 2 propaganda posters. From every different branch to the Victory Gardens at home, they style of these posters was to cause someone to feel a personal attachment and do their part for the great war. World War 2 Military has also always been a huge part of my 1940s Pinup photography, just about every model I’ve ever shot with has done at least one thing military related during the shoot. In the past few years I’ve practiced, refined, and continued to refine turning these WW2 themed pinups into looking like they actually are over 65 years old.  I’ve toyed with the idea of taking some of these pinups, and as with my Coca Cola advertisement recreations, create a on-going series of WW2 propaganda posters featuring the pinup models. Carefully researching everything from the fonts, art style, wording, symbols, and even the colors I went about to get started on this project. In probably the most recent shot photos of this entire top 15 list, the start of this WW2 poster project began with Kayla.  Kayla is one of my favorite models to work with, and one of the best pinups I’ve had the honor to photograph.  It was only natural I’d start some of these posters with her, since her first shoot’s military pinups were some of my favorites. The first image I used was an Army Air Force pinup shot which I made into a recruiting poster. As well as that one came out, I think it was my second one for the US Navy (pictured left) that has come out best of the group so far. Wearing an authentic WW2 jumper, headphones, late war B-5 Life Vest, and Dixie cap, she’s holding a real M1 rifle, the ‘standard rifle’ of World War 2.  With many more shoots lined up in the future with models, I can’t wait to shoot and create more of these posters, and eventually offer them for sale as large poster prints.  You can see more pinup photography at the Dietz Dolls website: http://www.dietzdolls.com

Best Photography Moment #10:

Nellis AFB Airshow

For those on the west coast, the end of the airshow season each year is always marked with the Nellis Air Force Base airshow in Las Vegas, Nevada. The homebase of the USAF Thunderbirds and fighter command, Nellis AFB is host to many different F-15, F-16, A-10, and F-22 squadrons. Nellis always likes to end the show season with a big bang, usually with lots of demonstrations by top military aircraft and a very packed day of flying. This year was no different, with demos by all sorts of aircraft including mock dogfights with fighter jets.  The highlight this year was the static display of a B-2 Stealth Bomber, a very rare sight on the west coast. On the Sunday day of the airshow, another B-2 came in and made several passes, but the real treat was seeing one up close. With armed Military Police keeping a watchful eye the entire time of the airshow around the B-2, people could get close enough to see all the little details that still make up this very secretive aircraft.  Also being hte last show of the season, it makes the last show for the USAF Thunderbirds; that along with the fact that it’s their home base makes their performance one of the best of the season. A few photos stand out from this show, two Thunderbird shots and two B-2 Stealth Bomber shots. The first being the photo above of the Thunderbirds that I just happened to catch as they crossed the sun. It’s one of those photos you don’t think would be anything but trashable, and when you see it on the computer you realize it’s actually a good image! Another shot (see gallery below) is of the solo Thunderbirds (#5 and #6) in an inverted formation pass, they were very tight this year for this pass. It’s difficult to get an exact shot as they perfectly line up, but when you do, it’s a really awesome keeper. Finally, there were two shots of the B-2 Stealth Bomber that were shot in HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image) with three images overlayed to get a really incredible range of colors and exposure. One was in the early morning with almost no one around (VERY rare for a B-2)  and the other at sunset. Overall a really great show this year!

For more photos of the Nellis AFB Airshow 2011 photos, click here:
http://warbird-photos.com/gallery.php?Airshow=2011-NellisAFB-1

Best Photography Moment #11:

Crystal

I’ve always wanted to do a photoshoot with a model at the beach, especially a super model.  Who wouldn’t?  The beach offers an incredible assortment of different types of photo styles and themes for photography. In particular I wanted to try out the classic super model style images with the gal on the beach in the sand as the water rushes around her. Then I wanted to try some of the more artistic contrasty black and white style shots. I was fortunate enough to finally have the chance to do this with a model, Crystal, during this summer. Going to a more secluded area of a beach, we had no people in the background of our shots and spent the day having a fun time taking photos. At the time, my flash was broken so I was relying on natural light for the entire shoot. Later on in the day, as we were taking a break after she had gone into the water, I noticed the sun hitting her face just right and her wet hair gently blowing in the breeze. I took a bunch of shots of her in different positions, and the resulting photos came out better than I could have imagined! An incredibly beautiful swimsuit model aside with the perfect conditions, the black and white contrast really made these photos pop like they do.  Very happy with the photos and can’t wait to get out there and shoot more next summer!

Best Photography Moment #12:

Sunset Salute

Every year in San Pedro, California, the Fort MacArthur museum hosts the Los Angeles Air Raid of 1942 reenactment dance at the old battery installations. The event marks the anniversary of the famed air raid accident that happened in 1942 when numerous coastal battery defenses opened fire on what they thought were invading Japanese aircraft just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Air Raid event is a World War 2 USO style dance with live swing music, numerous WW2 vehicles and artifacts on display, and just about everyone dressing up in their WW2/1940s best. This event provides some incredible photos each year that make this event a must attend for any reenactor photographer. I’ve been shooting the event for several years now, and as with 2010 Air Raid photos have made my top 15 list. I expect this coming year’s Air Raid will have a photo that makes it into the 2012 top 15 list. At any rate, this year I knew right when the sun would be setting, so I made sure to use that time frame window as much as I could. A US Navy shore patrol reenactor was walking up on top of the battery bunker ‘patrolling’ the area when I capture this salute.  The colors are not messed with in photoshop, the camera capture it just as it was. With clouds and patches of clear sky, the always colorful San Pedro sunset turned into a very erratically colored sky as the sun set behind the Pacific ocean. Definitely one of my favorite reenactor photos of all time!

Best Photography Moment #13:

Sea Stallion Studio

This photo was shot at about 11pm at night, in near pitch blackness aside from the distant hangar lights, with only two hand held Canon 580 Ex II speedlites.  So, how did I get all this weird studio style lighting effects on this US Marine Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion at Gillespie Field?  Well, by painting the light with a long 30 second exposure. Huh? Basically, in order to illuminate the CH-53 with light, I had to paint the light on it by rapidly walking around the CH-53 firing the Speedlite flashes BY HAND as I walked around it. The long exposure made my body disappear since I was making sure to move and not stop, plus I fired the flash away from the camera and directly at the Super Stallion, so you don’t get any bright lens flares. It’s a very tough and tricky thing to do, especially to get the light looking uniform on the CH-53. If you look on the ground below the CH-53, you can see the rings of light where I stood and flashed the light on it. I hope next year to attempt the same thing, but with even more flashes to get even more of a studio effect at night!

Best Photography Moment #14:

Chance

I’m not usually one to post cat photos, I leave that to the ICanHasCheezburger website, but this year I decided to have a little fun with my cat named Chance. He’s not normally accustomed to having any articles of clothing on them, so I knew going into this little shoot during Christmas Time that any photos I could get of him would be nearly milliseconds of opportunity until he would attempt to remove the clothing items and walk away. Taking a few little caps and scarves meant for stuffed snowmen and dogs, I bribed Chance with some cat treats and fired away, often only getting one shot out of the a set of 10 in focus and sharp because of his erratic movements.  The resulting shots, however, were an instant classic with a very Christmas feel. I really low how they came out with the Canon 50mm lens. Pet photography certainly isn’t an avenue I’d ever get into, but I can forsee more photoshoots of Chance in the future… that is if he allows it!

Best Photography Moment #15:

CHUCK Cast

When I’m shooting at Comic Con, I tend to avoid shooting celebrities unless they personally interest me or someone asked me to take a picture. Normally I have my hands full shooting Sexy Princesses, Stormtroopers, or whatever else might be walking around. There’s one seminar panel at Comic Con that I try and catch each year, which is the panel for the TV show CHUCK.  It’s my favorite show on TV, and the panels are certainly a lot of fun with a lot of humor and jokes. The entire cast will show up for the panel and answer questions from fans as well as discussing the upcoming show seasons.  This year, though, was the last CHUCK panel as the show is ending it’s 5 season run in a few months. That made this panel even more special to be at, and a lot of tears were shed between the cast as they discussed the end.  Right after the panel, the stars headed down to the Warner Brothers booth to do a special autograph session.  It was impossible to do both the panel AND the autograph session unless you had some really good friends who would stand in line for you, so I felt fortunate enough to at least be there for that (and get a cool CHUCK T-shirt).  While I wasn’t able to get a ticket for the autograph session, I decided to test my luck and at least head down there to maybe get some snap shots of the stars and see them closer than up on a stage. Heading down to the already packed Warner Brother’s booth, I found myself trying to be tricky in where I was standing so I’d get a great vantage point of the stars as they arrived and not be blocking any isle ways, which security was clearing every few seconds in preparation for the massive crowds that would show up when the cast arrived. Waiting around for a little while paid off, I had a front row seat as the cast arrived.  Unfortunately, that front row seat vanished quickly as hundreds of fans who were also there to see the stars and steal a photo of them pushed in and packed the area like sardines. And by sardines I mean if you were to take an already packed container of sardines and then pack 5 times MORE sardines in that same container. It was a mad house as security found themselves in a very dangerous situation of fans in massive numbers pushing together and not moving. It was chaotic to say the least, and many people did not heed the loud screaming of security for the people to take their photo and leave. The one photo I wanted, the big group shot they paused to take, was not quite where I thought it would be, and some person in front of me decided to hold up a video camera right in front of my camera, so the above photo was the best I could get. I was lucky enough, however by following the directions of the security and being polite, to get a front spot to snap a few shots before I left the area in search of spots with no other human beings to take a moment’s breath. Even with the chaos, I got some great shots of the cast as I went past and even got the attention of a few of them!  It’s certainly not the best photography, but it’s special to me and makes the top 15 list because it’s the only photos I will get of the cast together before the show ends.

So there you have it, the best of 2011!  I sincerely hope for as many and many many more opportunities to happen this coming 2012 year!  From aviation to pinups, conventions to reenactments, and everything in between I look forward to the photography challenges and successes that each year bring! You never know what opportunities will come your way, sometimes when you don’t even realize it.  So make sure you always have a camera ready to capture those amazing but fleeting moments in life!

Here’s to a wonderful New Year to all of you! I didn’t quite follow last year’s resolution to update this blog more (in fact this is the first post in just over a YEAR! OOPS!).  But hopefully this year will being about some more time to update things like this… or perhaps it’s a good thing I’m busy with taking photos!  Either way…

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

I decided to put together a list of the top 15 photography moments of 2010, which sounds easier than it really is.  Starting with over 30 events, I slowly got down to 18, where things got really tough.  Continuing to really dwell on what was really the best moments, I was able to get it down to 16.  Not exactly 15, but when you get that close it’s almost like trying to figure out which photo albums to save when the house is on fire.  I just couldn’t pick.  So this is the top 15 moments with one honorable mention (yes, I cheated)!  If you have read a lot of the photo showcase posts on this blog, you may recognize many of these already featured on here.  So let’s get started!

Best Photography Moment #1:

Blue Angel Buzz

How close have you been to a flying Blue Angel?  Have you had a supersonic F/A-18C Hornet buzz you at a mere 20 feet?  Topping the list for the 2010 year is my favorite demonstration team, and a group that holds a special place for me having growing up next to the former MCAS El Toro base.  The United States Navy Blue Angel’s first airshow of the year is held at NAF El Centro, California, in the first quarter of the year.  Taking the journey out there is pretty long from Orange County, but always more than worth the drive to stay several days in El Centro.  The days before the airshow usually are a buzz of activity as aircraft arrive for the show and the performers put on practice shows.  The Blue Angels perform practice shows both days before the Airshow, being their first show of the year, putting in as much time as possible.  Many photographers show up to shoot the Blues from outside the base as they perform these practice shows all throughout their winter practice season.  But the biggest thrill is a special little location known to some photographers for how close the Blue Angels get upon landing.  Two days before the airshow, I was at this location photographing the Blues’s practice show.  Throughout the demonstration they would get very close to our location, almost buzzing us on take-off.  But it was when they landed that was most thrilling, as they’d get a mere 30 feet above our heads as they went past.  The moment of all moments and the reason it made #1 on this list is when the #3 Blue Angel dropped lower than the rest, buzzing directly over my head at an estimated 20 feet  by those who were around me. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to the Blue Angels, and the closest to a flying fighter jet!

Best Photography Moment #2:

Arrival of a Squadron

The first in one of those ‘right place at the right time’ moments of 2010, this event was featured here on one of the photo showcases, which you can read the entire story with video and photos here.  At the end of the MCAS Miramar Practice airshow on October 1, 2010, I was walking back to my car very late after the airshow with several fellow photographers when we happened to be at the right place as an entire squadron of aircraft returned from a few days of drills at NBVC Point Mugu.  Had we leave the airshow any earlier, or stayed even a few minutes more back at the static aircraft at the show we would have missed this amazing event.  It also just so happened that we parked in this particular parking lot, of the many others on the base.  With only a handful of people left in the parking lot this late in the day, we had a front row seat as what seemed like something out of a Michael Bay movie took place right before our eyes.  Snapping like mad men, everyone with any sort of picture taking device was capturing whatever they possibly could as the helicopters came in for a landing literally next to the parking lot.  You couldn’t plan for a more amazing sight to bestow, and the photos only partially give justice to the power and incredible noise of these amazing machines.  The few of us who were there to see and document this were on a high for the rest of the weekend airshow, always talking about how lucky we were to be at the right place at the right time.

Best Photography Moment #3:

Raptor Sunset

Another image that was featured on this blog, which you can view the whole story with photos here.  At the end of the second day of the Nellis AFB Airshow in Nevada, Las Vegas, a lot of the aircraft head home taking off which there’s still a little bit of light.  With the gorgeous Vegas sunsets each year, usually you can get some spectacular photos with the ‘liquid’ light on the aircraft.  I was taking photos of this Lockheed F-22A Raptor when one of the aerobatic performs let off some ‘goodbye’ smoke as they took off.  With a little bit of wind blowing, at first I though the smoke would muck up the shot, but it did the opposite and created this foggy atmosphere that only momentarily turned what was just a F-22 Raptor with sunset light into a moody and incredible capture.  It only lasted a few seconds, but the shot I was able to get stands out as one of the best of 2010.  Another right place at the right time moment!

Best Photography Moment #4:

C-17 Media Flight

Yet again, another story that was posted here on the blog, you can find the entire flight story here. Up until this year, I’d yet to fly in a modern military aircraft.  When I got word that I was able to get a media flight ride in a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, I jumped at the chance, and it didn’t disappoint.  There wasn’t a particular photo that I liked over the others from this trip, but it was the whole experience of being on a C-17 that made this one of the top 5 moments of the year. The flight itself seemed like a blur thinking back at it now, but lasted quite some time as we flew out to the pacific ocean, over Catalina Island off the Orange County, California, coast and then returning passing over Los Angeles and Hollywood.  It was the landing that probably had the best memorable experience as we came in for a ‘tactical landing’ where basically the C-17 slams into the runway and almost immediately applies reverse thrusters stopping in only a fraction of the runway length.  It was a thrill to be onboard with such a professional crew, and getting to see a glimpse into the US Air Force C-17 life.

Best Photography Moment #5:

Petty Witch

I started the Petty Project (website) this year, doing my first Petty shoot in the first month and then doing a few more the months after.  Last year it was just an idea, and now it’s in full gear with models lined up to recreate many of Petty’s works.  But there’s been one Petty recreation in particular that’s gotten the most press and attention.  It was the famous Witch pinup that Petty did for the Esquire and TRUE Magazines.  The model was Kayla, who put in a lot of work trying to help make this recreation one of the best ones of yet even modifying shoes to match the original witch ones.  It took a lot of post work, but when the finish product was printed as a 20×30, all the hard work of Kayla and myself to get that Petty piece recreated became all worth it.  It took several days of post work, and a lot of tweaking, but the shot is as close as you can get with a photo and photoshop.  It’s become the symbol of the Petty project, and ushered in a new determination to get the recreations as close as possible to the original.  You can view more on this pinup on both the blog post here on this blog or at the Petty Project website located here.

Best Photography Moment #6:

Mustang Gaggle

The world famous Planes of Fame Air Museum Airshow is held in May of each year.  Drawing thousands upon thousands of people to the show, the Museum always tries to ‘one up’ the previous show with something you can only see at the Planes of Fame show.  The themes for the show differ each year, and they attract warbirds from all around the world.  For the 2010 Airshow, the theme was based on the famous P-51 Mustang World War 2 fighter.  Calling on P-51 Mustangs from all around the United States to come to the show, an impressive gaggle of Mustangs formed.  From an incredibly rare A-36 Apache original first model of the P-51 Mustang to the more common P-51D model Mustangs, it nearly spanned the entire lineage of Mustangs.  Being my favorite WW2 fighter, I was excited for all the Mustang activity at the show this year, but wasn’t prepared for how amazing it’d be to really see them all together, a massive grouping of Mustangs.  But what really made the Airshow was the opening flight of 10 P-51 Mustangs that filled the skies.  No matter who you were, you stopped what you were doing at the airshow to watch as these beautiful birds swooped through the air with that unmistakable  sound of Merlin engines.  One of the most widely viewed and commented on photos was the above shot two days before the airshow when all the Mustangs that had arrived were lined up as the sun set.  Taking the opportunity without any people in the shot, I ran over to capture this nose photo doing down the flight line of all the Mustangs together.  It’s a classic photo of a very amazing airshow featuring my favorite aircraft!

Best Photography Moment #7:

The Satin Dollz

The Satin Dollz, which I featured in a blog post recently, are a talented group of gals who perform the classic music of the 1940s both in singing and dance in various styles of pinup outfits.  Touring all around Los Angeles and even recently a special mini tour in the UK, these gals are not only amazing to hear and see but also some of the kindest people you could meet.  I had the wonderful honor of being able to do two photoshoots with these great gals, and it’s been an absolute blast.  Everything from classic 1930s Hollywood glamor style shots to recreating the vintage Coca Cola posters during the war years in the 1940s, these wonderful and very beautiful gals embody the term pinups in all the best ways.  Each one of the gals have their own style that they bring to the pinup world, and are professional in every way.  I had a blast shooting with them in 2010, and can’t wait to do many more shoots with this lovely group.  Keep an eye out for some exciting projects featuring the Dollz in 2011!

Best Photography Moment #8:

D-Day Doll

Yet another showcase image featured here on this blog, this photo wasn’t just neat, but had an incredible story behind it with significant meaning. This C-53D Skytooper named ‘D-Day Doll’ is a very special aircraft.  Having taken part in the paratrooper drops over Normandy during World War 2 just before the massive invasion of D-Day, this Skytrooper carried members of the 101st Airborne or 82nd Airborne into the fight of England.  Seen here basking in the sunset of Gillespie Field Airport in San Diego, California, she quietly sits after having performed in the airshow earlier in the day.  But the real story is what day this was taken, along with her history.  As the sun set on the day and time this photo was taken in 1944, she was being loaded up preparing to head over the English channel to drop her precious paratrooper cargo.  This photo was taken on June 5th, 2010… the night before the 66th anniversary of D-Day.  Knowing that, it makes this photo have such a story, more so than just a neat aircraft in front of a wonderful gradient sunset.

Best Photography Moment #9:

A Seagull Sunset

Yes, two sunset photos in a row!  This was a really fun moment to see, not only photograph.  And while it looks like this is a HDRI image, it’s a one shot image, just like it looked.  On a business trip to upstate New York, I had a chance (on my birthday ironically) to get some sightseeing in.  Taking the opportunity, having been the first time to the upper East Coast, to visit some of the amazing sights around the area that weren’t too far, I went to the shores of one of the Great Lakes, Lake Ontario.  The sun was setting, and it was late in the day.  Shooting along the fresh water shore, I noticed a sea of Seagulls sitting on the sand.  While the sunset itself was a dramatic shot on it’s own, I wanted something really unique.  So, having a coworker who was shooting with me run right into the middle of this huge Seagull party, they all took flight headed out to the water.  Snapping photos like crazy, I was able to capture this chaotic yet beautiful shot of a sunset sky full of Seagulls.  It was probably the best photo I took during that trip to New York, and one of my favorites for this year.

Best Photography Moment #10:

C-5 Go-Around

If you go to a lot of big airshows, you’ve probably seen a C-5 Galaxy.  Being the largest aircraft the US Air Force has, it towers above a small human and looks like a monster.  I haven’t met anyone who’s looked at a C-5 and not wondered how that gigantic of a plane can even fly.  With a cargo hold so large they have to lower the airplane on it’s own landing gear to get things into, and a nose able to lift up into the air to load everything from tanks, helicopters, aircraft, and even smaller submarines; this plane truly is a versatile aircraft for the Air Mobility Command.  Up until the end of April this year, I’d only ever seen a C-5 Galaxy in flight once, many many years ago and from a distance.  I’ve always wanted to see a C-5 come in for a landing, and make a pass over the sky.  The day before the March ARB Airshow in Riverside, California, it was announced that a C-5 would be coming in sometime in the morning.  With delays and who knows what ever else, the C-5 didn’t make it till the afternoon.  By this time, the practice airshow was fully under way, and the sky was full of aircraft trying to make it into the show and performers practicing their acts.  I was shooting photos, along with other photographers, from the nearby March Field Museum which is directly across from the base.  When we heard the C-5 was incoming, I was very excited.  Unfortunately, they denied the overheard pass, and told the C-5 to come straight in.  But then there was a change in plans, as the C-5 was nearing the point of landing, they waved it off because of a slower moving aircraft taking too much time getting off the runway.  Well, you can’t just turn that C-5 out of the pattern that quickly, so they have the C-5 shift over next to the runway and bank half way down… which was right over where we were standing.  Suddenly, this giant beast was pointing right at us, getting larger and larger by the second.  It started it’s massive bank right before it reached us, reaching the peak of the turn directly overhead as it’s four engines screamed loudly.  Incredibly low, you could feel the rumble in your body, and it seemed like something passed over the sun taking all the light away.  I can only imagine what the drivers in the cars on the nearby freeway were thinking as this giant grey aircraft suddenly streaked right over them incredibly low.  It was a memory I’ll always remember.

Best Photography Moment #11:

Hello Tiger

Another right place at the right time sort of moment, this one from November 2010 in the far away land of Walt Disney World, Florida.  While visiting the Animal Kingdom park, one of the many parks at the WDW Resort, one of my favorite things to do there is take the little walking trails that have animal exhibits.  With my 100-400mm telephoto lens, I can usually get some really great shots of the various animals.  The animals range from exotic to the really common, and the exhibits for the animals are pretty large.  It’s basically an oversized themed zoo, Disney style.  One of the best places to get photos is the Tiger exhibit, having multiple viewing points to see the Tigers on multiple sides.  Typically the Tigers are either lying down asleep or roaming around, playing occasionally in the water.  Well, as I was photographing some far away Tigers in one part of the exhibit as they paced near some bushes, a friend who was with me on this trip called me to say she’d gone up ahead a bit and that I needed to get over there ASAP.  So, I ran over to where she was, and low and behind a Tiger was sitting right in front of one of the large windows staring at the people watching.  Being a mere 10 feet with just glass between you and these giant cats is a pretty amazing feeling.  The Tiger stared at me and my big lens as I snapped tons of photos, including catching it yawn.  It’s bar far some of the best animal shots I’ve gotten, and had I not still had a lot of the park to see, I could have stayed there all day capturing these amazing cats.  It was by far the best animal experience of 2010.

Best Photography Moment #12:

Thunderbird Vapor

Naval Base Ventura County (NBVC) Point Mugu Air Station has always been known as ‘Vapor Fest’ to airshow photographers.  Since a few years ago when the F-22A Raptor nearly disappeared into it’s own vapor for it’s entire demo airshow photographers have been eager to catch those beautiful ‘money shots’ as the vapor appears.  Vapor, instantaneous condensation of water molecules caused by disruptions and shockwaves which are generated by the fast moving aircraft’s surfaces.  What?  Basically, the airplanes move so fast that it disrupts the air, making instant clouds to form.  And it’s very instant, sometimes only lasting a millisecond and vanishing as they hit a pocket of hotter or less dense air.  You can read up and view more about vapor on the showcase image located here. For the 2010 Point Mugu Airshow, all eyes were on the various demo teams including the USAF Thunderbirds for some incredible vapor.  Overall, there wasn’t as much moisture in the air as previous years, but there was on spectacular moment during the first day of the airshow when during the 6 aircraft ‘delta’ formation all 6 Thunderbirds pulled vapor on a high G climb, hitting the sun just right to make a beautiful rainbow effect.  It lasted less than a second, then vanished, but for the rare few who caught it with their cameras ready, the photo is astonishing. One other thing that made the photo even more impressive is the sun angle, creating shadows from the tails of the aircraft.  It was a pretty awesome sight to see in person, and for me a great excitement to realize I had caught that precious moment!

Best Photography Moment #13:

Fort Mac Sunset

Every year in February, the Fort MacArthur museum in San Pedro, California, puts on a recreation of a 1942 air raid event that actually took place.  The event is attended by many people dressed in 1940s military and civilian uniforms, with military vehicles and equipment on display along with swing dancing to big band music and the eventual air raid reenactment in the evening.  It’s one of the best 1940s events in all the United States.  To top off all that excitement and fun, the sunsets out at sea are spectacular, and the high cliff tops of San Pedro offers some beautiful spots to take photos as the sun slips the sky bringing darkness. This year, the Planes of Fame Air Museum had sent their World War 2 era M1 Sherman Tank to put on a demo, and as the sun was setting the Sherman was parked with the beautiful sunset in the distance.  Not wanting to waste this rare opportunity, I started snapping some HDRI photos of both the Sherman and the sunset, knowing how rare it was to see the Sherman in this setting.  The result was pretty spectacular.

Best Photography Moment #14:

Pearl Harbor Train

Another retro event put on each year called the ‘Pearl Harbor Troop Train’ brings veterans and civilians alike on board two 40s and 50s era passenger cars that are attached to a modern AMTRACK engine.  The trip takes passengers who pay tickets for this amazing experience from the Los Angeles Union Station to San Diego Union Station, and back… and then back down to San Diego finishing at Los Angeles once again.  On board the two cars, the ticketed passengers on this special trip are entertained by reenactors, singers, retro comedians, and stories from various veterans.  It’s an incredible experience to be on this train, and I was fortunate enough to be asked to come on board the train as a reenactor going up and giving War Bond and Defense Stamp speeches during the two trips.  Naturally, I brought my out of place modern camera with me as I didn’t want to miss the great shots that would be plentiful on this trip.  While being on board the train and snapping shots while also talking with veterans and interacting with the guests with mileage rationing skits was a lot of fun, it was actually the stop at the Los Angeles Union Station after the first trip to San Diego and back that really presented me with many photo ops.  The beautiful Los Angeles Union Station is as vintage as it gets, and it wasn’t very hard to snap photos that look like were taken 60 years ago during the war.

Best Photography Moment #15:

Foggy Main Street

It’s not too uncommon to see fog in Orange County, California, but to see really thick fog isn’t as easy to find.  Occasionally we’ll have the very hot days that lead into the very cold nights, and a thick layer of fog will roll almost instantly into the area.  Such is what happened on the night of December 13, 2010.  That evening at Disneyland park in Anaheim, California, was a special Christmas Cast Party for all the cast members and their families.  The park had closed down early, and once cleared out only the Cast Members and their one person they could bring would be allowed in.  Staying till the very end of the party had it’s advantages, like non-existent lines on the rides and attractions.  To end the long night, I always enjoy sitting on the Train Station at the entrance to Main Street and watch the people leave as the beautiful Christmas music plays.  I was up there that night with a friend, just listening to the music play as we played with our phones enjoying the time to relax as the people leaving was growing thinner and thinner.  Soon, the park was nearly empty with only the die hards left, those who were still buying things on Main Street.  I had been looking down at my phone for about 10 or so minutes, playing the popular Angry Birds game for the Android phones, when I happened to take a second to look up down Main Street by the massive Christmas Tree.  To my amazement and surprise, a thick fog had enveloped the park, out of what seemed like no where since when just 10 minutes before when I was looking up there was no fog in sight.  With my camera right next to me, I sprang into work heading down the Train Station to Main Street snapping photos of the area with this thick fog that seemed to catch and spread the light from the various shops and the distant castle.  The photos were pretty amazing, and show just how thick the fog was getting.  The long exposures, unfortunately, captured more light than our eyes could see as at one point you could barely make out the castle in the distance.  But even with more light coming in, the shots were pretty fantastic and along with the rather empty Main Street making for some very rare and stunning shots!

Honorable Mention:

Comic Con Princess Shoot

Unable to eliminate this moment since it was still a great photo of 2010, I decided to make it Honorable Mention for the sole reason I shot with these wonderful gals last year at Comic Con as well.  But this year, the ‘Sexy Princess Group’ (as they are known all over) shot with me in a more professional way, a portable studio setup in the hotel room.  Rooming with a few of the gals in the group, the day of the Con that they decided to walk around as your not so usual Princess group they all came to the hotel room to get ready.  Knowing this in advance and setting it up with the gals, we decided to do photoshoots of each gal as they finished getting ready in the hotel room.  A make shift studio was put together with professional studio lights, backdrop, and more with what little space we were able to clear out.  Shooting with each of the gals one at a time was a lot of fun, and some really great shots were taken.  But of all the shots, the most requested and viewed one was a recreation of Disney artist Brianna Garcia’s famous ‘Silly Princess Faces’ photo in the hotel room.  This art recreation had been attempted before, but not in a studio setting, even if it was a mini studio.  The resulting photo was pretty spot on, and something the gals all loved.  I was very honored to be able to follow the gals around documenting their appearance at Comic Con as their photographer, and what a hit they were causing massive crowds to form to take photos of and with them.  Later in the evening as the sun was setting, I continued the tradition I had started the year before with the gals in taking them back behind the San Diego convention center and shooting them with the rich sunset light.  It was a delight to work with these beautiful gals, and something I hope to continue in 2011, which makes them included in this top moments of 2010 list!

Have a WONDERFUL New Year everyone!

SHOWCASE PHOTO:
‘RAPTOR SUNSET’

The Lockeed F-22A Raptor. The symbol of modern Air Power for the United States and the US Air Force. The most technological fighter currently in service, a cutting edge of aviation innovation and design.  The Raptor, which still has some features on the plane that are deemed classified by the US Government, is a favorite at Airshow all over ther United States.  Performing manuvers and displays unlike any other aircraft, the Raptor stops everyone in their tracks and makes them look skyward as they see this amazing aircraft ‘flip’ a 360 almost in place. Thanks tot he directional thrust vectoring on the Raptor, it can perform banks and rolls that other aircraft could only dream about.   The Raptor is designed with the latest stealth technology able to fool radars with it’s very sleek and radar absorbent shape.  Home to a squadron of F-22 Raptors and also a major training facility for Raptor pilots around the nation, Nellis Air Force Base on the outskirts of Las Vegas, Nevada (also known as ‘Fighter Town’) the Raptor is a yearly participant in the base’s open house Airshow in November.  It was on the evening of the last day of the 2010 Nellis Air Force Base Airshow (called ‘Aviation Nation’ by fans) that a special sunset photo (ABOVE) presented itself to me during the last few minutes of light in a shot that is probably my most favorite Raptor shot yet and also one of those ‘luck’ shots that came and went in an instant.

Whenever the Raptor rolls out to the end of the runway, you can look down the Airshow fence line and see every photographer’s camera raise up into position ready to catch it.  I can’t think of too many people who don’t get excited when the Raptor demo is about to take to the skies.  Naturally, the Raptor is one of the heaviest photographed aircraft (I’d say) at Airshows in America when it appears. Because of the cost of the aircraft and the top secret nature of some parts still, the Raptor is kept under high guard at airshows, and often times the closest you can get IF there is even a Raptor on static (meaning non-flying) display is about 20 feet with a rope line and armed guards between you and the Raptor.  The can be an advantage for shooting the Raptor on the ground with limited people in your shot, but also means having to work around rope lines or fences.  For the Nellis show in November, there was a Raptor on static display well down the ramp, but it was the two demo aircraft Raptors that were parked in the Hot Ramp area (where all the performing aircraft are parked) that had the Las Vegas skyline behind them that got the most attention from photographers throughout the day.  Because of FAA rules, the public is kept a distance away from any performing aircraft, so there was a metal fence, about waist high, blocking the crowd from getting anywhere near the Hot Ramp. But that also meant you could get some really spectacular shots of the Raptor with Vegas in the distance (see photo to the left).  Another bonus is all the aircraft normally stationed at Nellis off in the distance as well lined up in rows.  In the morning I shot a lot of photos of the two Raptors and the other performing aircraft in this area as best as I could with a telephoto lens, which really provided some great angles and close ups (from a distance) of the aircraft.

In previous years at Nellis, I knew that this Hot Ramp area would be a prime location at the very end of the show after most of the crowds had left and gone home to catch the beautiful sunset ‘liquid light’ as it painted the reflective skins of the aircraft parked there because the sun would set just behind and to the right of the hot ramp (see photo to right).  This made for some truly spectacular sunset shots, and of the best ways for me to close out that long day of the show.  The first day of the 2010 Nellis AFB show ended with a wonderful sunset, but the cloud cover blocked a lot of that liquid light I was looking for.  Having to abandon getting my wonderful sunset shots that evening, I hoped that the next day would be better and give me more of the previous year’s light.  Las Vegas during November can be a bit unpredictable, some years have even brought heavy rains right after the show has ended (literally).  While it’s hit or miss, the times that you do get those spectacular Vegas sunsets are worth the wait, even if it means hanging out at the base for a few hours after the show has ended and just before the Base security kindly tells you it’s time to leave. So once the show ended and the last USAF Thunderbird F-16 landed at the finish of the show on the second day, I started to watch the sky as it went from blue to shades of yellow.

Now, how the showcase photo up top came to happen… On the last day of an airshow often times performers will want to head home, especially since all civilian performers are not based at military base airshows.  They’ll fly out as soon as the show ends and the runways are cleared for departures.  For a photographer, this is a great chance to hang around and photograph many of the aircraft that didn’t fly or were on static display as they head home. This also means catching them during the sunset light giving them that golden light color that most photographers crave.  Unfortunately, though, for those who stayed after at the Nellis show on the second day, most of the aircraft were staying overnight and going home the next morning or had already left for home after their demos. Only a handful of aerobatic performers decided to leave right at the end of the show.  As soon as the show ended, I hung around the Hot Ramp area taking photos of the static aircraft that were in the area waiting for the sun to lower just a little bit more to cause that vivid orange light to paint on the various Raptors, Hornets, Phantoms, and other aircraft parked out there on the ramp.  A few performers were lined up to take off, mostly biplane aerobatics, just off to the side of the Hot Ramp on the taxi way.  Finally, the sun had fallen enough for me to start to get the glow I wanted, and it was a spectacular sunset for it! Waiting had paid off once again, but I was about to have a chance to photography the Raptor in a way that’s unique and rare which would make the wait no question of being worth it.

As I was shooting the aircraft on the ramp with the liquid light on them, one of the last aerobatic performers to leave decided to give a nice little goodbye present to everyone still in the area and as he taxied into position for take off next to the Hot Ramp, he turned on his airshow smoke system sending the otherwise aviation photographer’s nightmere smoke into the beautiful sunset sky.  I realized this right away, and noticed that the slight breeze was pushing the smoke towards the hot ramp, right behind the aircraft.  At first I was annoyed realizing that in a matter of seconds my previous few minutes I had while the sunset was perfect and the light golden would be hazed by this ugly smoke and the shots ruined.  Not to mention by the time the smoke would clear, the sun would have gone behind the distant mountains, and the golden light gone.  Snapping the most crucial shots I wanted as fast as I could as the smoke traveled closer to the first Raptor, I began to get upset that my waiting had been ruined. I saw the smoke reach the first Raptor parked closest to the runway, and I knew that my time was up.  Putting down my camera and watching the smoke race across the hot ramp like a hazy filter ruining a shot, I watched as the shots became muddy and gross. Figuring that at least I’d gotten some shots, I turned by attention around towards the airshow flightline and snapped some shots of a passing Coast Guard helicopter that was leaving.  I then took one last look back towards the Hot Ramp to take one final good look at all the aircraft before heading back towards the entrance to the show to take the bus back to the parking lot, I noticed that the Base guards had already positioned themselves in front of that fence that holds back people from the Hot Ramp in preparation for the big ‘push’ where they sweep the entire flight line and usher out all the show guests.  But just then, my eyes met that first Raptor, which was now fully engulfed in the smoke from that now departed aerobatic plane, and the densest part of the smoke passed right through it.  Instantly I ran over to that fence between two of the guards and started to shoot.  I was only able to get three shots off of the Raptor with the smoke acting like a beautiful fog with the shape of the Raptor painted with orange light sitting there seeming to be all alone.  Of those three shots, only one came out spectacular, with the smoke and light working together to give a beautiful dramatic shot of the famed Raptor fighter. One of the other shots, where that dense part of the smoke had already passed the Raptor is to the left.

And just as fast as the shot appeared, it vanished. The smoke was there, but now it returned to looking like just a residual haze and smog more than a dramatic opening shot to the next Top Gun (Air Force version) movie.  I was beyond happy and excited to see I’d gotten the one photo I saw with my eyes, and it’s for sure one of my favorite all time Raptor shots, one I plan to make a large print of and hang on the wall for the luck shot I almost missed.

For more in this series, click here!

SHOWCASE PHOTO:
‘HELLO THERE HUMAN’

Just like the right place at the right time capture with the little burrowing owl that I posed a few months ago, this little squirrel gave me one of the best photo ops of any animal, and it was all by happen chance, and of all places it was a parking lot at the Disneyland Resort.

I had gone to the Disneyland theme park here in Southern California to take some photos of the characters in the park.  I was only going to be at the park for a very short time, and I was running a bit late getting to the park, so I decided to park in Downtown Disney (or DTD as it’s abbreviated) where you can park for three hours for free.  It’s a lot quicker to walk from DTD to the Disneyland theme park rather than park in the giant parking structure and take the trams.  After going into Disneyland to take the photos and finishing what I needed, I returned to the Downtown Disney parking lot and walked out to my car.  About half way to my car, I noticed some movement in the corner of my eye.  I looked over and saw a rather good sized Squirrel staring up at me from the road.  He was off to my left behind a car, just looking up at me.  I also noticed that he wasn’t moving as I got closer to him.  Realizing he was probably used to humans and didn’t have that fear which would make most squirrels run when a human approached, I decided to go around him.  As I past him he just stared up at me, as if to ask if I had any food (or perhaps change) to spare.  Now past the little guy, I continued on to my car and glanced back at the squirrel… to find he was following me.

I couldn’t help but laugh, looking back and seeing that little squirrel looking up at me and following me through the parking lot. I’d walk forward and stop, and the little guy would walk forward and stop as well. I had instantly made a new friend.  I swung around and tried to get a few shots, but I guess he wasn’t ready for his close up as he’d keep moving, making him a bit hard to shoot. Perhaps I wasn’t shooting his best side.  Continuing on to my car, I realized as I reached it and went to open the door that the squirrel was RIGHT behind me.  I was afraid that if I were to open the door he might hop inside.  Aside from the fact I’d rather not have some sort of rabies from getting bit had he jumped into my car, I didn’t think the little guy would let me keep him as a pet.  So, I decided to try and get him out of the parking lot and over to a nearby tree.  Turning towards the tree, he took the bait and as I got closer to the tree ran up it.  It was then that I realized this little squirrel was a perfect photo opportunity, and so I decided to quickly get my camera ready and see what I could get out of this little squirrel.

Thankfully, I had been shooting with my large 100-400mm Canon telephoto lens, so it was easy to pop that back onto my camera to get some nice close ups of the squirrel up the tree.  I think that in the time I was getting my camera ready the little guy must have made sure he was presentable, as once I raised my camera he started to give me all sorts of photo opportunities.  But of all the shots I got that afternoon, by far it’s the photo that’s featured in this showcase that stands out the most.  Naturally I was making little sounds to get him to look at me, and in this case he tilted his head with a little ‘hmm?’ sort of puzzled look.  It’s that classic animal head tilt that always makes everyone go ‘awwwww!’  Though, I have to wonder if it was the squirrel just trying to figure out why this human was making all these funny noises and aiming this massive canon camera at him with a huge lens that’s making clicking noises.  The little guy proceeded to do all sorts of things, probably realizing I’m not a threat and I have no food for him.  From cleaning himself to rubbing his little paws together and stretching on the tree, it was a great little photoshoot.

Probably the best squirrel photos I can ever hope to get, this little guy was quite the photo stud.  For the rest of the 15 minutes that I ended up shooting with him, he ran all over the tree, up and down it as well, and spent a lot of time just staring at me.  Eventually, he ran down the tree and under some cars nearby, and that was the last I saw of him.  I often wonder, when I go into the Downtown Disney parking lot, whatever happened to the little guy.  It’s a pretty dangerous place to be hanging out, especially with as busy as the Downtown Disney parking lot can get on weekends.  Hopefully this Disney squirrel made it to somewhere safe, perhaps even took refuge with Chip and Dale in Toon Town.  Wherever you are now little guy, thanks for the photos!

For more in this series, click here!

PETTY ARTWORK #010: OCTOBER WITCH

Something a little festive for the start of the Petty Project posts on here, along with the month of October. Originally this was a piece of artwork that was done by Petty for Esquire magazine’s annual calendar which would feature his work made specifically for the calendar.  Generally the images were themed to the months, going from classic stereotypical genres to really obscure that can take a few minutes to figure out how it relates.  Petty’s original work (seen to the left) is one of his most classic and loved pieces.  It’s your classic Petty Girl, having some fun dressing up for Halloween.  With the wind blown hair and the very conforming full body tights, this Petty Girl manages to make a witch look sexy and like your classic girl next door of the 40s and 50s.  Most people who’ve seen classic pinups before probably have seen this piece, it often appears in anything that has to do with Petty.  It was reprinted several times following it’s premiere in Esquire’s calendar and appeared in other companies calendars once Petty left Esquire with the rights to his Petty Girls he’d done for Esquire.  One of the nice things about being able to keep his rights, the images appears in several other calendars from different companies over the years, an easy source of revenue for Petty.

The concept for this Petty work is pretty simple overall, with blackish green full body tights, a witch hat, green heeled shoes with a large buckle, green ribbon, and gloves. A bit of wind blown hair and a classic smile finishes the ensemble, with a drawn in broom for her to ride on.  My very beautiful friend and model Kayla volunteered to do this shot, picking it out of the many many different Petty poses I have to recreate.  One of her favorites, and certainly one of Petty’s most classic pinups, she was really excited to recreate this one, as I was I.  After pre-planning the outfit and trying to figure out what was available (it was after the New Year, so all Halloween stores were gone, finding pieces for this would be tough). The nice thing about shooting this project basically for Photoshop post work is that a lot of things could be fudged to fix later in ‘post’.  Still, though, I wanted to get it as close as possible so there was less time I had to spend changing things.  The original shot we did in the studio proved, as many of these Petty poses have shown, to be more difficult to capture than planned.  Basically, gals just don’t bend that way.  Even Petty himself stated that the Petty gal could not exist, she was too impossibly shaped and bent.  Using a black leotard top and black form fitting tights, Kayla put together most of the outfit itself.  Finding shoes that were pretty close (but a different color) she made her own buckle for the shoes which helped out tremendously.  I was able to find a witch hat that was laying around and use that, along with some green ribbon for her hair.  The long gloves, however, were another story.  finding gloves that long post-halloween was a bit difficult, especially when you’re not trying to spend a fortune on them.  The original idea was to just buy long gloves and cut holes for the fingers, but that seemed like a waste for the gloves, so we decided to just do that all in post.  I was able to find the correct length of gloves, however they were bright red.  Thankfully, changing the color of something in photoshop (especially a darker color like red) is pretty easy.  Putting it all together along with a broom I had bought the previous Halloween, the final studio shot is far from the final product, but the closest we could get with what we had.

We discovered that it was near impossible to get the wind machines to blow her hair in the way I wanted while she was in the full pose.  Problem was that the way Kayla has to hold the witch hat wasn’t enough for it to stay on with the wind machines cranked up to max power.  So we decided to shoot her without the wind machines to get the overall pose and body shots done, then just do some wind machine shots of her hair that I’d digitally add in later.  We had to take a few different shots and move the wind machines around quite a bit in order to get the correct flow of the hair to match Petty’s witch.  All in all, it would eventually take three shots combined of her hair to get the look I was going for mostly because her hair was unpredictable with the wind machines. Below you can see two of the original shots of her hair that were used in combination along with another shot to get the final hair look.  The same thing applied to her gloves.  Since we didn’t want to ruin them by cutting the fingers out, we decided to take two shots… one of her with gloves, then she’d hold the pose and I’d run over and take the gloves off.  To the right is one of the original shots of Kayla without the gloves, which would be digitally combined with the red gloves (but more on that in a bit).

After taking a few more shots and close ups from different angles just to be sure, I had all the photos I needed for that outfit.  It was then time for the very long and hard work in photoshop to turn this photo into a piece of digital art that looks like Petty’s master artwork.  Now, I’m not going to go through a step by step process on how I did everything.  That’d take way too long and frankly mostly of it I forget! Taking the image into Adobe Photoshop, the first step was the correct a lot of the angles.  Making Kayla bend her leg in an impossible way to get an angle of her leg to upper body that matched more of Petty’s witch.  Then to arch Kayla’s back a bit more which would certainly have not been very good for it had she attempted to arch in that way in that pose.  Kayla’s hair with the three photos seamlessly were combined to get the correct (or close as possible) wind effect. Photo to the right shows the raw photoshop in-process progress with the other images that have been combined with the original one clearly visible.  Eventually, all of these bad transitions of the photo edges will be cleaned up with Kayla is extracted from the background.

I ended up not being thrilled with the witch hat we used.  It wasn’t at the right angle, and wasn’t large enough.  I realized that in order to really get that angle of Kayla’s arms, hands, and head I’d been a bigger hat, so I decided to just do one myself in photoshop using the photographed hat as reference.  In the next step process photo shown here, you can see that there’s been a lot of editing of Kayla’s hands, and the red gloves have been turned to black. I’ve started to add back in her back hand (which then will have the now black gloves laid back on top of her hands with the fingers removed so that it appears like she has black fingerless gloves).  I’ve removed her left hand, which is in front, to add more of the hat so that the transition between the black glove and her fingers doesn’t have any weird holes.  The green ribbons, which in the shots without the wind machine just dangled behind her back, are in two places still behind her back and correctly flying in her hair. Those will be removed as well when she’s cut from the background.  For now I’ve decided that since I will have to redraw in the witch broom anyway, I’m not going to worry about it and re-add it in later.

Now things are starting to look more like Petty’s artwork.  The black fingerless gloves have been completely brought in and the hat has been finished.  Note, the hat does look pretty fake here and it’s clear it’s been photoshopped, but the process in which takes the final photograph and turns it into an airbrushed painting like Petty’s will blend that to the point it looks real.  There’s a couple things that still needed to be added to Kayla, just as her back arm which is missing from the shot.  The photo looks like a complete mess, but that will change once the next step is finished where Kayla is extracted.  This stage is where all the little touchups and fixes happen to finish the completed photograph.  A lot of work has already gone into getting it to this stage which can result in several days of work.  The blending of the photograph is the longest part of the whole process, and while a lot of fun, the part I dread most since it’s a lot of tedious work.  That’s why we attempt to get the original studio shot as close as possible to the Petty artwork, something that might take a few minutes in the studio to fix could save me hours of time in Photoshop.

After several hours of work, the image has been carefully cut away from the background.  Now it’s really starting to look more like Petty’s work, but it’s still a photograph.  The broom, for now, has been removed completely as I need to focus on just Kayla.  Other adjustments were made to finish off the image while it’s still a photograph.  Now that Kayla is cleaned and cut away from the background, the final bits of editing can happen in prep for turning the image into an airbrushed looking art piece. The toughest part about this is the hair, removing it front the background, especially since it’s all over the place, is a very difficult task! But after a few hours of work extracting Kayla and cleaning up the extracted image to have nice crisp edges, it’s ready for shading.  The extraction was done with a mixture of a Photoshop plugin called Fluid Mask and the lasso tool for the more complex areas that require more attention.  Kayla’s back arm was also re added back into the shot right before she was extracted. It’s just a standard white background for now, but the background can be changed to any color, and will be changed to a more old fashioned paper color one the airbrush process starts.

Airbrush shading, I’ve come to find, is near impossible to replicate easily in a studio setting.  It’s a piece of art, of course, so the light naturally is altered to match what the artist needs in the piece. Therefore, the lighting that falls on the subject is many times unrealistic in a real life situation, even if you don’t see it with your eye looking at the piece.  For this shot, there was a lot of what I call ‘edge darkening’ where the light falls off on the edges of the Petty gal’s body.  It’s almost like a slightly straight on and to the high right single light, but on other parts of her body it looks like it’s from a different direction.  Not to mention I needed to get an almost shine effect on the now full body leotard.  This almost automatically gives the image an painted look.  But I’m going for airbrushed, not painted!  The effect was achieved with the use of dodging and burning in Photoshop, a type of under and overexposing that dates back to the original days of film photography in a darkroom.  Doing this to Kayla gives her leotard a nice sheen look and helps to accent her curves, something that also worked for the Petty Girls.

And now what I call the ‘Petty Process’ begins.  This is a multistage process in photoshop which I’ve created an action for that turns the model from Kayla to an airbrushed Petty Girl.  It’s not completely automated, there’s still several steps in which the action stops and I have to do manual work.  This is one of those steps, where I have to give the image a ‘paint smeared’ sort of look.  Using various tools in photoshop, I smooth out the skin tones, and give a brush stroke texture look to the whole image, preserving the details of Kayla.  This is especially effective for the hair on these photos, as if I were not to go and make them look painted here they’d appear too realistic and way too ultra detailed to be an airbrushed artwork.  This step can take a good half hour since the image is at full 10 megapixel size in photoshop.  In effect, I’m digitally re-painting the image in a way here going over the entire image.  This is mostly important for the skin tones as the Petty Girls had no imperfections int heir skin, and if not removed from the photograph the Petty Process can actually make those imperfections worse if not removed.  But the plus side to this is that you get that painted texture to the skin tones, which end up separating the photo from a real photograph to an art piece. Already it looks like some of the more modern style pinups that are painted digitally.

After that’s completed, the specially built ‘Petty Process’ action continues making various blending layers from the original photo and the painted version I just completed. There is about 21 layers when all is finished as the different blend modes bring out that airbrushed style of colors and faded look of the gal.  Already it’s starting to give a more artwork look than a photograph here. It’s still too dark and contrasty, however, to mimic one of Petty’s shots. So more blending layers and texture layers will be added to give it that final airbrushed look. The outline has already started to form that gives the image even more of an artistic look, and the painted effect I had just done starts to bring out the color tones in Kayla’s skin.  This is fine tuned along the way, occasionally I have to adjust something that is unique to each shot since Petty’s artwork isn’t completely consistent as far as colors and tones go. When I get to this step, things are almost done and I can start to see what the final product will look like.  It’s also a time where, as photoshop is working, I can sit back and relax for a second having worked on the photo for quite a few hours!

It has finally finished!  The last step is to digitally draw the broom back in, which I enlarged and elongated to match the broom in Petty’s shot. Using some more various blending layers and a few special filters in photoshop, I’m able to turn those red lines into a pencil drawn look for the broom.  From here I’ve added a high resolution ‘old paper’ texture that’s as close to the type of texture you’d find on many of the Petty calendars from the 40s and 50s that have aged over the years.  After a few color adjustments and any final tweaks, the final image is done.  It’s time now to compare to the original to make sure I didn’t forget anything, which also usually also brings about a few more tweaks just to get it a tad closer, but overall the image is done.  The final step is to add my Petty inspired logo to the bottom corner, and the Petty Gal ‘Witch’ with Kayla is now complete!

I hope you enjoyed the long look at how the Petty Process works.  While not a complete ‘how to’, it gives some insight into the long process that it takes to mimic Petty’s master style through photography and photoshop.  I hope to showcase other Petty Project recreations in the future!

All photos and Petty Process artwork are © Britt Dietz and may not be used without permission.  George Petty Witch image © respective owner(s).

You’re walking to your car after a long day. You’re exhausted and ready to sit down in your car, trying to use the last drops of energy you have after standing in the heat all day to make it to the car, which is now in sight.  Suddenly, a loud thunderous roar echoes in the late afternoon sky, starting from a low rumble and growing loudly till the ground begins to tremble.  Scanning the skies, you don’t see anything at first, but the roaring sound is too hard to ignore as the ground vibrates.  Finally spotting what appears at fist to be a single dot in the distant horizon, this dot begins to multiply and turns into several dots.  As these dots grow larger, they begin to morph into the shapes of US Marine helicopters, many different ones all heading towards you.  The heat from their engine exhaust combine to ripple anything behind them as they triumphantly announce their arrival to anything in the vicinity.  Attack helicopters lead the pack followed by a squadron worth of other Marine helicopters, all carrying precious cargo of Marines to their destination.  Put in some Hans Zimmer music, and you’d swear you were watching something out of a Michael Bay film… but in this case, it was very real.

As usual, let’s backtrack before the rest of the story and talk a bit about the history behind MCAS Miramar: MCAS Miramar, located in San Diego California, is most famously known for being the former location of the elite Top Gun school and where the movie bearing the Top Gun name was filmed in the 1980s back when it was still a US Naval base. MCAS Miramar was opened as Camp Kearny in 1917 during World War 1.  Rarely used, the base sat mostly abandoned in 1920 until the US Navy took over the base and turned it into a dirigible blimp base.  In 1943, the base became known as Naval Auxiliary Air Station Camp Kearny and had three runways for use in training pilots to fly Navy version Liberators. The Marines were able to lease a part of the base in 1934, and then took the northern part of the base during the start of World War 2, in which they named their part of the base as Marine Corps Air Depot Miramar.  At the end of the World War 2, both the US Navy and Us Marines were using the base for aviation purposes, however during 1946 the US Navy left the based and Camp Kearny became known as Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. This was short lived as the Marines moved to MCAS El Toro in 1947, and MCAS Miramar became known as a Naval Auxiliary Air Station.  The base started to gain it’s reputation as a top notch facility in the 1950s with the introduction of the Jet Fighter squadrons. The base was transformed, and soon the need for a school for fighter pilots was brought to Miramar where the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School was created.  In 1993, the BRACC (Base Realignment and Closure Commission) suggested that MCAS El Toro and MCAS Tustin be closed and transfered to NAS Miramar, which would be then handed back over the Marines to become MCAS Miramar once again. In 1999, the last groups of El Toro and Tustin were moved over to Miramar and the base becamed known as MCAS Miramar officially.

The home of the Third Marine Air Wing, MCAS Miramar is host to many different squadrons and aircraft ranging from fighter jets to helicopters.  MCAS Miramar hosts every type of US Marine aircraft currently in service except for the AV-8B Harrier jet.  There are several Marine rotary wing squadrons based at MCAS Miramar, ranging from CH-53E Super Stallions, AH-1W Super Cobras, CH-46E Sea Knights, UH-1N Hueys, and the new MV-22 Ospreys. Many of which were transfered from MCAS El Toro, the helicopter squadrons share the base with the fixed wing aircraft squadrons that are comprised of  F/A-18 Hornets and C-130J Hercules.  Many of these different squadrons have participated in various conflicts and well known battles of during the recent wars.  MCAS Miramar’s squadrons and personnel continually support the military in front line operations in the middle east as well.

The MCAS Miramar Airshow happens each year usually during the first weekend of October. One of the largest Military base airshows in the entire United States, the show brings nearly one million people out to enjoy the packed lineup demonstrating the fast and slow of the aviation world from aerobatics to the very latest high tech military aircraft.  Harking back to the days of the long gone MCAS El Toro airshows up north from Miramar, the Miramar show has the same qualities and standard line ups that El Toro used to have, making it a favorite among those who used to frequent the El Toro airshows each year until 1997 when they put on their last airshow before the El Toro based closed in 1998. The airshow lasts three days, with a practice show open to the public on Friday and the two days of the full show on Saturday and Sunday.  Admission is always free to the airshow, though the base offers grandstand seats and booth chalets that are able to be purchased.  The 2010 Airshow packed quite a bunch with the lineup of aircraft, ranging from demonstrations by the US Air Force’s F-16 Viper and F-22 Raptor, US Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet demonstration, and the US Marine’s demonstration of the AV-8B Harrier and Marine Air Ground Task Force simulated war. The show was headlined by the world famous US Navy Blue Angel flight demonstration team and the Canadian Snowbirds.  On static display for up close viewing was nearly every type of active Marine and Naval aircraft currently in service along with several US Air Force jet aircraft.  But while the airshow this year thrilled nearly a million people and caused thunderous roar in the skies above San Diego, it was an even that happened after the airshow on the Friday practice day that stands out above the other days of the show… when the sky rumbled from the unexpected arrival of aircraft that seemed to pop out of an action movie.

It was getting late, and myself and a few other photographers had stayed on the base pretty much until we were asked to leave by the MPs giving us time to not only take photos of the aircraft on display without airshow attendees in out shots, but to also beat out the traffic mess of people leaving the base once the show ended.  Taking our time walking back to our cars, it was only by happened chance that a series of delays caused us to take even longer to get there.  Had we left earlier than we did, this story and these photos would never have been.  Thankfully, everything fell into place, and as we exited the show line and made our way on the long journey through MCAS Miramar to the far tarmac where our cars were parked little did we know that something huge was inbound, a few miles out. Finally reaching the tarmac where our cars were located, which is normally the landing area and storage tarmac for the various helicopter squadrons at Miramar, we took some time to stop and get photos of the US Navy Blue Angel’s C-130 Hercules support aircraft named ‘Fat Albert’ before finally calling it a day and saying goodbye and that we’d all meet up the next day for the show.  Breaking off from them, I realized that my friend who’d accompanied me on the drive to Miramar from our home in Orange County had already started walking towards the car as he was ready to sit down and rest.  As I started to catch up, I spotted the car (which wasn’t really difficult as there was only about 20 or so cars left), and that’s when I heard the distant rumble of something. I paid no attention to it at first, thinking it was a distant civilian chopper or some random marine huey coming in.  But as I continued to walk forward, the sound got louder, echoing through the tarmac off the hangars.  I started to scan the skies, unable to ignore the sound at this point.  Figuring I’d see a lone Huey, I looked for the unmistakable shape, but the sound kept getting louder and yet I was unable to spot anything.  Now the roar of something big was beginning to turn the heads of people who were lingering towards their cars like I was, and I found myself stopping in my tracks and scanning the skies.  It was then that I noticed what appeared to be a few distant dots towards the north west towards the setting sun.  Squinting trying to make out what these couple of dots were, it hit me that it wasn’t just a couple of dots, but instead a LOT of dots and they were all heading towards MCAS Miramar.

Running to catch up with Andrew, I pointed out upon reaching him, where the sound was coming from.  Excitedly, I still couldn’t make out what they were, but I quickly put on the largest lens I have, a 100-400mm Canon lens, in an attempt to identify what was headed our way.  It was then I started snapping photos and realized that it was a massive gaggle of helios coming in.  Dropping pretty much everything we were carrying, I started to snap photos like crazy as Andrew put my spare 100-400mm lens on his Canon 7D and started to take video of the thunderous roar that has everyone on the tarmac looking skyward.  Soon, the shapes of all the helios came into clear view, and every jaw of everyone in that parking lot hit the ground as everyone scrambled for any sort of camera they could get ahold of to take photos.  The ground was shaking from the power of all the helicopters combined, and any silence that had fallen over Miramar was broken with the deafening roar. Flying in a loose formation over the nothern entrance to MCAS Miramar, the helios started to descend rapidly as they now headed towards the east side of the field on the other side of the base from where we were located, the location where the Marines had moved all the helicopters that would normally be sitting where our cars now were parked.

Figuring they would land with the other helios off to the east side, everyone that was left in the parking lot was taking as many photos and movies as they could before the helios disappeared behind the massive hangars.  Leading them were three attack Bell AH-1W Super Cobras, followed by two Bell UH-1N Hueys. Finishing up the formation was a squadron’s worth of Boeing CH-46E Sea Knights, nine of them to be exact. The Sea Knights and the Hueys were a part of the HMM-163 ‘Evil Eyes‘ squadron, part of the 3rd Marine Air Wing and Marine Aircraft Group 16.  The squadron name was formerly known as the ‘Ridge Runners’, but they go by the nickname ‘Evil Eyes’ with the sinister eyes painted on the nose of the squadron aircraft.  As all the choppers rounded the corner on the east side and sunk below the hangars, the realization of what we’d just seen hit everyone and laughter and excitement followed.  Figuring that the impromptu show was over, people started to once again pack up and head towards their cars.  The distant roar of the choppers could still be heard echoing in the distance. Suddenly, the roar of the choppers intensified as they rounded the corner on the east side of the runway and started to follow the runway down where the airshow had taken place. This brought them back into view slightly, but behind the tower and obstructed by the distant airshow aircraft and Miramar buildings.  ’If only we were still on the airshow flightline!’ I thought to myself as at that moment they were hovering in front of what was the crowd line.  Some people decided that it was time to go so they went ahead and continued to pack up leaving and missing what was about to happen.  As we watched the aircraft lower towards the ground in what appeared to be their landing, we all silently wished that we were back at the show.  And that’s when they turned towards us.

Before I finish the rest of the story, I’d like to present something a bit different.  The first Airshow Review produced video of the arrival of the helios at MCAS Miramar.  It’s rough footage because of the chaotic spontaneous moments that happened as the helicopters arrived, so bear in mind it’s raw footage shot by Andrew Lockerbie on a Canon 7D SLR (yes, a digital SLR camera video).  Andrew took the best shots he got of the arrival and edited together with some fun Transformers music to make this wonderful montage of the events that happened to give you all a great moving visual idea of the sights and sounds of what we witnessed.  This will be the first of many Airshow Review videos to come, especially once the new Airshow Review site is opened.

After realizing that we’d seen the last bit we could as the choppers appeared to be landing, suddenly the Cobras continued forward down the runway, and turned inward on the taxiway… straight towards us.  The Cobras came in on a slow hover, followed by the two Hueys.  The heat haze from the engines and the sleek attack shape of the Cobras made for photos and video that could only otherwise be seen in action movies. The light was perfect, the sun was setting the the orange glow hitting one side of the aircraft.  All those who were left were perfectly dead on facing the choppers as they came closer and closer.  Looking back now, it only seemed like miliseconds that they were coming at us, but the time on the photos I took said it was a few minutes that they were hovering towards our cars.  From the photos, it seems like the Cobras are far too close to eachother considering their rotor blade lengths, but it’s all just an illusion.  Looking straight at the Cobra coming towards you, you couldn’t help but to be proud that it’s the US Marines in the United States Military that has magnificent helicopters like this out there support our ground troops and fighting for America.  Staring down the barrel of the nose mounted Gatling gun on the lead Cobra would strike fear on anyone out there in the fields of battle.  The Cobras continued forward until just before where we were all standing, and they one at a time banked to their left and sat down in the helipad spots that were adjacent to the parking lot, only a few feet away.  The sound was incredible just from the three Cobras, and the Hueys coming in behind them brought up the a distant rear sound.  At this point, a ramp crew had come out from the hangars nearby and were guiding the helios in to their landing spots.  It was clear they were going to pack them all in to the little area next to the parking lot.

As the Hueys began their left bank to their landing spots, the distant thunder of nine CH-46E Sea Knights took over as the Cobras began to cut their engines after finally touching down.  The Sea Knights had already touched down, and were taxiing over to their parking spots rather than hovering. Lined up in two rows, the Sea Knights made their way towards as everyone as well, the white eyes on the front of them seeming to stare at us with a smile.  The Cobras and Hueys had landed on the far edge of the landing area all in a row, and by watching the ramp crew it was clear they were going to taxi the Sea Knights right up to us and literally only a few feet from the barrier where our cars were parked.  As the Sea Knights approached, some of the choppers switched sides of the two rows to even themselves out, almost like a funny little cartoon. Now that the Hueys and Cobras had shut off, all that was left running was the nine Sea Knights as they continued closer and closer, eventually getting incredibly closer to us than the Cobras had.  With the rotor blades nearly going over our heads, the wind from the downdraft of the blades became really strong, throwing every little rock and piece of gravel into the air.  No one left watching this could do anything but smile and laugh as it was almost unreal how this had all fallen into place for us to witness.

The Sea Knights continued their taxi passing by us one at a time till the little landing area had filled with Sea Knights lined up one after another in two rows. The sound was incredible as they waited doing final shut down checks before shutting the engines off.  Taking that opportunity to get some probably never to get again photos, everyone who had any sort of camera from a professional DSL to even camera phones were taking any photos or video as the various crew members started to exit the helicopters to do final shut down inspections.  I had to wonder what they were thinking seeing all of us standing there taking photos and cheering.  The entire area became alive with HMM-163 crew members in what was at one point a silent parking lot with only a handful of people walking to their cars now a loud hot ramp full of many many Marines exiting the choppers.  Finally, one by one the Sea Knights shut down completely and soon the silence took over once again as the last Sea Knight’s rotor blades came to a hault.  Pilots and crew were appearing out of what seemed like no where, crammed into the Sea Knights and Hueys.  As they excited, slapping began by all the amazed witnesses for the spectacle they’d seen.  And just like that, it was over.

The photos continued as the crew members prepped the various choppers for their nighttime slumber rotating the various blades and anchoring them down for the night. Other crew members and the pilots removed the various items of luggage and gear and a chopper at a time they walked through the parking lot towards their hangar to head home.  Only a few airshow spectators remained now, mostly die hard photographers who were getting every last photo they could as the sun set in the San Diego sky.  Once once the last little sliver of the orange ball had slipped beyond the horizon did everyone start to finally call it a day and head for the final time that day to their cars.  While finishing up my photos, a ramp crew member walked up to me and asked if he could get ahold of some of the photos.  He mentioned that he’d been working on the ramp at Miramar for several years, and this was the most amount of helios he’d seen come in at once in a lot time, and wanted some photos since normally there’s no one there (civilians) to get photos when they come in.

Now that everything was coming to a close, we all had a chance to reflect on what happened and what photos we got.  It was an amazing opportunity and sight to see for everyone who was left.  We all agreed that we felt bad for those who had left the show just as it ended or pretty soon after.  They all missed out on a very rare opportunity.  Talking with some of the crew members, we found out that the choppers had been taking part in urban training operations out at NBVC Point Mugu for a few days.  Looking back now I’m amazed at how everything perfectly fell into place for us to be able to be there at the right place at the right time.  There’s so many factors that could have caused us to leave earlier or still be walking through the base when all this happened.  It was by far one of the best aviation moments of the year for myself, and many of the other photographers with me.  Of course, the rest of the airshow was amazing and full of some really great aviation demonstrations. However, it was this event after the practice day of the airshow that I believe will stand out the most for everyone who was left in that parking lot that Friday evening as HMM-163 descended from the heavens and gave us quite a show.

I’d like to thank all the pilots and crew of HMM-163 for the great display that day.  While they were just doing their job and, like any other day, it was something really special for all of us.  For more photos of their arrival, and the rest of the photos from the first day of the airshow, you can visit the Warbird Photos gallery located here.

PHOTOS © BRITT DIETZ - VIDEO © ANDREW LOCKERBIE

SHOWCASE PHOTO:
SLAVE LEIA’S REVENGE

Those of you who are fans of my facebook photography page may recognize this photo as one of my ‘Favorite Images over the Years’ shots. Shooting at various conventions, I’m often presented with some wonderful photo ops.  From the strange and bizarre to the really funny and neat.  I always keep an eye out for those photos that really stand out and are unique, and often times out of place.  Having a Boba Fett pretend to be attacked by zombies, for example, makes for a unique photo.  With the abundance of models, be it from Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, or whatever your fancy, there’s bound to be some pretty fun photos to be taken.  Thankfully in Southern California, there’s been a good amount of conventions ranging from Comic Con to Star Wars Celebrations.  Before I get to the photo that’s going to be showcased, let me back up a little and give some background on the person in the photo.

Everyone loves Slave Leia.  Wait, let me rephrase that… every guy loves Slave Leia.  Gals are hit and miss when it comes to the gold bikini clad princess. Voted a few years ago as the #1 male fantasy character, Slave Leia has become a staple image of conventions in the last few years due to an explosion of Slave Leia costumers.  What used to be a rare sight now you can’t turn a corner at a convention without seeing a Slave Leia.  It’s grown and grown with each convention every year so much so that the occasional sight of one Slave Leia has now become groups of Slave Leias walking around in these outfits which are only a little more covered than your standard bikini.  But while more and more women put on the skimpy outfit and brave what was originally something most gals were far to afraid to even think about doing, there’s one Slave Leia in particular that started it all.  She’s the legend of the Slave Leias, the one that everyone in the Star Wars community knows by name and talks about.  She braved the amount of skin needing to be shown and the gawking of men at conventions to start something that has exponentially grown. Aside from being a beautiful gal already, she was able to wear the famous metal bikini and pull it off not only well, but stunningly.  Aside from Carrie Fisher herself in Return of the Jedi, I’d call this celebrity in the Star Wars fan world the original Slave Leia.  Her name is Christy Marie.

I had the honor and pleasure of getting to know Christy several years ago at Comic Con.  I remember the first day we walked around the convention chatting, she was stopped ever 5 feet by someone wanting a photo, and that one person would instantly turn into a massive group of people which would all be yelling for her attention, just like a celebrity at a red carpet premiere with flashes going off in every direction. Eventually security or convention staff member would have to come by and ask Christy to keep moving as the amount of people trying to snap shots of her would block the isle ways.  Even when she would have her robe on and having lunch, people will still recognize her and ask her for a photo. With a smile, Christy would always be happy to pop off the rope for a second so they could get the shot.  Christy in Slave Leia became not just a sight to see, but an anticipated event by many people at conventions, often asking Christy when she’d be in the Slave Leia costume before even saying hello.   She truly is the one and only Slave Leia that stands out, and will undoubtedly always keep that title even when she gives up doing that costume.  Over the years Christy and I became really close friends, and I’ve gotten to know her far beyond the Slave Leia costume and how and incredibly kind person she is. We’ve since always have some photo fun at conventions when she’d put on the Slave Leia costume.  Time and time again, she’s proved she’s THE Slave Leia of all Slave Leias that has or will ever be.  Keep an eye on this blog for hopefully some new photoshoots with Christy coming up in the near future.

Now to the showcased photo! In May of 2007, LucasFilm put on their 4th Star Wars Celebration convention (known as Celebration IV).  This time, it was held on the west coast at the Los Angeles convention center. Naturally, Star Wars fans from around the United States and the world traveled to the convention that lasted exhausting days.  At most conventions of this type, you have your exhibit hall which showcases new products and vendors sell every type of merchandise possible and then you have the rooms dedicated to seminars and panels.  For Celebration IV, the exhibit hall was rather large with all sorts of Star Wars vendors showcasing their new items.  One of these vendors was LucasArts, which is the game division of LucasFilm specializing in Star Wars video games for gaming systems and computers.  Naturally, vendors like LucasArts have large booths with a lot of really visually stunning graphics surrounding the outside walls of the booth.  For Celebration IV, they were showcasing on these walls the new Star Wars Force Unleashed video games series.

Christy and I had been walking around the exhibit hall looking at all the various things for sale and stopping every 5 feet or so for someone to get a photo of her in her Slave Leia bikini.  We turned the corner over at the LucasArts booth, and I saw this rather ‘shocking’ (I know, bad pun) wall art.  It was there so people could walk up and take a photo looking like they were ‘force lightning’ against some helpless Stormtroopers.  I knew right away that I had to get a shot of that with Christy, it was too classic to pass up.  The shot turned out so much better than I had thought, mostly I believe because of the color compliments and contrast between her warm colored skin tones and the walls cold blue tone.  Not to mention the serious look on Christy’s face.  All in all it’s a pretty funny shot, and one of my favorite photos with Christy at a convention.

Be careful when next time at a convention you ask a Slave Leia for a photo, you never know when they might really possess Force Lightning…

For more in this series, click here!

The c-17 was developed in 1985 to replace the C-130 Hercules as a tactical airlifter.  Running a year behind schedule, the first flight of the C-17 was on September 15, 1991 at Long Beach, California.  Following a lot of troubled performance issues, Boeing worked really hard and solved all the concerns that the US Air Force had, and the first squadron of C-17s became active in 1995.  The C-17 is 174 feet long and has a wingspan of 170 feet. It can land on runways shorter than 3,500 feet, including gravel and dirt ones, due to the reverse thrusting capabilities. It can carry 170,900 pounds of equipment, troops, supplies, and more!  The C-17 has not only worked in combat situations, but also humanitarian relief missions where it has brought in supplies from all around the United States and the world.  Currently, the United States has just over 200 C-17A Globemaster III aircraft in US bases around the world.

I’ve always admired the C-17 and their crews.  They put on one heck of a demonstration at Airshows around the world, and I knew thought I’d ever get as excited as I do seeing to see a transport airlifter, the C-17, performing at a show. There’s something about the sheer size of the C-17, and the way it maneuvers like a giant fighter. Watching it’s wings dip incredibly fast as it banks around in a turn stops you in your tracks, and makes your eyes go skyward.  With the amazing fly by wire system and a joystick instead of a yoke for the pilots, the C-17 can maneuver and turn in ways you never thought possible for something like this.  To see the massive grey aircraft almost flip vertical in an instant makes you wonder what it must feel like to be on the inside of the aircraft as it does these unbelievable pitches, something I’ve always wondered myself.  I’ve been inside C-17s at airshows many times, I’ve walked through the massive interior and sat in the same seats paratroopers have.  I always imagined it’d be fun to ride in, but the possibility for me to take part in one of these rides seemed near impossible that I hadn’t bothered to try.  I’d always watch media board the C-17, and wonder if one of these days I should request a media flight, but I always end up preferring to be in the crowd as often times they have a better photographic vantage point than the media do.  But this all changed this year in 2010, when I found myself on a C-17 flight.

The Riverside Airport Airshow is held annually each year in April or March and often is considered one of the first large airshows for Southern California. A wonderful mix of modern and vintage aircraft appear at this show, and often there’s headlining and rare aircraft that make appearances and perform for the packed crowds.  The US Air Force and US Navy usually send out some demo fighter aircraft to perform at the show, and the massive car show that is on display at the airport completes the air and ground sights to see.  The airshow is only one day, so the casual crowds come out in huge numbers along with photographers and aviation fans.  The Riverside Airport Airshow has been around for 18 years, growing with each airshow in popularity and size with over 70,000 attendees and 200 acres of aircraft and cars on display.  For more information on the Riverside Airshow for next year, being held on March 26, 2011 you can click here for their website.  I’ve attended this airshow for many years now, having shot the 2008, 2009, and the 2010 Airshow at Riverside.  One of the star performers that have graced Riverside and almost dwarfed the entire airport with it’s sheer size is the C-17.  Making it’s first appearance in 2007 at the airshow from the very nearby March Air Reserve Base where many C-17s are based and call home, one of the most amazing places to watch a C-17 take-off and demonstrate it’s short runway takeoff and landings is the Riverside Airshow.  While it’s amazing to watch, I was able to experience these short field capabilities of the C-17 first hand…

A week or two before the airshow, I was chatting with a fellow photographer friend of mine about the upcoming Riverside show.  He mentioned that he was going to be media at the show, and asked if I was as well.  I replied no, that I didn’t see the point of going to all the trouble of being media when I’d be shooting from a crowd location anyway where all the photographers normally hang out during the show.  He mentioned, in reply, that it was too bad as the C-17 flight was a lot of fun (he’d been on them a few times before).  Remarking that I’d never been on a C-17 flight and would love to one day, he said he’d see what he could do for the media day flight.  Media Day is usually a special preview of the airshow where media and press are invited only and they can either watch aircraft fly that will be flying at the airshow, or take part in a flight of some sort where afterwards they can conduct interviews with show officials and pilots for the various media outlets. Naturally, this close to the media day, I wasn’t expecting anything since the deadline for media applications had already passed.  A day or two later, however, I got a phone call from him saying he’d gotten me on the list.  Amazed that I was able to be slipped in so fast and a bit in shock, it didn’t quite hit me until much later that I’d actually be flying on a C-17.  Not too long after, I got a phone call from the assistant Airshow Coordinator saying I was on the list and from asking for my information so that the US Air Force could clear me to be allowed to fly on the C-17. Now it was time to wait, and the anticipation grew.

The Media Day for the Riverside Airshow was set to be on Friday, March 26, 2010 which was the day before the airshow. Once the day had finally arrived, I started to feel the excitement, but I was still in a unbelieving state that I’d be soon in a C-17 taking to the skies. The massive aircraft I’d seen at countless airshows, I would now be able to fly in it!  I’d flown in many different type of World War 2 warbirds, but this would be the first time I’d flown in a modern US Air Force aircraft.  Driving out to the airport, I checked in with the Air Force rep and got my media badge, and went to the upstairs terminal balcony with other fellow photographers who’d be also going on the flight.  From the balcony we were treated to a lot of aircraft arriving for the show the next day including the dramatic arrival of two Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets which came in together peeling off one after another.  Instead of landing, however, they performed a loud and low touch and go, banking directly overhead as they went around for the real landing.  A nice hello from the Navy.  You can see shots of the two F/A-18 Super Hornet’s arrivals here on Warbird-Photos.

The C-17 wasn’t scheduled to be in till a bit later, and from what we’d heard it’d do a practice demo first before landing, then it’d taxi over to the cross runway where it’d wait with it’s engines still going as we boarded.  It was quite the waiting game, and most of us spent the time chatting when we weren’t photographing some warbird or airplane that was arriving or departing.  A bit past noon, we heard over the scanner radio that was tuned into the tower that the C-17 was on it’s way.  It didn’t take long at all to start to see the large spot in the sky grow larger and larger until it was unmistakably a C-17.  Coming in very loud as if to have roaring trumpeters bringing it in, the C-17 made a sweeping pass over the field and began it’s tactical demonstration.  Banking around the airport and stopping all who had been working to set up the airshow for a moment’s rest as they watched the massive plane fly around all photographer’s lenses were pointed to the sky.  I couldn’t help but think about how I’d be soon in that aircraft and flying to what at that point was an unknown location.  As the demo started to draw to a close, the Air Force personnel announced that they’d be rounding us up as soon as the C-17 lands.  After coming in and performing a short field landing, I found myself hoping we’d do a tactical assault landing so I could see how it feels to land in about the length of a football field and some.  After the C-17 performed a quick reverse thrust demo backing up to the cross runway, it turned and taxied into position and dropped the aft cargo ramp for us.  At this point all of the media were taken downstairs and we were escorted over to the C-17 across aircraft parking areas on the airport.

As we approached the C-17, they had ever stop for a moment so everyone could get some shots of the C-17 before we went inside.  It seemed like a long time as we were standing there shooting, but I’m sure that was just the anticipation to enter the massive aircraft.  The engines were still running very loudly, and they made sure at this point we all had ear plugs in for protection as it was going to get very loud.  As soon as everyone got all the photos they needed, we walked towards the towering tail of the C-17 and stepped foot on the ramp headed inside.  There were two loadmasters overseeing us onboard, on headset to communicate to the rest of the crew.  The C-17A Globemaster III was from March Air Reserve Base, part of the 452nd Air Mobility Wing and crewed by personnel and pilots from the US Air Force Reserve. Upon walking up the ramp into the C-17, the crew asked us after a few moments of us all taking photos to find a seat and to get our things secured because the take-off would be quite a jolt.  A few fellow photographers mentioned the same thing as well, saying I should be sure to have every piece of camera equipment secured because it’s quite the ride on takeoff.  Sitting down and buckling in and making sure all my equipment was around my neck or buckled into the seat next to me, we were given instructions on emergency procedures, much like an airliner, from the crew.  After that was all done and they did brief checks to make sure we were ready, they gave the thumbs up as the ramp raised into the air sealing us in the giant beast.  We heard the powerful engines roar loader as we started to taxi for the runway.

There are not many ways to look outside of the C-17, and if you’re not standing right in front of one of the 3 port windows on either side of the aircraft that are only about 7 inches in diameter, then you really have no idea what’s going on outside.  We had to ‘feel’ in what direction the plane was heading or turning for us to have sense of where we were on the airport. I could barely see the tip tops of the trees through one of the little port windows across from me that look out really high towards the wing… but even still I could barely see anything except the occasional branch pass by in a millisecond.  Making a U turn at the end of the runway (at least I think we did), we lined up and were ready to go as the brakes were set and we came to a stop. Everyone in the aircraft was filming or taking photos with whatever they had.  A few people were using cellphones to record video, some were shooting still images from their cameras.  A News Media group was shooting with their larger video camera as we waited for the engines to spool up and the breaks to be released.  I took the moment to really enjoy the takeoff, taking photos ever so often but making sure I wasn’t too lost in getting shots. It wasn’t long before we heard the engines roar to life at maximum thrust… and then it was time for the breaks to come off.

Many people have been on roller coasters that might suddenly launch you from nothing to incredible speeds.  Sometimes even airliners do that to get rolling with maximum force.  Unless you’ve an F/A-18 Hornet pilot being catapulted off the deck of an aircraft carrier, you really don’t know what it’s like to be slingshot an huge speeds. I think I can safely say I had a little tiny glimpse of what incredible power of a carrier catapult.  When the C-17 let off the breaks, it seemed like someone yanked the C-17 forward, and naturally I wasn’t ready for it so it felt like I was going to immediately go flying and splat against the back of the plane like those cartoons with Bugs Bunny.  Thankfully, I was strapped in to the seat, but I now understand why they stress to have all you equipment secured.  The launch of the C-17 was amazing, and I couldn’t help but laugh (as many others did) at the sheer force of being accelerated that fast.  Because the main runway at Riverside Airport is only 5,400 feet long, the C-17 performed a short field take-off (while that’s still nearly 2,000 feet longer than it’s minimum runway requirements, I think they also wanted to give us a real C-17 ride) and launched into the air.  It wasn’t long before I felt the feeling of being weightless, and I realized we were rapidly rising.  The C-17 spun around the airport gaining altitude, and ever so often I could see through the little port window across the way some glimpses of land as the wing dipped as we spiraled upwards.  To me, it only seemed like a matter of seconds from take-off until we were at altitude and they made the announcement that we could get up and walk around.

The plane had leveled out and by the time I got to one of the port windows, we were nearing the ocean already.  I was amazed at how fast we had gotten over Orange County and were heading towards the beaches.  Taking a few moments to go to each port window and check out the limited but unique views of each one, I could see we were travelling at a pretty nice cruising speed, probably pittance for the C-17. They informed us that we’d be able to go up to the cockpit, visit with the pilots and check out the controls one at a time, I decided to wait since there was no real rush.  I spent time snapping shots in the C-17 and out the windows, chatting with other photographers and enjoying the relatively smooth flight.  It was pretty loud, but with the ear plugs in it wasn’t really that bad (I think a B-25 with the waist windows open is much louder in my opinion).  Ever so often the pilot would correct a heading and the wings would dip a bit, but otherwise it was a pretty straight flight.  Flying out past the coast, we turned right and paralleled the beaches as we headed north towards the Catalina.  I could only imagine, looking down at the city below, how many people had looked up to see the massive C-17 pass overhead and how many more people didn’t even realize we were up here.

Soon the line to go up to the cockpit started to thin out, so I decided it was about time to head on up there.  Climbing a small ladder (which if in turbulent weather or when performing evasive maneuvers would be impossible to climb) up to the second level of the C-17, you come into the mini ‘quarters’ of the C-17 that has a few small cramped bunks and a bubble window that looks down into the main cargo hold where I just was.  Walking into the cockpit, you realize how comfortable it overall is up there for the pilots.  There’s no exposed wiring and insulation like in the main part of the plane, just a lot of switches and controls.  A high tech Heads up Display (or HUD) provides the pilot and copilot with information on their altitude and speed as they look forward, and tons of various LCD screens give them expanded information on the performance, status, and location of the plane.  A really neat feature, I thought, was a little tablet running a Windows software that had a cool precision GPS software system on it that pinpointed the C-17s exact location.  Looking at this tablet I realized we were flying directly over Catalina Island off the coast.  Looking through the pilot’s side window, I could just barely see below us the rocky shores of Catalina, and I wondered once again what those people on the island were thinking as the otherwise quiet skies over their island just came to life with a C-17.  I snapped some shots of the cockpit as I talked with one of the crew members about some of the features of the C-17 and it’s capabilities.  Soon it became time for me to leave the cockpit and let some of the last few people come on up.  During this time we started to turn inward to make our round about way back to Riverside Airport.

After carefully climbing down the ladder, I went right towards one of the near port windows to watch as we came back over the coast and headed inland. Trying to gauge where we were at this point, I spotted a military air base installation below us, and took some photos so I could try and figure out what it was. After taking a closer look at the photos, I realized we were going past NBVC Point Mugu in Ventura.  We’d gone about 150 miles up the coast and turned inland.  Something that would take 2 hours to get to by car took what felt like 10 minutes, but was probably more like 20 or 30 if even that much.  Flying over the Camarillo and Simi Valley heading towards Burbank, I spotted Universal Studios and the unmistakable skyline of Los Angeles in the distance.  Realizing that we were heading back towards Riverside I tried to take as many photos as I could and enjoy the last leg of the flight.  At this point, it still seemed like we had just taken off from Riverside, and that it had only been a couple minutes.  Once again, ever so often the pilot would make slight adjustments, and you could feel the whole plan lean to one side as we banked slightly to correct the heading.  Those were only slight banks, I can’t imagine what the extreme banks demonstrated by the C-17 at airshows feel like.  That has to be a rush!

It wasn’t long before the crew members started to announce that ever should take their seats in preparation for landing.  After strapping ourselves back in and our equipment secured, they announced that we’d be be doing a tactical landing because of the runway length and (apparently) some other factors.  I was really hoping for a landing like this, as it looks like one heck of a hard landing when you watch them perform it at the airshows.  A tactical landing basically is where they slow the plane down as much as possible and almost pretty much slam on the runway so that they can immediately put on reverse thrust to stop the aircraft on a very small runway. This is standard procedure for an aircraft like this on small fields, and is one of the most amazing capabilities of the C-17.  We continued to fly for a bit, and now I had lost all sense of where we were in the flight pattern.  Ever so often we’d make a pretty good bank, and I’d see the ground for a millisecond through that little port window.  We were getting lower and lower with each time I had a little glimpse.  Now all we could do and was wait for the moment of impact.  There would be no warning, just BAM! I decided to take some video with my phone of this landing as it’d be the only way to really describe how the landing would feel.  We waited and waited… the aircraft was descending fast.  Then out of no where, with what sounded like a giant explosion, we hit the ground hard.  Hard enough that it really startled me and I almost dropped my phone.  Just as soon as we hit, the reverse thrusters came on and G forces threw us in our straps towards the front of the plane.  It lasted just seconds, but suddenly the speed decreased with sudden force and the engines loud roar died down as we had landed and slowed enough to taxi.  A few people clapped, myself included, at the rush of the landing.  You couldn’t help but smile and laugh at what had just happened.

With the aircraft now taxiing to where it’d spend the night until it’s moment to shine the next day at the airshow, the crew members got up and lowered the ramp half way so we could see out the back of the aircraft as we were moving across the runway.  Soon we taxied to a stop at the C-17s parking spot, and they announced we were free to get up and that they hoped we enjoyed the flight.  Everyone stood up and grabbed their things taking shots of the aircraft one last time before either chatting with the pilots and crew, who all came down to greet us after they had shut down the aircraft, or departing the plane and heading for home with the amazing experience they just had fresh in their minds to convey to the world through their media outlets.  I went over and listened to the pilot speak a bit about their demo schedule for the year and some other fun upcoming airshow news items before I thanked him and the cockpit of their wonderful flight, and I departed the plane.  I took some time to take photos of the plane without the massive crowds around it that would disrupt the perfect shot the next day at the airshow.  After getting a few different angles of the massive C-17 as she rested from her flight, I decided to call it a day with my head still up in the air over what I’d just experienced.

The C-17 flight was one of the best moments of 2010 for me, and something I thought was only wishful thinking and not possible for myself to be able to take part in.  Hopefully the opportunity will arise again sometime in the future for another flight, but if not I’ll carry the memories of this one for the rest of my life.  I always think about the flight when I see the C-17 parked or performing at the various airshows I attend, especially since the particular aircraft I flew on is the aircraft that performs the demos all around the west coast.  The C-17 certainly captured a special place with me, and I encourage everyone I know to go out and check out the C-17 at an airshow if you can.  I guarantee you’ll watch it in amazement and wonder as the massive machine of beauty roars through the air.

For more photos on the flight you can click here for the gallery from the Media Day, and photos here of the 2010 Riverside Airshow.

For more photos of the C-17, you can click here for all the photos I’ve taken and posted of the C-17 from various airshows over the years.

I’d like to thank Clark Cook and Roberta Longridge, along with the crew of the C-17 from the 452nd AMW at March Air Reserve Base for memories that will last a lifetime!

SHOWCASE PHOTO: LIGHTNING!

One of the toughest unpredictable type of photography is that of lightning storms.  You can guess where lightning will strike next, and do a long exposure for 30 minutes and not capture a single thing, only to have an instant flash of lighting go off the second you’re not taking a photo.  In some parts of the world, you might have better luck at guessing when it’s a freak lightning storm with lightning flashing what seems like every few seconds.  But for down here in Southern California, lightning storms are few and far in between.  How far you say? Try sometimes a few YEARS before we see another lightning storm.  And sometimes it’ll just be a handful of quick flashes, and then it’s gone.  I suppose that’s one advantage to being a photographer in the middle eastern part of the United States.  Naturally, whenever there is a lightning storm here in the valley of Southern California, photographers scramble to get their equipment and get anything they can.

The above photo and the shot to the left were shot in 2005, and as already mentioned, was a total luck shot. Pointing the camera in the direction where the lightning had been flashing and watching the clouds slowly moved, I tried to anticipate where the lightning would strike next.  Opening the shutter for 30 second bursts, mostly getting nothing but grey skies at night.  Ever so often lightning would flash and I’ve capture part of it off to one side or another of the camera, or the lightning would not break through the clouds, so it’d just be some bright clouds.  This shot, however, happened in a blink of an eye, and had I not looked up from my camera, I wouldn’t have noticed I got it.  When you take a long exposure picture with an SLR camera, the shutter opens to reveal the digital sensor inside the camera, so that shutter ‘mirror’ that’s opened blocks me from being able to see through the camera.  So basically, the viewfinder turns black.  During that time I can’t see anything, so I often try to open another eye to see if I captured a bolt or not.  In this case, I’d just started to take the long exposure when in the corner of my eye I saw the flash go off.

I’ve seen a lot of tutorials that say as soon as you capture the lightning, you should cover your camera lens with something dark, that was you don’t expose over the lightning flash and fade it out.  So, I had with me a black hat that I’d put over the lens once I saw the flash of the lightning go off during a long exposure.  I was trying to shoot at the lowest ISO possible to have super clear shots and help not blow out the long exposures along with a very narrow aperture. Then, once the exposure was finished, I’d take the black hat off and start again.  It was a luck shot, but the photo above is by far the best lightning shot I’ve ever gotten, and probably could ever hope to get here in Southern California!

Fast forward one year to 2006.  We were lucky and got another lightning storm, something unheard of for two years in a row! With my tripod handy and camera quickly readied to go, I ran outside again and from the middle of the street started taking photos again with 30 second exposures.  The clouds were a lot lower this time, and it was earlier in the evening, so the lights from Tustin and Irvine reflected brightly on the clouds, making an almost reddish glow.  The photos are not as spectacular as the one above, but I was still able to capture some pretty amazing shots of the electrified bolts playing around in the clouds.  I shot for a while outside for this storm, pretty much until the lightning storm was right above me, and I realized I was the tallest thing standing in the middle of the street.  That’s when you know it’s time to go in.

While the shots came out pretty neat, they are not nearly in your face as the lightning strike from 2005, probably the best lightning shot I’ve gotten yet! Here’s hoping we get some more lightning storms in the coming future someday to have the chance to snap a shot better than that one!

For more in this series, click here!

The Satin Dollz

A bit of history behind the Satin Dollz from their website:

“Formed on New Year’s Day, 2006, the Satin Dollz Pin Up Dancers are an energetic ensemble of signing, dancing and downright charming ladies dedicated to delievering an evening of entertaiment that recalls a golden age of stage and movie musicals sponning the 30s through the 50s.  Call it tretro, call it nostalgia, perhaps even a bit campy…. by any name, it’s called fun, as in leave that hectic life at the door and escape with the Dollz back to a simpler time.”

I’ve had the pleasure of shooting the Satin Dollz at a few recent retro/vintage/ww2 related events.  I first saw them at the Los Angeles Air Raid of 1942 reenactment USO dance in 2009. They were one of the headline performers at the dance, and it sure brought out everyone who was attending the event to the dance floor to watch them perform.  I’d heard of their name before spoken by other people at the Los Angeles Cicada Club (a retro 20s, 30s, 40s music club) but had yet to be at an event they were also at.  Being a PinUp photographer, naturally I was interested in seeing these Pinup Dancers!  When they came out for the first time at the Air Raid, they performed a wonderful tap dancing number routine without any music.  It was very classic and drew upon not only the pinup aspect but the classic movies of Fred Astaire. I immediately knew I really liked this group.

Following the Air Raid event in 2009, I saw the gals again a few months later at the Cicada Club where they performed a few numbers for the crowd.  Once again, they put on a top notch show that got a very loud cheer from the audience. After their performance, I had a chance there to meet a few of the gals who mentioned they had seen the photos I’d taken at the Air Raid earlier in the year.  They loved the photos, and I gladly said they could use any of them they’d like! Sadly, following that night at Cicada I didn’t get another chance to see their performances until earlier this year at the 2010 Los Angeles Air Raid of 1942.  There was only one of the gals there, ‘Betty,’ who was filming a scene with various WW2 men in uniform for a scene from their upcoming Satin Dollz video.  I was attending the event in a World War 2 era US Army Air Force Captain (B-17 Pilot) in formal Class A uniform and was asked by the film’s director, Dan Blank, if I’d like to be a part of the filming. During the scene Betty was singing to the Sarah Vaughan version of ‘Whatever Lola Wants’ while the various infatuated WW2 servicemen stare at her handing her a Coca Cola.  My part was pretty simple, just walk through the shot, which ended up being a great transition in the finished video (which I’ll get to in a bit).  It was fun to be a part of the shoot, and even more fun to be a part of something really special for the Satin Dollz.

A few more months later, I was contacted by the main producer and director for the Satin Dollz about donating some photos from the 2009 Air Raid to the Satin Dollz for their upcoming Birthday Bash they were having in August.  The gals were going to sign the photos, and the photos would be put on silent auction to raise funds for the Dollz to travel to Europe.  I was more than happy to help out picking out a few photos for them to have.  As a thanks, they offered me a table to showcase my photography work, something I’d not really done in some time. Quickly pulling out images and getting a lot of photos printed of both Aviation and Pinup photos, I put together a large portfolio showcase which I brought out to their birthday bash and displayed at the event.  I was overwhelmed at how incredibly kind and generous the gals were having me there giving me a huge table to display on right near the entrance.  The birthday bash itself was a wonderful collection of various retro and pinup dancer groups from all age groups.  The Satin Dollz, of course, were the main performers of the night putting on a few numbers for the crowd ever few hours.  It was a great event, packed to almost capacity at the Mayflower Club in Burbank, CA.  The Dollz were in GREAT form that night, and the performances they did were top notch with different outfit changes, an accompanying band, and singers from the group.  It was also at the Birthday Bash that the ‘Whatever Lola Wants’ video was finally  debuted for everyone to see.  I can honestly say I was incredibly impressed, taking the Satin Dollz to a whole new level.  It was also revealed that the video would make it’s way online in a few weeks, which I was very excited to show off! It was a wonderful honor to be able to showcase my work at their event, and I handed out many business cards and got a lot of questions about my pinup photography especially the Petty Project. A BIG thank you to them for allowing me to be a part of their birthday bash!

Flash forward now to today (September 14), where this morning the Satin Dollz released their amazing video online for all to see, which again was done by the talented Dan Blank. I’ve reposted the video below for you all to see!

What a great video huh? I’m working with the Satin Dollz to hopefully do some really great WW2 themed photoshoots in the upcoming future, which I hope to feature on here as well.  They’re a very wonderful group, and if you have the chance to see the Satin Dollz perform in person, you won’t be sorry you went out of your way. They’re a class of their own, and a fine example of keeping the retro eras alive and well!  I hope to see the Satin Dollz continue to expand and their influence reaching all over the globe!

For more information on the Satin Dollz Pinup Dancers and their upcoming events, you can check out their website located here, and their Facebook Profile located here.  You can also check out their YouTube channel and see various videos of them performing at functions over the last few years!