Monthly Archives: December 2011

Other Waukegan Bits and Pieces

I did get a little side benefit when out shooting the A-4 at Waukegan. I made my way to the other side of the field to be ready to shoot the A-4 when it departed. However, I did give myself a bit of spare time to make sure I didn’t miss it. The result was a couple of extra aircraft.

One was the Yak 52 that Grant owns and flies. He was running it up when I got across the field. I told him where I was going to be so he would know when he departed. Sure enough he came close and he headed out. Hopefully we will be seeing more of Grant’s Yak in the not too distant future.

The second benefit was a corporate jet heading out. Waukegan has a lot of corporate traffic. If I had waited a few more minutes there was a Hawker 800XP heading out but I had to be back at the Hooch. However, I did get this fella as he departed. He used a fair amount of the runway which suited me well.

The last one was a CJ that departed while we were taxiing out in the T-6. Not as great a shot but one to add to the catalog!

Scooter Time Again

For those of you that have hung around here for a while, hopefully there is more than one of you, you will know that I have spent a lot of time shooting with the Warbird Heritage Foundation up at Waukegan. If you saw my recent post on the T-6, you will know that I was up at Waukegan to see the A-4 fly again. The A-4 is a great little jet and one that I love to see in action.

The aircraft has some new stores fitted underwing. These are practice bomb carriers and they add to the options for displaying the aircraft. They certainly look good. The weather was great on the day I went up and Paul wanted to get up and flying as quickly as he could. He had other things to get to later in the day so getting the jet up and running was a priority. First it required an engine run and a leak check after the servicing and then it should be good to go.

The engine run went well and a couple of minor things were noted and fixed. Then it was time to fly. I decided it would be best to head across the field. The hangar is north of the runway and doesn’t have the best light angle for the aircraft taking off. Fortunately, the wind, while light, meant that the jet would be departing heading in to the light so, from a position by the other hangar (the maintenance hangar is called the Bunker) should provide a good view.

This worked out well, Paul certainly helped by keeping the jet relatively low as he transitioned the gear up. I got some nice close shots as he came by and then he pulled up into a steep climb out. Certainly great and worth the trip – the T-6 flight was a cherry on the top!

Time in the T-6

I recently popped up to Waukegan to see the good folks at the Warbird Heritage Foundation. I was up there to take some shots of their A-4 Skyhawk. It was scheduled to fly and the weather was looking particularly good so it seemed like an opportunity not to miss. A post on that will follow soon.

While I was there, the Chief Pilot, Herwig, was getting ready to take up the T-6 to run a check on the adjustments that had been made to the aileron trim. When he asked if I wanted to come along, I think you can guess what my answer was.

This was to be my first trip in a T-6. I minimized what photography equipment I was going to take along in order to keep things simple. Since we weren’t shooting anything else, I really only had two shot options. The ground or myself. Needless to say, I had a go at both. There is something very self centered but fun about shooting yourself in the cockpit while flying. I like shooting the pilot too but in the case of the T-6, the best I can get is the back of Herwig’s head!

The flight was a quick one and the trim checks were carried out before heading back to Waukegan. An overhead break into the pattern and then we were back on terra firma. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. Thanks guys.

Article In Progress

When you are first putting together a piece for a magazine, you don’t know exactly what sort of response you are going to get from the subject.  I am presently working on a piece about a manufacturer of business jets.  The magazine is getting well established so it should be a good amount of exposure for the company but you never know whether that is something they want or not.

When I contacted this company, I got a speedy response from their PR team which was great.  They provided responses to a series of questions I emailed to them but that is really only half of a story.  When writing questions, you think you have covered the main bases.  Then you get the responses and they trigger further questions.  In a face to face interview, this process also takes place but you get to deal with the back and forth immediately and the result should be a lot better as a result.

Consequently, with a little prodding, I managed to secure an interview with one of the board members of the company.  He arranged to meet me at one of their facilities that was conveniently located for me to get to.  When I got there, he immediately had to apologize that an aircraft closing was happening that morning and he couldn’t immediately be available.  This was really no big deal for me since I had made plenty of time available in case anything should mess up the schedule.  Selling aircraft is the business they are in so it isn’t hard to see that it should take preference over an interview.

In the mean time, one of the team was available to show me around the hangars.  I needed to get images of the aircraft in work to illustrate the piece and he was great at helping me get what I needed.  There were only two restrictions applied.  Registration numbers had to be obscured since customers owned the aircraft and some of the internal looms could not be shown.  This was fine by me and wasn’t going to limit the piece at all.

Aside from those rules, everything was made available.  Aircraft were powered up if I needed them.  Anything in the way or obscuring the shot was removed.  Gallery access was fine to get an overview of the hangars.  When I asked if anything was out on the ramp, I was told it wasn’t but if I wanted something, it would be put out there.  Fantastic cooperation and all provided with the friendliest attitudes.  Everyone I met in the hangar was very friendly.  They treated me the way they apparently treat visiting customers – shame I don’t have the cash to be a customer!

With the important things taken care of, it was possible to conduct the interview.  The person I was interviewing was very helpful and willing to discuss most things that I brought up.  One aspect of it was quite interesting from my point of view.  My idea of who I am is not necessarily the same as that of the interviewee.  I shall explain.  I am interested in the topic that I am writing about and I have a fair bit of experience in the subject so like to delve a little deeper into the subject.  I am interested in understanding but I am not trying to embarrass the company.  They will get a chance to review what we write to make sure we do not say anything untrue.

As far as they are concerned, I am a journalist who wants a story.  Will I try and make them look bad?  They don’t know.  The answers are all in line with the general message the company wants to portray.  This is perfectly reasonable.  However, it can mean that they are not going to give me the most frank answers to the questions or may avoid answering them altogether.  As we were talking, I found this a little odd.  It was only when I thought about it further afterwards that it made more sense.  They don’t know me, what my motives might be and they have a business to protect and promote.  I guess this is an example of my own inexperience in some aspects of this.

None of this should in anyway suggest that I wasn’t provided with the utmost cooperation.  The team were great and I hope they find the article both fair and interesting.  I wish them the best with their efforts and hope that we might get to work again some time.  Now to just get some images of the aircraft flying!

Airliners versus Jetphotos

I bounce backwards and forwards about whether I am interested in the two most prevalent of the online aircraft photograph databases, Airliners.Net and Jetphotos.Net.  I have pictures on both services and they have (very) occasionally brought some useful contacts my way.  Getting images on to their databases can be a frustrating process if you let it since they have very specific requirements about what they accept and what they want.

They own their websites and they can have what they want on there.  If I don’t like it, I am sure they won’t be losing sleep and recognizing this a while back made my life a lot less stressful!  Indeed, I stopped uploading to Airliners.Net and focused on Jetphotos for a while.  They became similar in their issues over time and I stopped bothering altogether.  It hadn’t done much for me so I didn’t see the need.

Every once in a while, I thought it might be useful to have something further there based on the occasional contacts I got.  Therefore, I would get back into the idea of creating edits of my images for the websites.  However, I now make the edits, submit the shots and, if they are accepted, fine.  If not, fine a well.  I am not chasing database statistics with these people.

I have recently come across a few shots of mine that I thought might be good for the sites so made the edits and uploaded to each site.  This was one of those moments when I wanted to compare them in their acceptance policy.  They have a desire for a high level of sharpening but don’t like things to be over-sharpened.  They also can have different views as to what over-processing is – something I like since they often reject for that when I have done very little processing at all!

I have now got the results back and it continues to amuse.  Both sites have accepted some and rejected others.  The fun comes from the fact that they have taken very different approaches to their analysis.  Airliners have rejected some things that were accepted by Jetphotos.  Similarly Jetphotos have rejected some that Airliners accepted.  Rejections were often for similar reasons but for different images.  Is there any rhyme or reason?  I don’t know.  I used to appeal shots that I thought they had been incorrect on.  Now I don’t bother.  Will this ever change?  Probably not.  Will I change my approach?  Probably not.  Does it matter?  Probably not.  The most important thing is to not get stressed about this stuff I guess.

Some Special Schemes

One of the things I did quite well with while around LAX was getting jets with special color schemes. Plenty of airlines are painting aircraft in something other than the normal house colors. This can be a livery that is part of their alliance, like OneWorld or Skyteam, or it can be something special of their own. It might also be a tie up with another organization.

Whatever the reason, it certainly makes things more interesting to get something that is a little different to break up the monotony of the regular fleets. Here are a selection of some of the different colors that were on display while I was out west. The Alaska scheme is not too apparent since the shot is head on but you can see it if you look. Others are more obvious. Hope they are worth a look.

Some Nice Biz Jets

While shooting at LAX, there are the occasional business jets operating. Thankfully, the FBOs seem to be on the south side of the field so the movements are on the runways that are closer to you when at Imperial Hill. They may also use the closer runway of the two so you get a close look.

I won’t say much about the jets other than a couple of things. first, being on the Pacific coast, you can get nice big jets that have long range. Second, I saw one jet that had a Chinese registration. Not sure how many biz jets there are in China yet – I know the number is growing. However, having this show up was a nice treat.

Last was the Aramco 767 which is something a bit different for me. Not a bad collection in a short space of time.

America’s Cup Yacht Racing

Racing of sailing boats is a sport that doesn’t get much in the way of mass media coverage. I grew up in a sailing town so, while I wasn’t a sailor, a lot of my friends were and so I saw a lot more of it than would be the norm. During my teenage years we also witnessed the first defeat of the US team in the America’s Cup, a story that did get international press coverage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

America’s Cup racing has always been the preserve of the richer members of society. It is a far cry from the sailing that is available to the average sailor with high tech boats and hand picked crews. (As an aside, one of the friends from school, Julian Salter, is a professional sailor and has been in crews competing for the America’s Cup.)

For a few years, I had been pretty oblivious to America’s Cup racing. The thing that changed it for me was the acquisition of TiVo. One of the channels covered the Louis Vuitton challenger series followed by the cup itself from Valencia a few years ago and we could record the races in full and then watch them at a more convenient time – adding our own editing courtesy of the fast forward button.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nancy got into the racing as much as I did and we watched most of the series. It came as a big disappointment when the next round of the competition became hijacked by the stupid games of rich guys and ended up as a simple head to head competition that got virtually no coverage. We saw nothing of it.

Fortunately, some semblance of reason has returned and this time around, not only is the full format of the competition going to be back, they are having a series of events in the year running up to the event that are taking place around the world. This not only provides more opportunities for people to see the racing but it also allows the crews to get proficient with the new boats. This time the competition is not with monohulls. The boats are catamarans with wing sails.

The main competition is going to be held in 2012 in San Francisco. Whether I will be able to go and see any of it, I have no idea. However, one of the preliminary events was held in San Diego. I was already in the area for the El Centro photo shoot so I added a day to my travels to try and see the sailing. The plan didn’t quite work as hoped unfortunately.

I drove from El Centro to San Diego in the morning. Racing was scheduled for 1pm-4pm that afternoon. I did a quick reconnaissance to see where I wanted to be and got myself set up. Since it was early in the week, there were supposed to be about five head to head races. No massed racing but that would take place over the weekend when more people would be there to see it. Sadly, I couldn’t wait around for that.

More disappointingly, the great weather that San Diego had been experiencing vanished when I arrived. They was cloud rolling in as the racing started and soon it was more like a misty day. It was cold too! The best location to shoot from was the Navy Base at North Island. Since that wasn’t going to be an option, I made the best of what was possible without shooting right into the sun. Of course, there was not much sun but the mist did a great job of making what light there was turn into glare!

The boats that weren’t racing were also practicing so there were a number of boats out at various times. The races did come up towards us since one of the marks was very near where I was. Unfortunately, when a race came close, a boat towing advertising boards would also come into shot just as the boats did. This was great for TV coverage but not so good for those of us on the same level as the boats. I’m sure the helicopter shots looked great – when the helicopters managed to fly given the crappy conditions!

I got some shots but none are great. The ones here are to show you what was there. There is nothing there that I am too proud of. Some heavy editing was necessary to even get most of these. Was it worth it? Probably not. I could have stayed longer at El Centro or gone helicopter hunting in the passes on the drive back since electricity pylons were being assembled. I did end up chatting to some nice people so it wasn’t a total loss. Them’s the breaks!

Elusive ER-2

Paul and I decided to make a trip up to Palmdale while we were in LA. Palmdale is about an hour and a half north of LAX if the traffic is flowing freely and can be a source of some interesting aircraft. It can also be a big disappointment. Luck of the draw. As we headed over the pass towards Palmdale, the clouds were drifting in which didn’t bode well. However, you never know.

One of the things we were keen to see was NASA’s ER-2. This is a variant of the U-2 airframe, two of which NASA acquired for research work. ER stands for Earth Resources I think although whether that is all they do is a different question! It was scheduled to launch that morning so we headed up.

We looked around for a spot to locate ourselves and found something that looked promising. We were well placed for the main runway. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize they were launching away from us on a cross runway until the sound of the ER-2 made us jump out of the car and watch it climbing away towards the hills. It turned and came close as it departed to the east but not a great shot.

Next to launch was a U-2. Lockheed Martin do maintenance on them at Palmdale and this one launched away from us as well. Our luck was not looking good. We could track the ER-2 since it was a civilian flight but whether the U-2 would come back or was being redelivered, we did not know. In the end, it did come back and flew right past us. Finally some success.

As we waited, something else showed up on the horizon. The shape looked slightly familiar and, as it came closer, it turned out to be a B-2. Almost totally unmarked, we suspect it was from Edwards. It flew a couple of approaches and then departed north. It came close enough to us but they are difficult to shoot unless the light is really good – which it wasn’t – so a little dull. However, a nice break.

Finally the ER-2 came back. We were ready for some lunch so watched it head towards us. Then, it broke off to land the opposite way on the runway it had departed from. There was no time to reposition ourselves so we missed out again. My results were a few distant crops of shots against a white sky so nothing to be too proud of. A bit of a bust of a day but that is the luck of the draw. Time to head off and get lunch after that!

Help Portrait

On Saturday I took part in the Help Portrait project. Last year I thought about it early and then forgot until it was very close. I was mad with myself for not doing it when the day came and promised myself I would be involved this year.

I signed up for one of the Chicago locations a while back. I didn’t hear anything for a while but got a confirmation email on Thursday evening so knew I was in. I volunteered to be an assistant rather than a photographer. Since portraits are not a regular part of my repertoire, I figured I could probably be more useful helping out. As it was, the lighting setups were put together and then it was a case of shooting using the setups so I could probably have done a reasonable job.

Despite this, I think I ended up being of use. I sat in the back with the laptop hooked up to one (and occasionally two) printers downloading the shots from the various shooters, picking the best of the images, tweaking them in Lightroom and then printing them out. We got a flow going after a while and did pretty well getting the prints to people quickly. (There were a few people who got lost in the mix and we had to search back for their shots but they were patient with us.)

It was a good bunch of people working on the day. Everyone found their role and there were not too many conflicts. One guy was a bit of a pain but he did also get us out of a hole so I guess that was a wash! My biggest disappointment on the day was not being able to interact with too many of the people we were taking shots of. Since I wasn’t shooting and I didn’t get to give them the prints, I missed out on seeing it make a difference to the individuals. That was a shame but I balance that with having done my bit to make the whole thing run.

Congratulations to those that organized everything and put the effort in to getting us to the day itself. Also congratulations to those who did so much on the day. I hope they all enjoyed the outcome. I am really glad I was involved and will certainly do it again next year. If you have the chance, and you aren’t already involved, you might want to give it a go too.