This isn’t a long post and it doesn’t have any images. Today is my nephew’s 18th birthday. Happy Birthday Chris. Have fun – I’m sure you will!
Happy Birthday Chris
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Lincoln Memorial
Continuing the Washington tour, we headed to the Lincoln Memorial. This one isn’t an unfamiliar subject and there is only so much you can do that is new. I was also a little constrained by the time of day we were there but enough of the excuses. I still got a few shots of the memorial as we looked around. It is an impressive structure and very popular. Consequently, there are a lot of people there at almost any time of day.
With so many people there, you are not often going to get the chance to have the scene clear of people so you make the best of it. I figured I would go as wide as possible in order to make the people less prominent in the shots. Whether this really worked or not, I am not sure. I also decided to do a panorama inside the building to try and get the wide shot without the distortion the fish-eye can bring.
That didn’t stop me playing with the fish as well. It certainly provides a different look at some things but the large amount of vertical references really shows the distortion. Still, it was worth a try.
MLK Memorial in DC
The next few posts will all be related. My nephew, Chris, was staying with us recently and, while he was here, I needed to travel to Washington DC for a meeting. Since Chris had never seen Washington and my meeting would not take up the whole day, I took him along so he could see a bit more of what the country has to offer a visitor. It was only one day but Washington is nice and compact when you are looking at some of the more obvious tourist attractions provided you are ready to walk.
It was an early start and a long day out but we covered a lot of things. Today I shall start with one that was new to me as well. The Dr Martin Luther King Jr memorial is a relatively new addition to the collection of monuments around the Mall area in Washington. I had heard about it and was interested to see how it looked. I was not alone as there were plenty of people walking across to find it.
A number of features were of interest to me. There is a quote from Dr King on one of the stones which says “Out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope.” I am not familiar with the full quote and its context but the entrance to the memorial is a large rock from which a central section has been extracted. This section is placed further into the memorial and it is on this section that his likeness is sculpted. As I saw the relationship between the two parts, I was quite taken with it.
I know the memorial has not be universally well received but I liked this entrance feature combining with the sculpture, the wall of quotations and the general feel down by the tidal basin. I imagine that it will be a popular place in years to come. The Vietnam Memorial was controversial when it was created and it is now considered iconic so we shall see how time judges this memorial too.
A Little Golden Knights Video
In my previous post I talked about my trip up with the Golden Knights. It was a lot of fun and the primary goal was to get some images and information for the article. However, since I was there, I decided to grab some video too. I had a combination of the video capabilities of my SLRs as well as a GoPro I mounted on a wrist strap. I tried to make this point in roughly the right direction but it was a bit of a struggle when I was focused on shooting stills.
Anyway, excuses aside, I knocked together a short edit of some of the footage I got. Still not going to get the Emmy people excited but hopefully it gives a bit more of a feel for what it was like on the flight.
Golden Knights
Virginia Air Power Park
Just down the road from the Virginia Air and Space Museum is the Virginia Air Power Park. This has some similarities to the Air and Space Museum and some differences. First, since it is also close to the Air Force and NASA facilities, it shares the access to some interesting exhibits. Therefore, there are some very interesting aircraft on display. This includes an XV-6 Kestrel from NASA, just like the Air and Space Museum. Strange that such a rare aircraft should have two on display in such close proximity!
The differences are more pronounced. It is an outdoor exhibition and decidedly less glamorous. Getting funding to look after the aircraft is a continuing issue for the team there and they are working hard at it. Some of the aircraft are repainted but others a in need of a new coat when they can get it. Since everything is outdoors, I imagine that the preservation task is a more difficult one. We were there on a rather grey day. It had been raining heavily and was still cloudy and dull while we were there. Some of the aircraft were standing in large puddles which can’t be good for them.
None of this is meant to be critical of the team. That they are doing what they can to keep these aircraft on display is great but it must be a struggle to make sure that they are not going to rot away. Not only are there aircraft but also some interesting missile and some rockets from the space program’s test activities. They also have some capsule hardware from test activities.
There is a building at the park as well which currently contains a wide selection of models of different aircraft, ships and spacecraft. Again, if you are passing by, I would recommend you pay it a visit but you might need to make sure you have some shoes that don’t mind puddles!
Virginia Air and Space Museum
Located in Hampton Virginia is the Virginia Air and Space Museum. Hayman and I checked it out as part of our tour of local museums. I had been warned by Liza that everything inside was pretty crowded and she certainly wasn’t wrong about that but more of that later. The museum is a very modern looking facility with glazing at both end walls allowing lots of light inside. That also makes for a few problems with the levels of contrast between parts of the building but I doubt they planned it based on the needs of photographers!
In fact, they really didn’t. The building has a great collection of aircraft. The close proximity to NASA facilities has obviously been helpful in getting access to some pretty unusual exhibits. The Apollo 14 Command Module is on display as is the HARV F/A-18 Hornet, a research F-106 and an XV-6 Kestrel among many other interesting airframes. They even have an MMU from the Space Shuttle program (although getting a shot of it from the moving elevator was tricky). The result of all of these exhibits is that they have to be squeezed in. They are usually suspended from the ceiling which makes them look more dynamic. However, they do tend to overlap a lot.
This isn’t a problem if you are visiting to see everything which is, after all, the purpose of the museum. It does, however, make getting photos a bit more tricky. I ended up using a combination of lenses. A wide angle zoom and a fisheye zoom were the two I chose. The fish is a lens that viewers can tire of quickly but, in this case, it was a case of trying to get unobstructed shots where possible. It also let me try a few odd angles for fun too!
While not a museum I would go back to repeatedly, this was certainly a good place to visit. I might go back one more time with some new ideas about how to shoot certain things but even that might require the cooperation of the management! If you are passing and have a couple of hours, do pay it a visit.
Curtis Commando
I took a couple of trips to Pungo in Virginia recently to the Warbirds Museum. The first visit was part of the ISAP field trip while the second trip was for the airshow on the day after the ISAP symposium had wrapped up. The field trip was on the Friday when they were preparing for the show. The sun was out but the wind was gusting pretty high so none of the aircraft were flying.
The Sunday was a lot worse. The rain was pretty constant and the cloud base was low. There was still some wind although it was a little lower. However, any chance of a display was gone. The only aircraft that performed on both days was the C-46 Commando. It showed up on the Friday to check out whether the wind was within limits. it did a low pass and determined that it wasn’t landing and off it went. Fortunately, I was in the right place for the first pass, even if a slightly longer lens would have been helpful.
On the Sunday it appeared again out of the murk. It did one pass (slightly higher than Friday) and then came in to land. I was further down the field this time and with a longer lens so was better placed for the landing. Conditions were not good since it was raining a lot but I still got a few shots.
The Commando is not a common aircraft so I was glad to get to shoot it, even if the circumstances were not ideal. It was a shame to miss some of the more unusual flying items but there you go. Make the best of what you get!
More Oceana
The ISAP theme continues! In a previous post (that you can read here if you missed it) I talked about some shooting I did with some friends outside NAS Oceana, the premier fighter base for the US Navy on the east coast. Well, the field trip from the symposium included a visit to Oceana as well although this was to be on the flightline. VF-31 was the Squadron that hosted us. They provided us with an excellent visit.
The squadron was not undertaking operations that day so their part of the ramp was occupied by planes but nothing was moving. This gave us a great space in which to move around. We were basically free to go to the end of their line where it met the taxiway and to shoot from anywhere in there. The only restrictions were the normal ones on a Navy base. No shooting open panels and no shooting Super Hornets down the inlets.
There was a fair amount of activity on base and the weather was very nice (if a little breezy). Since we were there in the morning, we had the sun pretty much behind us which worked out well. The squadrons that were flying that day seemed to have a steady stream of jets on the move. They would taxi passed us on the next taxiway from the one we could get to the edge of so we could see the jets coming by easily and when they were in the hold they were easy enough to shoot.
The warm weather meant that shooting anything too far away was going to be fruitless if using a long lens since the heat distortion was too much. However, if you went a little wider, you could minimize the effect of that, at least for the size of shots that are going to be posted online. They wouldn’t stand up to too much enlargement I suspect but they certainly show what was going on.
Interspersed with the regular jets were a few in special schemes. There were a number of the squadron specials up and flying as well as one of the CONA marked aircraft. We also saw a few jets that were in the aggressor colors but that had moved to a new squadron so we a combination of new and old markings. I am sure they will be repainted in gray before long so that is something good to have seen while it was around.
The VF-31 special aircraft was at the end of the line up and the squadron kindly provided some steps to allow us to get a higher look at it. These were originally for us to get a group photo in front of the jet but, once they were there, most people took the opportunity to get a few shots as well. These things tend to work quite well with everyone taking a turn but occasionally, as with people who linger very close to a subject, you get a few people who forget that they aren’t the only person involved. Thankfully, he majority are very considerate and “help” the less fortunate to play well with everyone else!
The next squadron along the ramp was VF-213. They did have some operations underway. One of the things they were doing was providing experience flights to midshipmen who were yet to decide their career path in the Navy. Additionally, they appeared to be in the process of training up a number of the ground crew. Consequently, when one of the jets came in for a running change of backseater, we got to see the midshipmen swap over and the ground crew being shepherded through the process of turning the jet. It was fun for us but I wonder how much they enjoyed having their early work being watched by so many. Many thanks to them, though, for tolerating our presence.
Our stay was slightly extended since our bus driver had been taken ill while we were on base and a replacement had to come in and help out. I didn’t hear the final outcome but hopefully he was feeling better later on. With a new driver in place, it was time for us to move on. Considering the size of the group we had, the team at Oceana did a great job of hosting us. Many thanks for everything.
Pungo
Continuing my theme of items related to the ISAP symposium, we took a trip to the Museum of Military Aviation at Pungo south of Virginia Beach. Actually, we took two trips to be accurate. The first was part of the symposium field trip and the second was after the symposium had concluded and was for the air show at the museum. Since they were preparing for the air show on the Friday of the field trip, I think it is fair to combine the two events into one posting.
Friday was a great day from a weather perspective except that it was quite windy and, more importantly from an aviating perspective, the wind was directly across the runway. This meant that not too much flying was going on. With a great collection of vintage military aircraft available, this was a shame. However, they were all laid out along the field to take a look at so we were able to get up close and personal with a bunch of cool aircraft.
One of the planned attendees for the show did appear but that is something I am going to save for another post. The show also included a lot of reenactors who had set up encampments around the site. For a lot of the group, this proved to be a good alternative to go and photograph. Normally, I am more than willing to photograph anything interesting or unusual but, for some reason, I didn’t get into this topic at all.
It is not that they weren’t worthy of photographing. If you look at the images that people got you can see some good work. My friend Jo recently blogged about this very topic here so you can see some of what was there. However, in this case it just did not seem to work for me so I spent my time wandering around other parts of the museum.
The Sunday of the show arrived with very unfavorable weather. Apparently the Saturday had been pretty good but Sunday had low clouds and rain when we got there. It appeared highly unlikely that it was going to improve but we waited it out for a while. The reenactors were out again so there was much for people to see but, since I was more bothered about the aircraft, I focused on them. A few extra aircraft had arrived since we had been there on Friday, my favorite being a Fairey Firefly that had come in from Canada. They were supposed to depart late morning for their trip home but sadly the weather got too bad to allow even that departure.
I certainly enjoyed seeing the various aircraft at the museum and there for the show. It was a shame they weren’t granted better weather as I’m sure their ticket sales will have suffered (although a surprising number of people continued to arrive while we were there) but hopefully they will have achieved enough to support the ongoing work of the museum. They certainly need to be commended for their efforts putting together the event.
