Promotional paint schemes are not uncommon – particularly with certain airlines. Alaska has a bunch of them. This one was a new one for me. WestJet, a Canadian airline, seems to have a marketing tie up with Disney too. They have painted a 737 up in an all-over shame that certainly gets your attention, if only to wonder what on earth it is. I was pleasantly surprised to catch it having had no idea it was on its way.
Humpback whales do not use Listerine. If you are upwind or one (or more), you will know it by the smell. When they exhale through the blowhole, a very aquatic aroma is shared. This isn’t the only way to spot them of course, they are a pretty large beast so not the hardest thing to find – particularly if it is a calm day like it was for us. We saw so many humpbacks that we passed most of them by. We did end up pretty close to some, though. These guys seemed totally uninterested in us. I have to say I took it hard.
There is not a huge amount of variation in airliners these days so coming across something a little different is usually a moment of interest. While the name Alaska Airlines might suggest an airline focused on Alaska, it is actually headquartered in Seattle and seems to have a wide range of operations all across the west coast. Consequently, we see a lot of them in both Oakland and SFO. They have a large fleet of 737-800s and 737-900ERs and both types have been retrofitted with the APB Scimitar winglets. Apparently, not all of them though. This example I saw coming by Coyote Point and it not only doesn’t have Scimitars, it doesn’t have winglets at all. A rare beast these days.
I have been on a few whale watching trips in the past. We took one out of Provincetown on Cape Cod that had a whale guarantee. No whales and you get a free second trip. 95% success rate. Guess what day we went on. No chance to go back and take the free trip. We did a trip in a RIB when staying on Pender Island and had more success on that occasion including a pretty close encounter with a humpback. Other than that it was a pretty quiet trip.
Consequently, I was cautious when we went on our trip out in Monterey Bay. This is an area with an abundance of marine life, particularly at this time of year. Dolphins, humpbacks, orcas and even blue whales have been about a lot recently. However, we went on a trip that had a lot better chances. It was an all day excursion. It was listed as eight hours but we ended up being gone for eleven. The map above shows where I took shots so you can see we went a long way up the coast. It is easy to see why they don’t let children under 13 or pregnant women on. Boredom or urgent needs are not realistic!
The day was very productive. Be ready for a stream of posts of aquatic wildlife!
I’m sure this will look very formulaic to a number of photographers but, for the longest time, I have loved the image of a lone boat in the open sea. I think the first time I took a shot like this was on the Ribble Estuary in Lytham. That was on film of course. Now, even when I know it is not being terribly original, I can’t help myself but be drawn to an image like this. Maybe one day I will have the perfect shot but I doubt it.
The way the light bounces from the water, the shadow that the boat is in, the texture of the waves and the isolation of the boat in the expanse of the water all appeal to me. Hope you like it too.
Waiting on the ramp at Moffett Field for Solar Impulse, over on the other side of the field we could see another visitor. An Antonov AN124 Ruslan was parked up with its nosed raised in the process of loading a payload. It looked a bit like a satellite container and, given the proximity of two satellite manufacturers, that wouldn’t be improbable. It was a long way off but I had some time to try and get a shot and this was what I got.
At the end of Baker Beach there are some rocks. One guy had set himself up here to do a bit of fishing. He knew exactly where the waves would crash over and where they would miss – unlike some of the other people clambering across the rocks. The image of him alone with the sea seemed rather compelling to me – certainly more so than the view in the opposite direction of a naked guy on the beach applying sunblock!
An oft quoted idiom in aviation is that if it looks right it flies right. I’m not sure whether that was deep in the minds of Pacific Aerospace Ltd when they designed the P-750 or not but this is an aircraft that is functional and useful but I doubt too many people will consider it pretty. It is a workhorse. Some sections of fuselage which minimize the use of double curvatures to make production simpler and cheaper. Add to that the reliable PT-6 seemingly bolted on the nose and a wing with a thick section and some simple dihedral at the tips and you have a plane. If you want to take a decent load of skydivers up to altitude quickly and get back down just as quickly for the next load, this is your sort of plane.
This example showed up at Salinas while I was there. It parked on the ramp for a while before heading back off. It has a rear door suited to skydiving and the name on the bottom suggests that is what it does. I first saw one of these at East Troy in Wisconsin where it was also carrying skydivers. The diving approaches both examples used show just how quickly this plan can get back on the ground. The first time you see it, you may think something is wrong but it is just the most efficient way to get to the next paying customers.
The Bay Area is not short of photogenic locations. Probably the most famous is the Golden Gate Bridge. I have certainly photographed it many times from different places. One that I have not shot from before, though, is Baker Beach. Located on the outside of bridge on the south shore, it provides a nice angle on things. I had seen plenty of shots from there before but my previous effort at visiting had occurred on a day when visibility on the shore was just good enough to see your hand in front of your face.
Nancy and I decided to check it out as a fall back when something else we had planned proved to be so busy we couldn’t find anywhere to park. We headed to the beach and strolled along the sand avoiding (most of the time) the waves rolling up on the shore. The view of the bridge was much as expected. As we wandered around, a number of container ships came into view heading for the bay. I was curious to see just how large they looked when compared to the bridge. We loitered until one of them went under the bridge. It suddenly looked a lot less impressive, even though it reached a good distance towards the bridge deck.
The round the world trip of Solar Impulse, the solar powered aircraft conceived of by Bertrand Piccard and built/flown by him and Andre Borschberg, resumed its journey after an enforced stay in Hawaii while they dealt with some overheating issues with the batteries. By the time the batteries were fixed, it was too late in the year to continue. The aircraft charges its batteries during the day and uses them at night. If the day is shorter and the night longer, the flight is not sustainable. The arrival of spring meant they could resume the trip.
Originally the leg from Hawaii to the continental US was supposed to go to Phoenix. The break meant they came up with a revised route which included a stop in the Bay Area at Moffett Field in Mountain View. This meant I could cover it for Global Aviation Resource. There are two articles I prepared which you can see here and here.
The arrival was scheduled for about midnight. Late landings and early departures are scheduled to provide the calmest conditions. The very high aspect ratio, lightweight airframe is sensitive to turbulence. It also is easier to schedule a very slow aircraft in to the air traffic patterns during the night. While the time moved around a bit, it ended up being pretty much as expected. This brought the issue of how to shoot an aircraft at midnight.
I took a second shooter with me in the person of Hayman Tam. I wanted stills and video for the story and can’t get both at once so we worked on it together. He would focus on stills and I would get video. I would also get some stills too. The plane is sufficiently slow that you can get both for most situations apart from the landing itself. It didn’t hurt that Hayman had just taken delivery of his D500 which should be a lot better in low light.
I was mounting my camera and the 100-400 on a gimbal mount to steady it for video. This was also helpful for getting stills. Not ideal but better than nothing. I was at the max ISO for my camera of 12,800 (excluding the extended ranges) with -1 to -2 in exposure compensation. Even so, it was still a very slow shutter speed. Some bursts of shooting were necessary to get a reasonable shot. Fortunately the aircraft has a lot of lights of its own otherwise there wouldn’t be much to see. It’s a shame my new bodies hadn’t arrived at the time as they might have been able to get better results. Even so, I was quite pleased with what I got considering that I was shooting in the darkest conditions I have ever tried for a plane.