Everybody taking photographs took at least once a night photograph of the cars leaving a light trail. But you can do it with airplanes, as well, and the result is not less stunning. Last weekend, we took the camera, and went to local airport around the time of the largest evening traffic. There was maybe 6 planes arriving and one plane taking off (hey, it was Saturday evening, Iowa ), just enough to have time for some trial and error and a keeper. I know now what I want to do different next time, but I still like this best image from that evening.

We went to our favorite small airport to do some flying yesterday, but the weather was not exactly perfect for cross-country. Not risking getting stuck in middle-of-nowhere, Iowa for undetermined amount of time, we turned around and decided to spend the midday photographic planes rather then flying them. More fun for me, if anybody asks . We saw somewhere around the net the HDR gallery for planes, and wanted to give it a try. Again, we disagreed on the post-processing and artistic concept of the project . Tomasz liked more hard-core HDR, which are a bit too much for me. So I ended up processing resulting 12 Citabria and 19 Cherokee images in two ways, and then finishing them off with two different concepts in mind. But I have to admit, having a lot of time, a lot of point-of-views, made the project so much fun! And why not black-and-white or selective colors? Especially if the yellow plane is competing for attention with yellow grass (man, I really did not notice it until I had final processed images on the screen!). Check it out.

There seem to be one thing I can photograph with Lensbaby- airplanes. That probably has something to do with my favorite subjects vs technical limitations. Somehow, the landscapes do not look that appealing when I photograph them with Lensbaby, and airplanes are just about the only “solid” item I tend to photograph. Probably because Tomasz is fascinated with flying, and we are spending more time on assorted flying events then foe example car events.
In either case- the blog photo I took last weekend during Pumpkin Splat on Green Castle airfield. Looks like a have a theme this week .

Last week, we have been flying back here from Europe. It was an atypical flight, unusually late for flying West. We departed Poland about 5 pm, and we could see the sun setting in front of us. It stayed this way most of the trip! It was beautiful. An shaky, because of the weather, but very “landscape flight” nevertheless. At one point, when I was so upset with turbulence and couldn’t sleep anymore, I looked through the window and saw this view. I am not 100% sure it is Greenland, but it is my best bet. I used two iPhone apps to work it up, first Photogene to do some typical, Lightroom like adjustments of Exposure, Colors, Sharpness, and then- CameraKit to add watermark, before adding image to my draft in WordPress app .

I prefer to take put my Lensbaby for photographing objects rather then landscape. If I want to play with this lens, I would go places like museums. Or car shows. Or airfields. Somewhere with a lot of detail. As I new I have nothing worth displaying this Lensbaby Wednesday in archive, visiting the Antique Airfield in Southern Iowa was very good choice. This time I remembered that it doesn’t matter what I feel artistically, the propeller and front of the plane needs to be in focus!

It used to be Tomasz guest Saturday, but he seems to be too busy with his flying to care to photograph, and to post. If you are interested in his pilot’s endeavors, you can check his blog here. Luckily, I have some of his photos in my Lightroom catalog, and I want to go back to how the the series started and just post them in his name . This image was taken when we visited Iowa State Fair a couple of week ago. He was trying for a while to achieve the effect that you can see the little blur on windmill wing, showing it is moving. It seems like there is some of it on the photo, and a small plane adds interest to the photograph.

I took this photo while spending couple of hours with my brother at the local airport. Mind you, ‘the airport’ in this case is a little bit of overstatement, but it has some hangars and a runway .

What is interesting in this photo is the light on top of the tail fin. It’s strobe. Very bright and very fast strobe. It blinks about 5 times per second with 2-3 seconds between series of blinks. This one was the very first time I was was able to caught it on picture, ever.

Plus if you look closer you’ll see that my brother (who was at the controls) was actually flying at this moment about six inches above the ground.

I am starting another series on blog- Lensbaby Wednesday. I was using it recently as a lens of choice, to do something different then straight shots in places I am familiar with and felt I might have problems with ideas. Or, like during AirVenture, Tomasz was shooting a lot, and I didn’t want to repeat same shots (it is hard to differently interpret an airshow!). In any case, I have some images I like, and want to share them.
This is one of my all-event favorites from Oshkosh. We went one morning to sea base, and I noticed this yellow Husky and its reflection in the water. When I photographed it, a lady approached me, and decided she like the view as well .

I am still rethinking this post. Since I got the idea of putting together this gallery for my Gallery Monday (and the images were shot with the idea in mind already), I was listening few podcasts about HDR imaging and got second thoughts on it. And although the images in the gallery are not incredibly unique, and don’t think there is anything wrong with a composition or thought behind them. HDR here was not supposed to be “unsuck filter” . There are probably more on utilitarian side, then fine art, thought. For me, it included some technical exercise. I used bracketing in my D300 to make HDRs, the fisheye lens, to capture the whole room in one photograph, and then of course Photomatix to get the final images. So, enjoy your virtual trip to AirVenture museum, when you click on the cockpit photo. The blog image, however, was taken outside the museum, on the AirVenture grounds, inside the DC-3 Dakota.

WWII aircrafts are my absolute favorites. They don’t make noises like jet, they ain’t so fast or maneuverable. Yet they have this thing thing that draws me to them again and again. While visiting EAA Museum one particular aircraft caught my attention more than others. Polished aluminum with bright red dot painted on it’s nose. Eye catching the say the least. But if you look closer, this one has small surprise hidden above. Six 12.5 mm machine guns seem to say “don’t come too close if you don’t want to regret!’. I wonder how many Axis pilots were surprised by those…