Afghanistan has some great sunsets, this one was  especially nice.  During a rare free moment, I fired off a few HDR 5 bracketteted exposures.  I didn’t know what I had until I got home and processed the shots.  A little crop to get rid of some of the distracting artifacts off to camera right and I came up with this.

This picture came when we were waiting to takeoff off from a FOB in Afghanistan.  This was a single shot that I processed through Photomatix pro, giving it the HDR feel.  Without using the RAW image and processed as and HDR it would look like a silhouette.   I like this better.

I am finally getting serious about making a hard cover portfolio book, one that I can send out to potential clients, magazines, art directors and the like.  I found Paperchase located in Hollywood on Sunset, just west of Highland.  I met with a very nice women, Dena, we talked about my ideas and how I envisioned this project.  At first I really, truly thought I was going there to have someone create this entire book, give great ideas, have incredible vision for the brand and my photo’s and then hand it back to me in a month or so.  I wasn’t prepared for what actually happened, I have to design this book, myself,…I was shocked, internally of-course, but shocked still the same.  I don’t know anything about designing a book.  I know about shooting the picture and putting them together, sort of, but a book, not so sure about that.  My …

Somewhere out of FL240, south of Fort Wayne, IN. We were on the KNOX 4 arrival, and we were cookin’ along at about 320 knots, when center told us to slow to 250knots. – This irritates me, I just want to get there – so stop screwing around, and let me fly the speed I want to fly.  This is my thought process, the stuff that goes through my head  -  ”Slow down….really?…what’s our sequence?……..are we following a blimp or something!?  My silent sarcasm ringing in my head.

I reached up, spun the airspeed back on the FCU (Flight Control Unit) panel, the nose came up to slow the airplane down and I glanced to my left and I saw this out the window.  I quickly grabbed my camera and fired off about 6 frames.  I then switched to Bracketing and fired off …

We were heading east over Kansas, somewhere near Liberal (LBL VORTAC) at Flight Level 370, on our way to Dulles when I shot this.   The effect of the darkening sky ahead, the cloud deck below and the full moon made for a beautiful night sky.  This view didn’t last very long, by the time we got over Missouri it was gone.  I quickly grabbed  my camera and placed it up on the glare shield supported by my bean-bag mount, The Pod   and fired away.  The ride was smooth, no turbulence or chop to speak of so shooting at 1/15th of a second wasn’t a factor.  I shot about 10 frames before the light changed enough to make the scene to dark and unusable.

I love the simplicity of this shot, it’s very peaceful and calming.  To me, it seems as if  heaven might …

Taxiway edge lights sit about 12 inches off the ground and are no more than 10 feet outward from the edge of the full strength pavement. In other words, to get this shot you need to lay down in the grass or dirt and, as luck would have it, it was wet.   This was truly one of those sunsets that made me stop and look, it was perfect, so wet or not, I couldn’t let this one go.

I had gotten permission from the tower chief and airport manager to shoot some pictures from the infield grass earlier in the day.  I had seen this sunset coming about an hour before it occurred and I wanted to get a good shot of an aircraft silhouette using this as the background.  But when I got into position the airfield was dead quiet, nothing was moving, not even the birds.  Just as the sun disappeared below …

I have never written a blog before, I have never even commented on one, so this is a big step for me. Everyone I know loves airplanes, but I guess that’s to be expected, since I spend most of my day surrounded by them.  All my friends are pilots or mechanics, fight attendants, dispatchers and so on; my world is surrounded by the anything and everything aviation.

I started this blog because someone once told me “shoot what you know” so here it is, the airplanes and the people who fly’em and fix’em.  I am blessed to have unique access to all different types of airplanes that most people don’t, so with that in mind, I thought I would share with anyone and everyone who was interested.

This is one of my favorites; a four ship of C-130J’s over the coast of Southern California. This is …