This past week I was home in California with the folks working on a few projects with them and yesterday after they got back from their trip to Minot we met up in Reno at the Reno Air Races. Now for those that have followed my blog for a while you probably know that we started going to the races in 2009 and took an absence the last couple of years. Well a very good friend of ours who is part of the crew on Voodoo asked us to come up to take a couple of pictures. An unplanned, spur of the moment idea turned into a really great day which brings up the lesson behind this post. Just show up.
A lot of people ask how you make these great opportunities happen in aviation and the answer is you show up. We didn’t plan on going but we had a friend who wanted us there so we went. Now if you’re starting out the answer is real easy. You go online to find a list of airshows that are happening around the US, like this one, then you just go. A day pass is $10 and you walk around, take pictures and talk to people. It’s amazing what happens when you just be sociable. Every aviation project I’ve worked on has basically started with this process. It’s really basic but it works. This shot of the P-51 Mustang Voodoo was taken with the D5 and 70-200 VRII in high speed crop. As I said I wasn’t planning on going so I didn’t have my 200-400 VR with me. But by showing up I got a couple shots and kept those connections I’ve made over the years alive and that’s what you need to do.