Today marks the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day Invasion. One of the biggest allied operations or WWII which lead to the downfall of Germany’s Occupation of Europe. Thousands of men, aircraft, machines, supplies, and more went into making the operation a success. Today you can watch as a special memorial is taking place over the skies of France as over a dozen C-47’s are taking part in a flight over Normandy.
One of the premier aviation events in the world is EAA Airventure better known as Oshkosh, due to it being held in Oshkosh, Wi. Every year thousands of planes and people arrive to see what’s new and what’s still going. I’ve had the pleasure of going in past years and the photography has always been amazing. At Oshkosh you never known what will show up and getting there to see all the different, or in this case similar, planes arrive is a ton of fun. If you’re an aviation enthusiast then July means Oshkosh.
The one thing that I see all the time is that photographers only look at the front of the aircraft as they walk around and never go around the whole plane. I never understood why this is because quite often the best background is actually when you’re looking at the tail. The day we were at Fantasy of Flight for Precon we had great skies everywhere we looked. The way the plane was parked we had the brown hangers in the background. Well I don’t like the brown hangers and with those great skies I had to do something about it. By getting low and using the wings as cover most of the hangers disappeared and with a little help in post, the plane now looks like it’s on a English base.
One of the reasons the tail looks so good is because it gives the allusion that the plane is going out somewhere. The last thing anyone sees of a plane as it goes off is the tail. This brings to life the mystery of the mission, where the plane has been, where is it going? All questions that make you scratch your head. The more mystery you bring to your images the more time someone spends looking at them trying to figure them out.
In the Camera Bag:
Nikon D3, AF-S 24-70 f/2.8, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film
One of the new acquirement’s made by Kermit at Fantasy of Flight is this C-47 Skytrain. This plane has been called many different things over it’s years in service; Gooney Bird, Dakota, Skytrain, C-53 which is the cargo version and of course the DC-3 which was used as an airliner. This particular C-47 is a true veteran having flown during the invasion of Normandy and dropped paratroopers in France. It also dropped troops in during Market Garden. We were lucky to have this beautiful aircraft out on the grass for us to photograph. The clouds behaved perfectly creating that look of 1940 England; grass strips and cloudy skies.
At one point a Stearman that was selling rides flew overhead and punched a couple more holes in the clouds for us.
In the Camera Bag:
Nikon D3, 24-70 AF-S f/2.8, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film
