Inspiration can come from a lot of places, so many in fact that I couldn’t list them all in one blog post. Everyone has their own way of getting pumped about a project and that’s part of being human. Lately I’ve been working on an aviation project that I hope to accomplish later this summer and to get ready I’ve been going through historical records to know as much about my subject as possible. The problem is there ain’t much of a record about my future project. Oh well, guess I’ll have to make one.
A couple of months back I found this book at an antique store. I love going through antique and used book stores for Aviation books. There are so many out there and you never know which one while have tid bit that can spark an idea. The really interesting part or sad part in this case, is that most of these books come from veteran collections. This particular book came from a Colonel that lived up in Helena and who passed away last year.
What caught my attention most about his particular is in the tag line, “a pictorial history of World War II Air Forces in combat.” Since aviation photography is in part about recreating history, then the best place to study is the photographs from that time period. The formations, the angles, the planes and their backgrounds, it’s all important to know. Seeing images like this is no different then seeing a portrait that you like and wanting to duplicate the technique. Or seeing a beautiful animal and wanting to go photograph that critter. These are the photographs that we draw inspiration from and it’s how we strive for greater things.