The Great Georgia Airshow

I cant say I have missed too many of these shows and with the Federal Sequester in effect, I thought the lack of military aircraft would hinder the event... well, maybe it did a little as it was lacking the roar of F-18 Hornets, F-16 Falcons, F-22 Raptors and even amazing teams like the Navy's Blue Angels or the Air Force Thunder Birds. On the other hand, I still see aviation photography as a huge challenge.

Exposure settings, focus, tracking and lots of images all add up to get the "keepers". I shot roughly 2000 images (with 2 cameras that can do 8-12fps, that's not hard to do). Balancing your shutter speed is KEY when it comes to the movement of the plane and keeping it sharp. Too fast of a shutter, and the plane looks odd if its prop driven since the props freeze...that's generally a bad thing when flying. So you need to have a shutter slow enough to blur the props, but not so slow to get camera or motion blur... something I got A LOT of this trip as I was pushing my abilities a little too much- something you should always do to help improve your skills.

"J's Bird" American T-6/SNJ

The lighting was great...for spectators, not so much for photography. Sun was directly overhead and slightly in front of us. Exposures were very different from left to right, on the deck and in the air. This made for some GREAT silhouette opportunities.

CAF "Zero" Used in Tora, Tora, Tora. Actually a modified AT-6

The high humidity kept the smoke from the planes down on the flight level so it got smokey pretty quick making it hard to get a clear shot of many of the acrobatic planes. Luckily there was a good breeze, so it would blow through and you could shoot through the holes.

Team Aeorshell

For more images, check out the gallery on the Drew MacCallum Photography Facebook page

Orbs in NYC (1)

We started our quest in the morning taking a walk on the New York High Line. It's an old elevated train track that was converted into a walking trail and park. We found SEVERAL places ideal for done light painting. We went back at night but alas, we got there right after the gates were closed... So, we will go back later this month when we return for PhotoExpo

Plan B- Madison Square Park. 

Orbs are done by spinning a light or steel wool connected to a string. Since the local law enforcement probably would not like us slinging sparks all over French tourists, we used a handy LED set of lights. 

You need a good tripod, a cable release and some good timing along with trial and error to get the exposure. Some crowd control is wise too. 

This one ended up my favorite. Looking forward to our next trip up.