Aviation history makes for both important subject matter and photographic challenges. It’s easy to find postcards featuring military aircraft. But it’s often quite difficult to find good ones.
Thankfully the challenge was made easier yesterday due to a cooperative effort between the Portage (Kalamazoo area) Air Zoo and Norman Camera called Photo Safari.
Air Zoo “features more than 50 rare and historic aircraft, amusement park-style rides, Full-Motion Flight Simulators, [and] RealD 3D/4D Missions Theater ….” [1,2,3]
Photo Safari was an educational, access opportunity where photographers were given special access to this complex that was otherwise closed to visitors. Numerous stanchions were removed, allowing unobstructed views; mobile platforms were rolled out to provide practicioners with otherwise unavailable elevated vantage points from which to make their images.
Additionally, experts from Norman Camera taught a one-hour class with advice on shooting in this challenging museum environment. They further sweetened the deal with a nice selection of lenses from their rental inventory, both F-mount for Nikon and EF-mount for Canon, which they made available free for photographer use from 5:30pm to 8:30pm.
Local models in period attire provided a final bit of value-added to this once-a-year opportunity.
The first museum photography adaptaptation to note is that you’re better served by working with the lighting as it appears, rather than trying to do much more than provide fill- or highlighting of your own. Adjust from there with post-production software such as Adobe Photoshop (which was used to complete the photograph above). [4,5,6]
The second re-thinking will come from field-of-view considerations — although this may not be as obvious as perhaps implied. In confined museum spaces, wider angle lenses will let you include in your photographs more of a larger subject aircraft within spaces where you are restricted in how far you can back away from them to work. [7,8]
But don’t get stuck in an “include everything” mandate. Many stories are more powerfully told through images where an identifiable part can represent the whole; this opens the door to more common, less expensive lenses. For inspiration, reference Instagram using #megaplane, #bigplane, #militaryplane, and similar hashtags.
Air Zoo is located just over 100 miles east of Saline, about an hour and forty minutes by car, mostly on I-94.
You may also want to flex your aircraft photography muscles closer to home here with impressive collections at The Henry Ford in Dearborn and Yankee Air Museum in Belleville. [9,10]
References
Photographed on April 27, 2017 at 3:10pm using Nikon D810 camera with Sigma 20mm Art DM f/1.4 lens, set to f/11 at 1/2-second and ISO 200 (tripod-mount).
- Air Zoo (home page).
- Norman Camera (home page).
- “Air Zoo Photo Safari: Exclusive Photographic Access to the Air Zoo’s Aircraft & Artifacts!” LocalHop.
- “Creating The Blackbird” Lockheed Martin.
- “Where Are They Now: SR-71B #831” (January 16, 2015) NASA.
- “15 Fascinating Facts About The SR-71 Blackbird, The Fastest Plane On Earth” (April 21, 2015) History in Orbit.
- “A Beginners’s Introduction to Wide Angle Photography” Josh Johnson (March 22, 2012) Envato Tuts+.
- “5 Mistakes Beginners Make Using a Wide Angle Lens and How to Avoid Them” Darlene Hildebrandt (May 27, 2015) Digital Photo Mentor.
- The Henry Ford (home page).
- Yankee Air Museum (home page).
