Aviation Casual
I covered my second assignment for the Chronicle on Saturday. The Hemet-Ryan Air Show is a small, yet popular event, and this was the first time in a few years that they’d held it. Admission was free, so the airport grounds were packed. The weather was cool, and the activities played out under overcast skies.
The aerobatic performances were impressive – these guys are good, no doubt, but their displays are all about motion and don’t translate well to the newspaper page. I was more interested in capturing audience reaction to what was going on in front of and above them and their interaction with the static displays. I’m getting over my shyness of photographing people, and I guess the cover of reportage helps. Folks were either oblivious or happy to be involved, and I got a lot of camera questions.
I ended up with quite a few shots I think the editor can use, and number of Flickr-worthy pieces. The selects for the paper are here, and the Flicker set is here.
I had a hard time getting manual exposure right for a lot of the day due to the overcast skies. On a gear note, I was shooting both the 30D (50mm) and the 5DII (70-300mm), and the 70-300mm f/4-5.6 with the hood produced some really nasty vignetting. I was able to correct most of it in post, but I’m not happy about it at all. I guess it’s not the right lens for the big sensor. Have to do something about that soon.
