55th Post

Well I haven’t posted in a very long time and I apologize for that.  Just been rather busy photographing some aircraft for some clients of mine.  Last week, I photographed a Lear Jet for a client, and the week before I photographed a Beechcraft King Air, for another client.  Today, Dallas/Fort Worth is reporting 107 degrees and I photographed a Cessna Citation CJ1.

Thank the Lord that the CJ1 had air conditioning!  The King Air two weeks ago, had no air conditioning, and although I photographed it at 7:00 a.m., it was already very hot and muggy in the cabin, especially with no air circulating whatsoever.

I’ll try and post some photos from all three shoots later on this week.  Sorry this one is so short, just wanted to let all of my “many” fans and followers, I haven’t died.

Yet, that is.

 

 

54th post

Haven’t written anything in a few days so I wanted to take this time to catch everyone up to date on what is going on with me.

Earlier this week, I met with a client who contacted me about the possibility of photographing two of his company’s aircraft, a Beechcraft King Air 200 and a Cessna Citation.  I showed him my current portfolio with many of the photos that I’ve taken this past year of the various aircraft that companies have hired me to photograph in order to either sell the aircraft, or possibly put them on a web site for advertising purposes for chartering the aircraft.

He was impressed with my work and my pricing and I am now going to be photographing these two aircraft for him, very soon.

I’m also working with a graphic designer to come up with a new logo for my aviation photography business as this part of my business is really taking off.  Sorry for the pun!  I couldn’t resist.  I should have the final logo within the next two days, I’m really pleased with the way it is looking; then I’ll need to decide what photographs I will be putting on the back side of the business card, and also making decisions on what other types of marketing materials I will start to use to get the word out about my aviation photography.

Yesterday, on Wednesday, I had a great conversation with a lady who has a firm that specializes in business marketing to the corporate aircraft market, which is exactly the target market I am pursuing, as I look to build my business.  She is going to send me an information packet on her services and I will then begin to decide on what level of marketing her firm will begin to pursue for me.

I’m very excited about all of the positive changes that my photography business is going through at this point and time.  I’ve always had a love for photography, yet I feel that these past two years of pursuing it as a full-time profession, was not going the way I wanted it to.  Yet, fortunately for me, I’ve finally found my passion which is photographing aircraft (I’ve ALWAYS loved anything associated with airplanes, helicopters, jets, crop-dusters, flying, etc…) and I’m wanting to grow my business considerably the next couple of years.

I’ve been very fortunate to have some great mentors to help guide me along the way, and yes, I’ve made some mistakes along the way, and I’ve gotten knocked off the horse, a couple of times, BUT, the most important thing is to get back up on the horse, IMMEDIATELY and do not let ANYONE steal your dreams.

I attend a leadership luncheon from time to time that a good friend of mine hosts, along with some other men and women; and a few meetings back someone spoke of fire extinguishers and fire starters.  I want to be associated with FIRE STARTERS !!  These are the people that encourage you and help you achieve the dreams and goals you have set for yourself, I want to avoid FIRE EXTINGUISHERS who are people who continually to try and put out your fire, your burning desire.  Associate with positive people and get rid of all the negative people in your life.  You will notice a HUGE difference in the way you think.  I know it has helped me beyond description.

Thank you for reading my blog, I don’t know truthfully how many people actually read it, but for those people that do; thank you for taking time out of your busy day to read what I have to say.

Don’t know if I’ve posted this photo before or not, and I apologize if I have in the past, but I really like this jet.

 

53rd Blog

I’m working today on getting about 30 photographs printed, in order to actually have a physical portfolio of my work, as I go visit with prospective clients about my aviation photography.

A physical portfolio is good, so people can more or less, “touch” the photos and see how nice they look in a printed format.

I’ve uploaded 30 photos to my printing lab and I’ll go pick them up on Monday.  Either later today or tomorrow afternoon, I guess I’ll venture over to Hobby Lobby and see what kind of portfolio/binder I can put the photographs in, to present to prospective clients.  The photographs are being printed in an 8 x 10 format, so I’ll also have to purchase some type of protective sleeves for the prints, as well.

Here are a couple of examples of what I’m printing out.  Hope you like them.

52nd blog

I think this is my 52nd blog, somewhere along the way, I lost count, a little bit, so I might be plus one or minus one.

Last week at this moment, I was getting ready for my trip to Sacramento, California, as I had been hired to be the Official Photographer of Classic Jet Tours Enthusiasts flight on Saturday, May 26th on a DC-8, jet.   This aircraft was flown by ATI, or Air Transport International LLC, which is primarily a cargo carrier, yet they have a couple of DC-8’s that are called “Combi” aircraft, which means both cargo AND passengers fly on the main deck of the aircraft.  There are many DC-8’s that used to fly passengers around during the 60’s and 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s, but now earn their living flying freight around the world.  Here in  the United States, ATI is the only carrier still operating the DC-8.  UPS quit flying them a few years ago, but they did have a large fleet of them, at one point and time.

Classic Jet Tours was founded about two years ago by a young man named Sean Burris.  His company hired me last year to be the Official Photographer on their first flight, which was a BAC-111.  That was a great trip and I knew this would be no exception.

This DC-8 was built in 1968 at the Douglas Aircraft factory in Long Beach, California.  This particular plane was first delivered to SAS Airlines, it has also flown with Thai Airways and I believe the Royal Thai Air Force before coming to ATI.  Our flight was going to be from McClellan Airport (MCC), which was formerly a United States Air Force base, and we were going to fly the jet down to Long Beach, California and take a quick tour to the factory where this jet was built.

The jet only holds 30 passengers in the rear area of the aircraft, and the cargo hold is forward from the passenger compartment, but we did not have any freight on our plane, it was strictly a pleasure flight.  There were numerous people who had come to Sacramento from far away places as Switzerland, Norway, United Arab Emirates and Holland, to name a few countries.

This particular plane has the original engines in them, while many DC-8’s that continue to fly have been fitted with newer, more fuel efficient engines, and much quieter engines.  When we took off from MCC to LGB, it was very loud, but being an aviation enthusiast, we all loved the sound of that beast of an aircraft taking us down the runway.

After about an hour and 15 minute flight we landed at the Long Beach Airport and took a quick tour over to the former factories where these jets, along with their smaller brother, the DC-9 family was built.  It was really sad to see such large, beautiful buildings that used to produce such outstanding aircraft no longer have any activity inside of them.

We also were able to see the “World Famous” Fly Douglas Jets neon sign.  After the short tour of the factory buildings, we re-boarded the aircraft and flew back to McClellan Airport and we were then able to walk around the aircraft for a very long time and photograph it.

Here are some of my photos from the journey, I hope you enjoy them.

50th post

I am so far behind in my blog it isn’t even funny. My goal is to get to 200 blogs yet at the rate I’m going it will take me two years to get there. I think I need to set a reminder on my iPhone calendar to blog at least every other day. Been traveling on some photo shoots recently. I’ve got to go to a morning networking group I attend each Thursday but when I get back in the office tomorrow afternoon, I will post a much more detailed blog with photos. Big thunderstorms headed our way tonight. We had them early this morning and I slept right through them.

49th Post

I wanted to take this time to thank all of the men and women and their families who have previously served and/or are currently serving in any of the various branches of the United States Military.  Our country can never begin to thank you enough for all of your service and sacrifices you and your families have given, while protecting our freedom!

My father served in the US Army during World War II and although he is no longer with us, I am still very proud of him.

Went to Sacramento California to fly on a special chartered DC-8 flight on Saturday, May 26, 2012.

Here is one photo form the trip, I’ll upload some more, and write more about the trip in the next few days.

Happy Memorial Day !

 

48th Post

I had a good week and I hope everyone else did, as well.

On Monday, I had a shoot with a Cessna Citation III and boy was it hot inside that airplane.  I am going to have to ask future clients to please make sure to turn on the air conditioners in the aircraft as I photograph them, especially now that summer is going to be raising the temperature up even higher in those cabins.  I was literally soaking wet when I finished photographing the interior of the aircraft as it was inside a hangar, and of course, no air was circulating inside the hangar, or the cabin of the jet.

I am posting a few of the interior shots, and I am still working on the exterior shots; I’ll post some of them as soon as I have them finished.  Hope you enjoy viewing these, it is a very nice looking aircraft.

 

47th Post

Had a nice weekend, and it sure seems sad to see it end so quickly.

I went and changed out our accounts for our iPhones from at&t to Sprint, because it would save us approximately over $84 a month.  That adds up to a very hefty savings for our budget and the Davis Mansion.  ha ha ha !!

So it took over an hour to change over from one provider to the other, but we (my wife and I) have the new iPhone 4s and I’m now spending another couple of hours to transfer everything over from my old iPhone to the new one.  The old one was a 3G model and my model was about to die, so I’m really pleased with the new phones.  Just wish it didn’t have to take so long to transfer all my songs, games and apps over to the new phone.

I’ve also VERY anxious to try out the new Siri feature on the iPhone.  I think I’ll be using that service a lot.  In fact, I already used it while I was in the Sprint story to remind me of an upcoming birthday for a friend of mine.  I ALWAYS forget my friend’s birthday in May and I feel bad about it; fortunately for me, just as the new iPhone was getting set up, she texted me.  So I immediately went into Siri and had a reminder put in place for me.  I’m sure there will be a ton of things I can get Siri to do for me, I’m really excited about that.

Looking forward to a good work week, I tentatively have a aircraft shoot for Tuesday, it will be a Canadair Challenger 604 model, a little bit larger jet than I’ve photographed the past couple of sessions, so I am thankful about that.  The larger the plane, the more room I have to move around in it.  And I’m a big guy.  I just hope it doesn’t rain that day.  It only shows a 30% chance of rain, so I hope the “weather guessers” get that one right.  Not a lot of fun to photograph a jet out on a wet ramp.

It is my wish that all of you that read my blog have a GREAT day today and I hope you have a WONDERFUL week, as well.

 

46th Post

I took all that I wrote on this blog and have deleted it.

I do not want to be negative about any of my shoots and any of my previous clients.  My apologies if I have offended anyone.

I will only post good stories from now on.  The hard lessons I learn, I will keep to myself as confidentiality is a very important part of this industry I am in.  I learned some tough, but valuable lessons from this; and I will get back up on the horse and ride again.

Thanks to a good friend who told me to remove the negative story.  I appreciate his friendship, his wise counsel and for being a big supporter of what I am trying to do by becoming a better person, a better man and a better Christian.

Enjoy the photos.