El Centro Photocall 2011 - Lessons Learned

[Jeff D. Welker]

I thought it might be appropriate for an El Centralis Virgo (yours truly) to get the ball rolling on this subject.

I've been hearing about the "El Centro Photocall" ever since I joined AzAP. When the spring trip got canceled this year, I began thinking I might never get the opportunity. To keep my spirits up Joe, Ned, Matt, Bill and other AzAP veterans kept regaling me with tales of previous visits. I was spending an inordinate amount of time perusing images from prior photocalls. After Thursday's trip, suffice it to say it was even better than I had envisioned 

Here are my observations and the lessons I learned.

1. LENS SELECTION - Whether carrying one, two or more camera bodies; choose your lens' with specific photos in mind. I used my 70-200L 2.8 and a 300L 2.8. While both lens' performed flawlessly, I should have stopped running around like a giddy school girl for a moment and changed to my 24-70L 2.8. With a wide angle I could have captured different angles and compositions. By restricting my lens options, I limited the variety of images I ultimately captured.

2. PRE-VISUALIZE IMAGES - After drooling over photographs from prior photocalls, I did not do a very good job of proactively arriving at El Centro with mental list of images I wanted to capture. Instead, I was in a reactionary mode and that limited my opportunities. For me it would have been very helpful to literally create a "story board" in my head, or even on paper, that would guide me through the day. For example, a Super Bug was on final and 98% of us shooters are standing and facing east to capture the landing. However, in between all those legs would be Jay sitting or Joe laying on the asphalt and shooting in the opposite direction     Don't get me wrong, I love all the "standard" compositions and shot a ton myself. But variety is the spice of life and I need to come to these opportunities better prepared with a more thoughtful vision.

3. SMELL THE ROSES - I really wished I had slowed my pace to interact with my fellow shooters. I missed a wonderful opportunity to meet many of the AzAP folks who's work I have admired this past year. I also did not do a good job of connecting with our brethren from SoCal. For me rubbing shoulders with other aviation shooters is both a social and academic endeavor - a big reason why I joined AzAP and ISAP. I typically enjoy meeting new folks and learn a great deal from those that have been excelling at this addiction for more years than I. Dinner at Burgers-n-Beer was a highlight (delays notwithstanding) and that experience reminded me that I should have taken better advantage of creating new associations while on base. Generally, I believe our aviation photography fraternity is comprised of good people.

4. PORK RIND PROHIBITION - Under no circumstances will I ever allow Joe, Dave Loera, or anyone else to eat pork rinds in my vehicle 

5. MISCELLANEOUS - I sincerely appreciate everyone that has posted "lessons learned" comments in the past. Because of you I stayed hydrated, chowed on an energy bar, and otherwise had a great day. Many thanks to Joe and others involved with making the El Centro Photocall happen - it was a great opportunity and an experience that will last much longer than my photographs.

I'm sure I'll will come up with more "lessons learned" as I digest this great experience. When that cognitive exercise occurs, I will post accordingly.

[Joe Copalman]

Thanks for getting this one started Jeff.  Still haven't gone through all my shots (fatherhood and yardwork awaited my return from El Centro), so I can't do a 100% lessons-learned thing yet, but I will echo your comment about shooting with a wider lens.

I had borrowed Ned's old 28-135 to test it out, as I'm in the market for a good mid-range zoom and can't splurge on a 24-105 for some time.  Ned's put a lot of miles on that lens, and he said it was somewhere in the neighborhood of ten years old, so that might explain why I had so much trouble with it.  I didn't get a single usable shot with it, and I should've switched to my 18-55 kit lens early on when I realized that my jacked-up shots were in fact due to the proverbial arrow, not the Indian.  I had gotten some surprisingly good shots the last time around with the kit lens, so it was at least a known quantity.  All I came away with on this trip are super-tight crops, which I traditionally like for the impact they have, but I saw so many good shots fly right past me because all I was shooting them with was my 150-500.  Next time around, I think I'll be renting a 24-105.

Also, stopping in Yuma on the way out to El Centro was a good move.  While the stop didn't really yield anything spectacular, it gave us an opportunity to shoot photos of aircraft we wouldn't be shooting all afternoon, and in some pretty spectacular light.  Of course, this is not a good move to make during the February Blue Angels practice visit, as their morning practice flight yields many not-shot-at-an-airshow opportunities that few ever get with the Blues.  

And Jeff, we initially considered a no-badmouthing-pork-rinds rule on the forum, but figured it would just be a needless redundancy, since who in their right mind would speak ill of pork rinds?  Looks like we might have to reconsider that.  

[Dave S.]

Not so much an El Centro lesson, but more of an overall lesson, compliments of Barry and his grey card.  I pretty much shot in manual mode the entire day, which was something new to me.  In the past, I was hesitant in going manual, so I would shoot either aperture (Av in Canon-speak) or shutter (Tv in Canon-speak) modes, depending if it was jets or props, respectively.  I knew about using gray cards, but figured it would be much more of a tedious issue when using one.  Barry showed me (and a few others) how easy and convenient it was to actually use.  It was a great help when catching planes directly head on, when they had their landing lights illuminated or when a nice, bright reflection was present on the canopy.

Of course, it really helped that there were just a few clouds throughout the day, which really helped keep a relatively constant exposure.  If it had been a day of patchy clouds, where the amount of light would be in a constant state of flux, it would have been much more of a challenge to use the gray card.

So, a big THANKS to Barry for that!

[Joe Copalman]

2. PRE-VISUALIZE IMAGES - After drooling over photographs from prior photocalls, I did not do a very good job of proactively arriving at El Centro with mental list of images I wanted to capture. Instead, I was in a reactionary mode and that limited my opportunities. For me it would have been very helpful to literally create a "story board" in my head, or even on paper, that would guide me through the day. For example, a Super Bug was on final and 98% of us shooters are standing and facing east to capture the landing. However, in between all those legs would be Jay sitting or Joe laying on the asphalt and shooting in the opposite direction     Don't get me wrong, I love all the "standard" compositions and shot a ton myself. But variety is the spice of life and I need to come to these opportunities better prepared with a more thoughtful vision.

I've been thinking about this, and I think I have a different position on it.  El Centro is in many ways our proverbial "box of chocolates."  You never know what you're going to get.  Sure, you know the layout and in general where you need to be for touchdown shots or burner shots or last chance shots, but I think that, at least for me, shooting in reactionary mode is the essence of El Centro.  You can go with a mental plan of what you want to shoot, but the truth is that opportunities you did not anticipate are going to present themselves, and I like the challenge of exploiting those opportunities.  I noticed a lot of guys staying in one place.  I must have passed Glen Tagami (a SoCal guy, solid shooter) a dozen times while ping-ponging between the east end of the dirt lot near the arm-up area and the west end of our "AO" near the arresting cable.  Looking at his shots on Flickr, he got some phenomenal shots, but for the most part, it's the same shot over and over, with the aircraft being the only variable.  He pre-visualized, and it paid off with some killer shots, but he also missed out on other opportunities because he stayed anchored to one spot.  My point is that it's good to have an idea of what you want to get while you're out there, but it's also good to indulge in the numerous contingencies that, for me, truly characterize the El Centro experience. 

[David Loera]

I agree with Joe on this one. The first time i went I pretty much stayed in one place and all my shots looked the same, so this time I made sure I was everywhere, and I am very happy with the results.

[Matt Ottosen]

I agree with Joe, I used the same lens from the same location the entire time, and while I have good range with the lens I still ended up will shots that all look pretty much the same.  While I'm very happy with my images from this trip, in the future I am going to be moving around to get different angles and catch different opportunities.

[John B.]

Thanks, Jeff!  Always a useful process to think about some of these things.

In short, I had a good day and a good shoot.  I don't know that a bad day is really possible.  I think that the worst thing that can happen is you only get a few good shots while you get to be at one of the coolest spots on earth without getting arrested for trespassing.

I did go into this year's shoot with specific compositions in mind--but all of that was based on the experience I had last year.  This year was totally different from last year, so I had to chuck all of that baggage!  So, in that sense I was very reactionary since I found that shooting is actually very different at the opposite ends.  On this occasion pre-visualizing was not very useful to me. 

One of the things I wanted to change from last year was that last year I moved around very little.  This year I bopped around much more and I was glad that I did.  I didn't make use of the outfield dirt as much as I would have wanted to, but I still moved up and down the runway.  The benefit was that I found myself in the right spot when the light finally turned awesome in the very late afternoon. 

On the hardware side:  Nothing that I didn't deal with last year.  I actually had a second camera body with me this time, but I decided I didn't want to be bothered with it.  I still need a better mid-range zoom (I would opt for a 16-85mm) but not having it just isn't a dealbreaker at NAFEC.  I cycled through my lenses and planted my feet where I thought I needed them to be.  Fortunately, I don't feel any genuine issues on that subject.

One thing I did not do this year that I did last year was "field editing."  So, this year I had a lot more to do after the shoot as far as sorting images that I liked from images I didn't like.  I left El Centro last year with that part already done.  This year I am still now going through that part of the process.  For me, deleting while still in the field is pretty much normal; I didn't while at NAFEC this year and I don't know why I didn't.

Lessons learned:  For me, I think I needed to use the outfield a bit more and even should have drifted out to "deep center field."  We're so close that we are well within range with 300mm lenses and another shooting perspective isn't necessarily bad to have when you have 1000+ images!  Second, use the delete button ("field edit") during downtime and save myself a lot of work after the shoot.  The third thing was that "pre-visualizing" turned out to be not helpful this time since we shot at the opposite end of the field.  I think staying mentally and physically nimble is the best overall approach.

[cpasley]

I have no regrets, albeit I only used one lens but since my best lens is only a standard 300 I was pretty happy with the results, of 2200+ photos I took around 200 I found acceptable which I will not complain about, I made it a point to get to know members I never talked to before and that was the highlight of my day, like Walt, Andy, Daniel, Barry, Scott and the guy who put up with me the whole way there, Dave S, that does bring up my one big regret, having more to drink than im used to at Burgers and Beer then crashing on the ride home, sorry Dave ,lol but from what I remember that at the restaurant I did become the funniest son of a bitch around ,haha

[Joe Copalman]

Bump.

[Paul Dumm]

Thanks joe, was looking for this