YOUR FAVORITE IMAGES OF 2012

[Jeff D. Welker]

Hey You Guys:

Having seen this on a few other photography-related forums/blogs recently, I think it would be nostalgic, meditative, and instructive to review our images from 2012, choose favorites, and share them on the forum. Accordingly, I'd like to encourage all AzAP members to participate. Go back through your 2012 files and find four images that you feel are your favorites or best, and then post them on this thread. To keep things consistent, three should be aviation oriented and one non-aviation. In addition to simply posting your four 2012 favorites for all to enjoy, I believe it will be insightful and inspirational if you also include a summary of why you choose the four images posted. Hopefully, you will offer more than "I like F-18's" 

PS - These don't have to be images that you've previously posted on AzAP.

I'll get the ball rolling by starting in reverse chronological order - that's just me. Also, you don't need to use the same formatting I have and you don't need to be as verbose. That being said, don't cheat us on the reason for your choices 

AVIATION #1
I'd never photographed at PHX. Did not have any love for the heavy aluminum tubes. All that changed during this past holiday season. The image below is my favorite of the hundreds of images I took at Sky Harbor between December 7th and 27th. I choose this image for two primary reasons. First, for me it really feels humungous. This pig has those three big honkin' engines and needs an extra gear to help bear-up the load. I shot this through the fence on 24th and was able to get it 95% full frame - very minor cropping needed. Second, I used some post processing techniques where I desaturated the image and added some dark tonalities to enhance the brooding nature of this bad boy.

AVIATION #2
Through an association with Major Doug Glover (MCAS Beaufort), I had the privilege to access the flight line at NAF El Centro at sunrise the day before our group photocell. Lots of good images came from that opportunity; however, this one has become my favorite. Because it was static and I was able to use my tripod, I got lucky and captured some of the wonderful early morning light and hues. Using a wide angle lens and pano crop also helped to exaggerate the Hornets lines and (to me) acetate its aerodynamic lines.

AVIATION #3
Last but not least of my favorite images from 2012 is the low level high speed pass I was very lucky to catch of Blue Angel Solo #6. While I like the image very much, it is my favorite because of the experience of having an F-18 make a high speed pass right over my head at a very low AGL - my ears are still ringing. In addition, I will always remember trying to maintain my balance with Joe in the back of my truck, Bill Oz hanging on for dear life, and Heising's hat going for an unexpected ride. I still cannot remember when I've had more excitement in such a short period of time 

NON-AVIATION
As many of you know, I love b&w/monochrome images. Maybe it is a sign of old age or simply my affection for the images of Ansel Adams. What ever the reason, I'm always looking for an image that will lend itself to a monochrome conversion. This is my favorite non-aviation image from 2012 because it caused me to step outside of my comfort zone and try some techniques that were unfamiliar at the time. Gratefully, the image turned out well and the techniques worked as advertised. This was taken at Roosevelt Lake. The location on the north side of the lake is called Government Hill.

[Matt Ottosen]

I really like this idea, so here are mine:

AVIATION #1
The few days I was able to spend with NASA at Dryden Flight Research Center and Edwards AFB will be ones that I will never forget.  It was truly amazing the red carpet that NASA rolled out for their Social Media followers.  I was able to learn a lot about the history of both NASA and Dryden and also the future of NASA's manned spaceflight program, not to mention being allowed to fly NASA's F-18 simulator.  It would have been a great experience even if that had been all we did, but it wasn't, we were also able to view Endeavour arrive and depart Edwards AFB on the SCA as she made her final flight to LAX.  I have been a Shuttle fan ever since I was a little kid.  I attempted to watch one launch, but it was scrubbed due to weather and an avionics problem.  That launch was also Endeavour, so she is the only shuttle I have ever seen and I have been lucky enough to see her on the launch pad as well as up close on the SCA.

Endeavour's Final Launch


AVIATION #2
I was able to go flying with Desert Splash earlier last year, and it is an amazing flight that I recommend to everyone.  While that flight was awesome and the night shoot we did with them yielded some great photos, my favorite photo of Desert Splash came late last year.  I was up at Scottsdale waiting for a Mitsubishi MU-2B to arrive in the quickly fading light, there was a cold front moving through and the clouds were hiding my precious sunlight.  Just before the MU-2B arrived the sun broke through and Desert Splash descended into Scottsdale.  The light was absolutely incredible with the dark clouds in the background, I didn't do any adjustments to this photo other than a slight crop.

Wet Feet


AVIATION #3
WTI 1-13 was the most memorable WTI I have ever attended.  While I can't yet share my favorite photo from that trip, this is my favorite photo from the NEO held at Kiwanis Park.  I have loved photographing the NEOs ever since we started a couple of years ago (that fun one at West Wetlands Park).  The WTI NEO might just be on the top of my yearly photographic opportunity list, and I'm already looking forward to the next one.

Picnic in the Park


NON-AVIATION
My family has a cabin up near Park City, Utah called Pines Ranch.  As a kid I would spend my entire Summer up there fishing, hiking, and riding horses, I would stay out late with my friends and we would watch the stars and asteroid showers, it is a great place to look at the sky since it lacks the light pollution from a big city.  Now that I am older I'm not able to spend as much time up there.  I'm lucky if I get up there once every other year for a week or so.  This past Summer Ashlie and I were lucky enough to get up there for a week, it was nice to be up in the mountains again with the clear skies and clean air.  I took this shot one evening through the Aspen Strand next to the cabin.

Sunset at the Pines Ranch

[Joe Copalman]

AVIATION #1
I love and hate this shot.  I love it because I was in the right place at the right time because I knew where to be and when to be there.  I love it because Welker laughed when I asked him to back his truck up a few feet to make sure the bed was directly in line with the runway centerline, and because those few feet mattered.  I love this shot because it was a ridiculously rainy, muddy morning, with all of us slipping and sliding around in the bed of Jeff's truck.  I love this shot because a few seconds later, BA #6 passed right over our heads at low altitude, with the attendant pressure wave blowing Chris Heising's hat off and nearly sucking me out of the bed of Jeff's truck as I clung to my ladder in the back of it for dear life.  I love the jelly-air, the vortices, and the strong contrast between highlights and shadows.

I hate this shot because it's a dark airplane made darker by clouds blocking the sun, further silhouetted against a strongly-backlit background.  I hate this shot because, anticipating good shots at long, medium, and close-range, I switched to JPEG to ensure that I wouldn't miss out on any shots due to buffer limitations, meaning I had less data to work with in trying to make this shot presentable to my personal standards.  I ultimately got something worthwhile out of it, but I still wonder how much better I would have done had I been shooting RAW and trying to be a bit more disciplined with my shutter clicks. 

But even for all of this image's shortcomings, it's the one that yields the biggest grin when I think back on it.  Such a ridiculously fun morning.

AVIATION #2
This is easily my favorite aviation photo of the year, and one of my favorites of all time.  The PASM night shoot took a while to set up, but it wound up being one of the most personally rewarding for me.  I've long been a fan of night photography, but truly fell in love with it this year, and this was an excellent opportunity to indulge in "the dark side" with my favorite subjects under the light of a nearly-full moon with minimal artificial light to worry about.  It also gave me an opportunity to work with my then-new Rokinon 8mm fisheye, which is a really good lens for forcing you to think about your compositions.  Having scouted the PASM grounds a few weeks prior to the night shoot, this was the main shot I was after, and I'm very satisfied with the results.  I also get a kick out of knowing some of the tools used in making this shot were an empty yogurt cup, a vacuum cleaner extension tube, two LED flashlights, a speedlight, red and blue gel sheets, and a collapsible desktop tripod gaffer-taped to a steel pole that was bolted to an aluminum 4' ladder.  Can't wait to do this again.

AVIATION #3
I've done three edits of this shot - a straight color one, a monochrome, and this one, created by layering two textures downloaded for free from Flickr users Nasos3 and Neighya.  While any of the three are easily worthy of being included in this list, I chose this one because it is definitely an outside-my-comfort-zone edit that I wound up being very happy with.  One of my favorite photographers, John Ford (http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnmford/sets/72157631460417476/), had been posting a lot of warbird shots with texture layers to give an aged or vintage look, and he was getting some great results.  I had been wanting to try a similar edit, and this shot of a Test Center A-10 at the Goldwater Range stood out as a good candidate for this treatment.  I was aiming for an old-timey "wanted poster" look, and I think I came pretty close to that.

AVIATION #4
I typically do one business trip a year, normally to a conference to promote the University I work for.  I'll do a fair amount of research into where I'm going, what opportunities for aviation-related photos I might have, and whether I need to rent a car to make it happen.  At the last conference I went to in Indianapolis in April, I decided that the ho-hum traffic at Indianapolis International didn't warrant the hassle of bringing my long lens or renting a car, and the free time I did have would not have made a trip to Fort Wayne to catch some A-10s worth the effort.  At the time, I had just purchased Lance Keimig's book "Night Photography: Finding Your Way in the Dark," and decided that I would spend the free time I DID have - at night - walking around downtown Indianapolis and taking photos.  So using my 50D, 28-135 lens, and a sturdy desktop tripod borrowed from a friend, I went out every night I was there and shot photos of anything that caught my interest.  This shot of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial wound up being not only my favorite from the trip, but one of my favorite images I've ever taken.  I especially dig the symbolism in the image - with the "light" of America being both on guard against and ready to venture forth into the "darkness" of a hostile world.   

[Joe Copalman]

Bump.

[Scott Youmans]

Joe,  Regarding your love-hate relationship with your Blue Angels Hornet shot.  I love it because it's one of the coolest aviation photos I've seen.  I hate it because I could have been there but chose to eat scrambled eggs at Denny's in El Centro instead!  I arrived minutes later.  It taught me (again) not to pass up opportunities.  It was certainly a memorable day.  The day of mud.

[scottcolbath]

Joe,  Regarding your love-hate relationship with your Blue Angels Hornet shot.  I love it because it's one of the coolest aviation photos I've seen.  I hate it because I could have been there but chose to eat scrambled eggs at Denny's in El Centro instead!  I arrived minutes later.  It taught me (again) not to pass up opportunities.  It was certainly a memorable day.  The day of mud.

What's worse, is I was there and I totally missed the shot. I was too busy fumbling with ear plugs, which I never got in, and ended up with a real bad shot of the 18 overfilling the frame, and also some very painful ears. The experience was insane, but I have nothing good to show for it.

S.C.

[trmphoto]

It's already well into February, but I guess it's not too late to post my favorite's from 2012:

Aviation #1
I was out on a late Sunday afternoon at SDL hoping to see some good light as the sun was setting.  There were quite a few clouds that day and the sun was in and out of the clouds most of the time that I was there.  Towards the end of the day the sun was hardly out, but I decided to stick around and wait it out.  Just minutes before sunset, this IAI Gulfstream reported to the tower that he was five miles out.  When the Gulfstream was on final, the sun slowly came out and lit the aircraft but not the mountains in the background.  This was exactly the type of shot I was after, so my patience paid off.


IAI Gulfstream 200

Aviation #2
I've attended two photocalls at NAS El Centro, and each visit was fantastic.  During my first visit, I concentrated mostly on close-ups.  The second time out there, I wanted to step back from the runway and take some shots of the aircraft landing with photographers in view.  This is one of my favorites because it has 13 photographers in the image and it shows how concentrated everyone is to get that perfect shot.


Grumman EA-6B Prowler

Aviation #3
Learning from my first trip to the Goldwater Range, I took one of the shots I was after during my second visit.  After seeing in person the A-10's canon being fired, I wanted to capture one of the rounds as an A-10 was passing by during a strafing run on the target.  I picked this shot because a round is visible in the frame and the smoke that's surrounding the A-10 makes the photo look more dynamic.


A-10 Thunderbolt II

Non-Aviation
In addition to photography, I like to go hiking.  I often take one of my dogs with me when I go so I usually end up taking quite a few action shots of my dogs.  On this hike up in Sedona, Duffy was retrieving sticks along the trail.  I got down to eye level with him and shot with the fastest shutter speed that my 5D would allow.  This is what I got.


Coming at ya!