Sunday, January 4, 2009

Take-Off Rotation Speed

This is one of my favorite scenes that I've done. The images is meant to illustrate that moment when the airplane becomes airborne. (I first tried using the Cessna 172 for the image, but it was just too boxy looking. I tried the Cirrus next and, while it looked nicer than the 172, it still looked too "fat" to fly. There's something about the graceful bird-like lines of the DA40 that just made it appear to be leaping off the ground, which was just perfect for this composition.

During a conversation with (fantastic) aviation photographer Mike Fizer, I learned that when composing a shot, he also deals with issues such as the "boxiness" of a 172, or the massive wingspans of these Diamond aircraft. I thought it was kind of interesting that as different as our mediums are, we deal with similar issues with regard to the subjects and how to make them look nice on paper.

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