Jake Peterson's Blog

The Mighty Jug

admin — Tue, 21 May 2013 11:00:13 +0000

The P-47 Thunderbolt, more affectionately known as the Jug by those who piloted it, was one of the heaviest, largest and toughest fighter aircraft that relied on a single radial engine. The Jug was built with heavy armor and a massive offensive capability. With four .50 Caliber machine guns in each wings and able to haul up 2,500 lbs of bombs which is over half of what a B-17 can carry. Although the P-47 was not used in long range bombing attacks, it was used for short range ground attacks. It was widely used for long range escort for the flying fortresses. It was made famous by the 56th Fighter Group, part of the Eighth Air Force, which had a number of top aces, as they flew missions further and further into Europe. When looking at this plane it’s almost like watching a flying tank.

In the Camera Bag:
Nikon D3, 200-400 VRII, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film

One Big Flying Boat

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:00:59 +0000

You got to love flying boats. It’s one thing for a plane to land on a piece of earth but landing on water and then taking off again is just something else. The Consolidated PBY Catalina was one of the most widely used flying boats in WWII for air sea rescue, patrols, cargo, and antisubmarine activity. It was used in the military up till the 1980′s and in some areas is still used for firefighting as a water dumper. However more are seen today in museums than they are flying about, so to have the opportunity to photograph this plane was awesome.

One of the rather unique features of this aircraft is the wing pontoons go up and down from the edge of the wings. The pontoons go down when the plane lands on the water and go back up, as seen, when the plane is flying as a way to decrease drag and increase speed. Although it may not be the fastest plane, it sure is great observation plane.

In the Camera Bag:
Nikon D3, 200-400 VRII, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film

Some Light Traveling Weather

admin — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:00:56 +0000

I thought I would take a little break from planes and end the week with a quick weather update. As I was driving home for the air show I got to go through some absolutely beautiful areas in Utah. This is always a good time of the year to be down that way because the thunderstorms can make for some great photographs. As I was heading north on I-15 I was going through a massive rainstorm, which turned into a hailstorm and was quite wet. Thankfully an opening was approaching to watch the storm. The front was unbelievable to watch as it moved over the basin. Couldn’t sit long before getting covered with rain. After 10 minutes it was a couple more miles up the road and then pulled over again. Not bad for a sunset.

In the Camera Bag:
Nikon D3, AF-S 24-70 f/2.8, AF-S 14-24 f/2.8, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film

The Avenger

admin — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:07:22 +0000

Another one of my favorite planes that i never get to see enough of is the TBM Avenger. Entering service in 1942 the Avenger first saw action during the Battle of Midway where five of the six planes went down. It went on to become one of the most depended upon torpedo bombers of the war. The plane played an important role during the Solomon Campaign where it saw lots of action in Iron Bottom Sound. The plane was used by both marine and navy units both on land and in carrier operations. This plane held three people, pilot, navigator/bombardier/gunner, and a second gunner. The rear gunner was in a bubble like gun turret mounted in the otherwise tube shaped plane. On the cold Sunday morning at the Planes of Fame Airshow, two survivors of this very important and historic aircraft are on display. The clouds and cool temp add a perfect backdrop for where these planes would have been stationed and flying in.

In the Camera Bag:
Nikon D3, AF-S 24-70 f/2.8, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film

A Great Static Subject

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:00:27 +0000

One of my favorite things to photograph, and I have talked about this before, is static aircraft. There is just so many possibilities when it comes to static planes that it makes it so much fun to come up with something new. Now when it comes to approaching a new plane I have “checklist” as you will of shots to acquire before i start playing around. The reason for this is the business is used to certain images, certain looks, profiles, detail shots that it is important to get these if you’re doing anything editorial. Once I have them I start playing with new ideas. These here are kind of a mix of both.

The one thing that I truly played with these images is the light. This is a P-40C Warhawk, all polished aluminum and truly spectacular. It’s another part of Planes of Fame collection of magnificent aircraft. Well being that it’s polished aluminum the metal skin reflects EVERYTHING! Well on this lovely Sunday morning with overcast skies and a rather good chill in the air, that light that is being reflected isn’t so pretty, but workable. I shot everything in Vivid and in ACR i mad sure to keep that profile. But unlike other images I worked from that morning, I kept the skies rather blue. The reason is it was a cold morning. Why not show that in the images. Since there was no warm light from the sunrise and grey is only so attractive before the sun comes up, the cool blue adds kind of a nice affect to the overall tone of the image. Silver plane, blue clouds. It really didn’t require much to do this only slight drop in the calvin temperature slider. The only other thing to do was to go to the luminance slider bring up the dark blue one to remove that blue cast from the plane. The plane is silver I wanted to keep it that way as much as possible.

Now if there had been a beautiful sunrise that morning with great light coming through I wouldn’t have done it this way, but since there was only flat light and grey skies it sounded like fun to me. And of course if it doesn’t work it cans always be changed.

In the Camera Bag:
Nikon D3, AF-S 24-70 f/2.8, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film