Blue Angels 2004 - Lead Soloist #05, Maj. Len Anderson, USMC, on a high speed pass over the beach.

Blue Angels Lead Soloist #05, Maj. Len Anderson, USMC, grunting through a high speed turn. Notice the optical distortion as his F/A-18 Hornet banks across the heat of his own jet wash.

As always your comments and ratings (good or bad) are greatly

appreciated. -N

I can feel the power and dynamical movement!!!

 

Wow. It is great shot!!

Norman, excellent. Just excellent.

Thanks! I had just bought the lens and had the camera only a few weeks when taking this.. The jets came out okay but I decided to shoot on Sports AE mode and every prop was stopped dead making the plans look static. Anyway, having just purchased the camera, I only had one CF card and in order to get enough shots, had so lower the quality to jpg... Needless to say I have learned a lot in this short year and will not make these mistakes again. This shot however is my favorite! Thanks again!

Ballistic flight is always exciting ! And you captured it with full burner !!!! Another 7/7 - Excellent !

Thanks!!! I really appreciate hearing from other aviation enthusiasts... Not to mention pilots! Your shots of the helis are really nice as well. I hope to get a few other photographers here in NY together to take a flight around the city at dusk without the doors on! ;) Will post em when done.

The cloud bank makes this picture work. It relieves the blank blue space and makes a really nice composition out of this picture. I would probably like this picture better if it didn't have the heat distortion because then it would be about the elegance of the F-18 rather than about raw power. But what can you do! It's still nice.

 

First let me say thank you for your kind words and for following up on my work... Thanks! With regards to this image and the others from 2004, these were taken as jpegs and then cropped (eek!) I didn't know what I was doing AND I only had one memory car at the time. Sigh....

 

As for the composition, I actually waited for the aircraft to double back through his jet-wash just to get the effect and also get a direct view of the burners.