The shoot was nothing fancy, just a couple orbits around Lake Tahoe on a cold January morning with overcast skies and a blanket of snow covering the ground. By the time we touched down I had a smile on my frozen face from ear to ear! I understood then why most consider air to air to be so amazing. Shooting the other plane though, that was painful. With a D3 in my hand and a 24-70 I was ready for anything, or so I thought. Looking out of the rear seat in the T6 with the canopy open in January, brrrrrr was it cold! It was definitely a challenging shoot but then it was my first time doing an air to air. I quickly learned to keep the lens out of the slipstream, no lens shade of course, turning my neck to see the other plane when the neck didn’t want to turn, and of course the hardest part not knowing the lingo well enough to communicate on the headset. Shooting out of the right side was no picnic either, I think that kink is still in my neck. Nevertheless, it was fun! I have been very fortunate already in the aviation world and had the privilege to fly a number of times in various aircraft. The one moment I don’t think I’ll ever forget was this past November at an Air to Air workshop started by my Dad, Moose Peterson and Richard VanderMeulen, teaching others the joys and safeties of flying and photographing air to air formations.
We were in a Skyvan the three of us along with the participants down at CAF Mesa, Arizona. It was the first time I had been able to get close to a B17G Flying Fortress. Sentimental Journey is its name and a fairly accurate one at that. I don’t think any of us will forget that trip. After a good morning of shooting statics and briefing by safety instructor Doug Rozendaal we were ready to fly. Being strapped down to the floor of a plane is a very different feeling. It kind of reminded me of putting the family dog on a leash and a stake so he can run around the yard, always chasing after something but never able to get it. That’s how it felt in the Skyvan, harnessed in with a strap on our back, holding us to the plane. We were flying only a few minutes when we heard the go ahead to get up. Richard opened the door and WHAM! There was Sentimental Journey. It wasn’t too far back, not down, not off to the side or above us; no it was so close I thought I could reach out and touch it. It was unbelievable. The fact alone that it was a B17 flying with us made it more unbelievable, but then I guess in a way that is what we photographers do. We capture the seemingly unbelievable, breathtaking and inspiring events so that everyone else can witness them. That’s what makes photography so important. In the short time that I have been a photographer, which truly has only been about five years right around the time I started college, I have