The Great Yellow Vest Deception

A few days ago, some comments were traded on social media that led to the Vice President of the International Society for Aviation Photography (ISAP) publically asking me "what about the yellow vest offends your sensibilities?"  What a great question - assuming that it is the vest which offends me instead of the conduct of those wearing the yellow vests.

ISAP photographers at NAF El Centro behind the "Line of Death"

The Return of the Blog

If I was going to subtitle this post (as I do in my other blogs) it would be:

Hold onto your (floppy) hats, photographers!  We're in for a bumpy ride!

a pyrotechnics specialist pauses to record the event for posterity

ISAP and sharing

  I was going to write this, the third of my posts about ISAP, as a description of the personalities inside ISAP and its leadership.

  Instead I think I’ll pontificate on one of the biggest (and most disconcerting) mis-perceptions in the aviation photography world:

To share with the members at an ISAP symposium is directly undermining your ability to profit from your aviation photography skills or the contacts you have made in the industry.

ISAP and friendships

  When I posted my thoughts about possibly leaving ISAP, I thought I knew the response it would bring.

I was wrong.

  First, I was very surprised by the former ISAP members who I had never met that contacted me to relate some of their experiences and issues with ISAP.  Many related a feeling of being isolated, shut out and not welcomed into the organization by a clique of people “at the top”.

  Second, I was disappointed and quite frankly saddened by the series of responses I received from former ISAP members who said that they saw no value in the organization in its past or current form.

 The reasons ranged from the cynical to the absurd, and cover such a wide range of ideas and perceptions that I’ll have to save those for yet another post.

Why I am considering leaving ISAP

Now is the time for change

   I had a great time at the El Centro Photocall with the members of the International Society for Aviation Photography (ISAP). It was a bittersweet event for me, as I had intentionally distanced myself from ISAP and its events after my short stint on the staff in 2012-2013.  I only attended parts of the Tampa Symposium, with my convenient excuse of “it conflicts with my flying at SUN-n-FUN.”  As I remembered, there are some great people in ISAP, and there are always new, eager members who want to soak up as much as they can about aviation photography.  But sadly, it was also a reminder of all that is wrong with the organization.

El Centro - Naval Aviation up close and personal

  I have been witness to several El Centro Photocalls during my life. As a former F/A-18 Weapons Systems Officer for the U.S. Marine Corps, I had watched the “herd of photographers” deploying from the vans near the LSO shack many times. With an opportunity to request a spot on the other side of the lens, I jumped at it in order to experience the El Centro Photocall I had so often witnessed.