Where has 2017 gone?

It seems like just yesterday I was thinking - "it is now 2017, I need to put up a blog post or two."  And now it is almost mid-May!

So let's get to it!

Data Loss and Backups (Part 2) - Operational Test

Having evacuated from the South Carolina coast earlier in the week for Hurricane Matthew, I thought it would be appropriate to share some more about my data loss and backup strategies!

Image Courtesy of National Hurricane Center

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.

Nikon D500 Anticipation

Nikon D500 DSLR

  In a blatant violation of my advice to photographers at the start of the year (Five Tips for 2016), I pre-ordered the Nikon D500 and the 16-80mm lens.  According to B&H, my D500 bundle is working its way to me and should arrive early next week.  The timing of this should work out well, as my poor Sigma 17-70 air to air lens is getting pretty beat up and needs to go in for a reconditioning.  

  What am I most excited about?  

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.