Goal of the Photo

Renowned air show pilot Skip Stewart performed a series of amazing aerobatic maneuvers while flying at the 2021 Decatur 75th Anniversary Air Show. This maneuver showed off the knife edge flight capabilities of his modified Pitts Special called "Prometheus". With this photo I wanted to show off both the power and agility of the aircraft as well as a different perspective than one might see in a more typical aviation photo.

Project Specs

Category

  • Aviation Photography

Camera and Lens Used

  • Camera: Pentax K110d DSLR
  • Lens: ProMaster 70-210mm f4.5-5.6 Telephoto
  • Aperture: f9.5
  • Film Speed: ISO 200
  • Focal Length: 200mm
  • Shutter Speed: 1/500th second

Software Used

  • Adobe Lightroom Classic CC icon
  • Adobe Photoshop CC icon

(click icon to view name)

Location and Date

Location: Decatur Airport (KDEC)
Decatur, Illinois

  • Date: August 15, 2021

Photo Analysis

With this photo a combination of power and agility is captured. The smoke trailing off to the right and the blur of the spinning propeller give the viewer a sense of movement, however the nearly top-down perspective shown adds interest as a moment frozen in time. It is left up the the viewers imagination as to what happens next.

Photo Post Processing

While in Adobe Lightroom, this photo had the highlights and blacks taken down, shadows and whites raised up along with an increase in exposure. Tint was slightly lowered to balance out the colors and contrast. The Corcoran Studio logo was added in the lower right in Photoshop and the photo was exported for the web.