On February 9, 2013, I attended another Second Saturday at WAAAM. These truly are becoming one of the better parts of my routine.

This particular Second Saturday centered on a presentation of United States military women’s military uniforms from WWI to Vietnam. This presentation was made by Alice Miller and volunteer models. It was informative and entertaining. Unfortunately, I didn’t make any photos of the show, it would have taken lights to get the results I would have wanted and I didn’t bring mine. You can however see WAAAM’s images of Beauty and Duty on WAAAM’s Facebook page.

Another event central to February’s Second Saturday was a missing man formation flyover in honor of Ken Jernstedt. Ken was a resident of Hood River and a fighter ace with the American Volunteer Group, the famous Flying Tigers.

Once again, what I mainly did was photograph the 1935 Waco YPF-6 that was up flying once again. (You can probably tell by the slide show running at the top.) The 1931 Waco RNF also flew once on this day and I made as many images of it as I could. WAAAM has turned me into a major Waco fan. They truly made some of the most beautiful aircraft of the period and this was a period of many beautiful civilian aircraft (my non Waco favorites are the Beech Staggerwing and Stinson Reliant.) You can be sure that I’ll be all over any opportunity to photograph any of the Wacos in WAAAM’s collection.

A total surprise for me was the chance to ride in the 1929 Packard Model 640 Super 8 Phaeton. Of all the cars I’ve seen at WAAAM this is one of my two favorites (the other is also a Packard) and I was over the moon to have a chance to take a ride. The experience was sublime. Without doubt it was the most comfortable backseat I’ve ever ridden. It was like hooking up your favorite couch to some wheels and a motor and taking a ride. The only downside was no windows, so it was a bit nippy on that windy February afternoon. Below is a photo of when some other folks were taking a ride and the view I had while taking my ride.

Something different about this trip for me was that I was also spending some time with some photography friends, Bryan Heim and Caitlynn Kolb – aka CaityKat. This was good fun and one of the better experiences I’ve had shooting while with another photographer. It’s always great to have someone to talk to and joke with, but sometimes there are some downsides to shooting with someone else. This time the downsides weren’t really present; we were usually doing different enough things that we didn’t get in each other’s way and you can’t scare airplanes away so easily. Most of my experience shooting with others has been with wildlife and there added people can create quite the problem with getting in position without scaring the subject animal.

Post processing wise, this work had simple Silver Efex Pro2 work and many images relied on techniques I discussed in this earlier post.

Hope you enjoyed this story. Take a closer look at my images of the February 2013 Second Saturday at WAAAM, pick up a print or coffee mug. Or take a look at my best aviation images in my portfolio.