A Lasting Legacy: The C-5A Galaxy {Light Painting Photography}
A few months ago we started the project of light painting aircraft at the Air Mobility Command Museum in Dover, DE. It's been a blessing being able to work with them on creating beautiful photographs of the aircraft they have on display. From the very beginning, the goal has been to photograph the C-5A Galaxy; which happens to be the largest aircraft in the United States. I remember the first time I ever saw a C-5 and I was impressed by its massiveness. When we were still living in Ohio (before we got married), we went to an air show that was being held at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH. We were walking around, and came across the largest aircraft we had ever seen. It was so big that we stopped to take its size in, and little did we know that my husband would one day be a crew chief on those colossal planes. I have to say I loved it the moment I laid eyes on it, and since then I have only grown more fond of "Fred".
At the beginning of August we took on the project of photographing this plane. Our dream was finally coming true to be able to take photos of this aircraft. Not just any photos though, we wanted to light paint the C-5. This was actually our third attempt at light painting the plane. The first two times it was just my husband and I, but we saw that this project was bigger than just the two of us. We needed more lights, and more people to carry them. Not only that, but we needed more security lights turned out than we had during our previous attempts. We had to have one of the museum staff there while we were photographing the plane because we had to have the additional security lights turned off. On top of this we had assistance from a couple airmen from the base who were interested in the project to run around shining lights on our immense subject. The night we took the photos we arrived at the museum around 9:00pm and didn't leave until around 4:00am.
We had to make sure that all the shots were perfect before leaving, and we thought we had it covered. We realized that the ram air cover was left on the plane, and we would have to go back to re-shoot that area of the plane without the cover. We were pretty stressed out because the photo was to be used as a going away gift from the AMC Musem to Colonel Moore. It had to be complete and printed in just over a week from the first night we took the photos. The editing process would tedious, and we had some mishaps along the way. It was a stressful couple of weeks for us with getting the finished image.
We're still planning on releasing a BTS video on the project we're doing with the AMC Museum. Things have just been crazy for us since the beginning of the month, and we're finally slowing down again to be able to finish up the video for you all. I can't wait to share more information on this project with you all.
If you would like to know more about the Air Mobility Command Museum you can check out their website here: http://amcmuseum.org/
They have a Facebook where you can get interesting updates and communication from them here: https://www.facebook.com/AMCMuseum
And if you're interested in learning more about the history of the C-5 you can check out this link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-5_Galaxy