Smoke a Friend?

Spent a great weekend with my dear friend Chris at the Barksdale AFB airshow. A great airshow featuring our modern military also had many performers who puff smoke. Smoke is used to help those who don’t fly a sense of the flight path, the difficulty of the act so they can appreciate what they are seeing. Smoke is used to tell the audience where to look in the sky for performers. Smoke comes from the CAF pyrotechnics when they light them “bombs” after the B-52 flyover. All of this can fill the air with smoke making it at times impossible for photography cause you literally can’t see through the smoke. Like the AeroShell team’s burn out at the end of their act. If you don’t know it’s coming and place yourself so the wind takes away the smoke, there is no shot.

But smoke can be a big help when there is a background you don’t want to see in your photograph. The day before the F-15 went in front of us to park but there was no shot as the engine test shed, a tan colored building was in the background. But yesterday there was smoke, a lot of smoke which hid the building and created a cool background. It’s hard to say at times, but smoke can be your friend!