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Best airport location for pics in CA

RV7A Flyer

RV7A Flyer

Well Known Member
Patron
Looking for some suggestions for good airports to take *good* pictures of the plane (e.g., nice background, good surface like nice tarmac or grass, etc.) in the CA/NV/AZ area...

Any ideas? It's time to take some *good* pictures of the plane :)
 
Jacumba L78 makes a nice and rare background. :D

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KLVS is not far from you either...


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I'm partial to the high Sierra as a backdrop for great airborne pictures.

The trick with pictures on the ground is that you're u can have a magnificent distant packground, and your a irplane can be beautiful - but there will be all sorts of lousy foreground objects, power lines, etc. when shooting nice, artsy images, I spend more time finding a clear foreground than anything else. Nearly deserted, no-services airports are your most likely places. Maybe a lakebed when things dry out a little.
 
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[/IMG]Furnace creek in Death valley. The mountains make a beautiful backdrop for pictures.
 
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In SoCal I think Big Bear (L35) and Catalina (AVX) are the top two. Honorable mention goes to Kern Valley, Mojave and Mammoth Lakes.
 
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Mountain Valley airport (L94) in Tehachapi should be good now or in the next few weeks.

Every spring the grass portions are usually covered in yellow poppies.
 
Alpine County, CA (M45). Lonely paved strip with no powerlines (that I remember anyway), nice backdrops etc. Only downside right now is that it may be closed due to snow. I don't believe they plow it open in winter.
 
I have a soft spot for PAO; late evening; camera pointing southwest with the East Bay Hills in the background.
 
Vlad said:
Jacumba L78 makes a nice and rare background. :D

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Really hard to resist making a joke of the big brown wall behind Vlad's plane at Jacumba. But it emphasizes Paul's point about paying attention to the foreground. In a previous life I was secretly trying to develop a power-line and con-trail filter for my Nikon. Then Photoshop came along and my startup went shutdown.
 
Greg Arehart said:
Alpine County, CA (M45). Lonely paved strip with no powerlines (that I remember anyway), nice backdrops etc. Only downside right now is that it may be closed due to snow. I don't believe they plow it open in winter.
Click to expand...

I agree with Greg that Alpine would be a good choice - I've taken a few pictures there, and with the right lens, the mountains to the south can be pulled in for a great background - and there is really nothing in the mid-fore ground to get in the way. I havben't cehcked the snow situation though!

Paul
 
On the West end of the "Airport in the Sky" on Catalina Island!
Be sure to tell the tower operator what you are doing though!
He got worried about me and came down to check on us in his car while we were taking pictures on the taxiway off the West end of the runway!

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