Memorial Day at Livermore Airport

Vvvwhoooooosh! As my dad and I drove into the parking lot in front of Livermore Airport, we could see the Collings Foundation’s beautiful B-24 Liberator “Witchcraft” landing on the runway coming back from a flight with passengers. We then met up with Doug Day, of Top Gun Images, and two of his models, Shelby and Meredith, who were just so nice. They were here to get photographs of them posing on aircraft, like the Collings Foundation’s bombers, and later Tony Banta’s P-51 Mustang and P-40 Warhawk. My dad was here to make a behind-the-scenes film of how Doug gets the pictures, and he figured he’d bring me along too.

But first, we had to find out if Doug, Shelby and Meredith could use the planes. The guy in charge, Kevin, was on the B-17 flight as the engineer, so when they landed we found Kevin and asked his permission, to which he said yes. Shelby began modeling on the B-17 with Doug officially photographing her, with quite a few others in line to tour through the B-17 taking pictures as well!

While they were doing that, I was his “light monkey”, so a few times I would position his two flashes on tripods so that there wouldn’t be any shadows. But I also got the opportunity to photograph these planes from some really cool angles, and when a light was needed to photograph Meredith inside the B-24, we got to cut in line to go in there, and when the shots were taken, I got to look around myself and hold one of the .50 cal machine guns, which was pretty cool!

At around 2 PM, my friends Tony and Jim came flying in with Tony’s P-40 and P-51. Shelby was especially excited about posing with the P-40, but Meredith had no real preference. She liked them all! It’s always great to see Tony, especially with him being such great guy, and of course his always beautiful airplanes.

Overall, the day was pretty darn good. Doug, Meredith and Shelby got their pictures, my dad got his video, and we all had a great time. I hope to see the Collings Foundation’s planes more in the future. I’m also looking forward to seeing Doug, Shelby and Meredith at the Reno Air Races this year, since they’re such nice people.

Be sure to check out Doug's website Top Gun Images!

And also be sure to check out my dad's video!  You'll like it!

6/2/12