"Then God's countenance shone upon the phace of the Phantom, and Lo, it was good." Well...okay, a bit overly dramatic, but there is something magical about the brilliant shafts of sunlight that burst through the openings in clouds. Called appropriately enough "God-rays," these beams give a punch to an otherwise drab image.
In this instance, one of the sucker holes happened to be positioned just right and these three F-4s parked off the main ramp were the beneficiaries of this special effect. The dilemma was whether to get closer and isolate the aircraft from bothersome distractions (e.g. telephone wires) and wait for a stronger, more direct God-ray or get images of the other aircraft on the ramp before our time was up. I chose the latter. But there were a couple of other shooters who did try to wait it out for a more dramatic picture. Hopefully we'll see their results sometime in the near future on the Society's webpage (www.f4phantom.com).
The F-4 Phantom II Society held it's annual convention at Holloman AFB, NM, this past week. Holloman averages 360 days of sun a year, or so they say. We had about 20 minutes of sun on Wednesday, the first day of the convention, and lots of clouds. It rained in nearby Alamogordo and the surrounding mountain ranges were dusted with snow.
Thursday was better, but very cold. Showers and clouds occurred most of the day, but we did have some sun.
The above image of the QF-4 Phantom was taken on Wednesday. The opening in the clouds on the right is the so-called "sucker hole." A sucker hole is what fakes the photographer into believing his subject will be bathed in glorious light if he only just waits a little bit longer. More often than not the crossing light never appears where you need it to or the hole closes up and it disappears entirely. In this case I decided the sucker hole would make a very nice atmospheric image rather than the more documentary type that I was originally trying to take.
This is also known as "making lemonade." I am quite pleased with the result.
This shot was another instance of seeing what was possible when conditions were less than ideal. The F-4 Phantom II Society had it's annual convention at Holloman Air Force Base, NM, in late October, 2004. While we were there, a mid-day rainstorm passed through. Good overall documentary shots were not going to be possible at that moment, so I wandered the ramp looking for interesting angles. This one caught my eye: a diligent contractor wiping down the canopy of this F-4F Phantom as he prepped it for its next training flight. I liked how he was framed by the rear canopy as he cleaned the front one, so I composed the image while he worked away and snapped off a couple of shots. I was quite please with the results.
Other people must've like it, too; I've had it picked as "honorable mention" in the Aviation Week photo contest for that year and it's won in a couple of local contests, as well. Sometimes magic happens when you open your mind to the possibilities....
"Then God's countenance shone upon the phace of the Phantom, and Lo, it was good." Well...okay, a bit overly dramatic, but there is something magical about the brilliant shafts of sunlight that burst through the openings in clouds. Called appropriately enough "God-rays," these beams give a punch to an otherwise drab image. 
