P#25 Q2C: Learn From a Master How to Take Spectacular Airplane Photographs

A Humble Approach

Joe McNally: I thank you for saying that. I never view myself as particularly special. I'm always humbled by the scope of the story and the mission, which is to convey information as best I can back to the readership. I take that responsibility very seriously.

When I'm on assignments with the Geographic, I realize that not everybody is going to get the opportunity to sit in the back seat of an F/A-18 with the Blue Angels so I have a huge responsibility to 30 million pairs of eyes out there that can't be with me to try to convey that experience in an effective way through airplane photographs.

One of the things that I do in terms of mindset is try to put myself in the shoes of the reader and figure that if my naivety about the story, my lack of knowledge when I walk in and start researching a story, puts me in the league with maybe 95% of the readership who also may have a passing knowledge of aviation or something like that, but not an extensive knowledge.

I really just jump into the story and try to put myself in their shoes and say, "Okay, if I encounter something and I think it's cool, then probably the readership will think it's cool too." Now my job becomes to render that in an effective way pictorially and stop that reader on the page, and get them intrigued in the story.

That's my first tactic in terms of trying to make the airplane photographs interesting and dynamic to my readership.

In Conclusion

It's every photographer's dream to have their work stand out as an example, and aviation photographers are no different. If you really want your airplane photographs to shine you need to care about the reader and how she or he experiences your story and you need to keep your shots interesting and dynamic.