MetLife Blimp

The MetLife Blimp was passing through town recently and I had the opportunity to photograph it over three days.  Each morning I went go out there before having to check in at the office while the morning light was still right.

The Blimp was moored on one of the large grass areas on the Alliance Airport property which was also in full view from my office window. So, I got to watch its daily activities as the blimp folks would take it out for rides during the day then a small army of deck hands would scamper after the lines hanging from its nose to bring the ship back in for the evening.

I chatted with a couple of the very knowledgeable ground crew guys. The technology is as old as aviation itself.  Basically, if you fill a large envelope with gas that is lighter than air then it will cause the ship to rise. Inside the large envelope was another smaller envelope that they pump regular air; the same air that we breathe into. The more regular air that you pump into that smaller envelope, the heavier the ship as a whole becomes and then it sinks.

It was interesting that the power to pump the air into the smaller envelopes when it is in flight comes from the twin Rotax 912 engines that also give it forward and reverse thrust. When the 912's aren't on then they have two leaf blowers pumping air into the scat tubes; an electric blower on one side and a gas powered one on the other.  Nothing fancy.  These were units that could have come from the Home Depot up the road and were held on with $0.75 hose clamps that probably also came from Home Depot.

The term "ship" really seems fitting. The early morning air seemed very still. But, like the way a ship in the water will gently tug at its mooring lines as the almost imperceptible water currents move that kind of ship, the airship would also pivot and bob gently around its bull-nose mooring point as the wind was waking up.

Cotton and Cannons

I was in Murfreesboro, Tennessee last fall. The fall leaves were turning and the weather was just starting to turn cool.

The Stones River Civil War battlefield was fairly close to my hotel. I decided to get up early and catch the morning light and see what was worth photographing.

You definitely get the sense that something important had happened here by the way the pristine chunk of meadow and woods was carved out of what is now Suburban America. Somehow the impact of the place is a little bit tempered by the sites of strip malls just beyond the 1860’s stone walls.

It’s sobering to think of all of the blood that was spilled here in stark contrast to the natural beauty of the morning light hitting the cotton and straw fields in 2009. I wonder if the people out for their morning jogs this morning ever even think about it. It would have been the same sun but a completely different scene in December of 1862 when the Union Army met the Confederate Army here.

There was a placard marking the Parsons Battery of the 4th US Artillery Companies “H” and “M” which explains why there were three cannons posing among the cotton plants.

This wasn’t my first time photographing cannons. Civil War cannons seem quaint and benign by today’s standards but, in their day they were the high-tech tools of war. I wonder what the people a hundred years from now will think of our now high tech lives.

Bovine in the Mist

I regularly drive past some fields where cows and bison are kept. I've often thought, y'know, I aught to photograph those bison while they are still in the fields and not sitting on my burger bun or the land is converted into yet more housing.

One of them in particular usually has bison and it is on a slope facing up towards the sun rising in the east.  The long shadows during the "golden hour" in the morning sometimes provides some cool situations to photograph. 

I got lucky this past Wednesday morning.  The bison were where they belonged, the sun was in the right position, I was going into work early, so I had time and there was a neat fog on the ground.  Ground fog might not sound like much but, we don't get that condition here a lot.  It's kind of like finding longhorn cattle in Connecticut.  It might happen, but not often.

There is something noble about the American Bison.  They remind me of a sports car in that some sports cars look fast standing still.  The American Bison just looks important just standing there.  It has a powerful profile and powerful features.  It's also damned large.

Texas Snow

We don't get snow every year in North Texas and even more rarely in the beginning of December but, we did this year.  We only got about a quarter of an inch of snow and it all but disappeared before noon. 

Whereas the natural world up north had been bracing for the winter for a few weeks already, the people, plants and animals in the lower latitudes tend to get caught off-guard with Mother Nature's surprises like this.  The kids love it.  My daughter was no exception.  She took the opportunity to jump on the snowy trampoline and tried to catch snowflakes on her tongue.

Airshow 2009!

I went to the 2009 Fort Worth Airshow at Alliance Airport.  I was one of the volunteers working hospitality.  We drove around in golf carts handing out water bottles and boxed lunches to the aircrew that were there.  We got special badges that also allowed us some special access to areas off limits to the general public.

The US Navy's Blue Angels also performed.  I've been watching them and the US Air Force's Thunderbirds since I was a kid and it just never gets old for me.  Actually, I got to watch the Blues practice the week prior because my office is right at AFW airport towards the south end of the parallel runways and the window facing the runway is right behind me.  So, when they perform it is pretty exciting.  I'm three floors up and we get a pretty good view out of the floor to ceiling windows.

When the Blue Angels performed on Saturday, we took a golf cart and went to the show line off to one side away from the general public.  It was nice to be able to photograph (don't want to use the word "shoot" with regard to military aircraft) without having to compete for space or to worry about being accidentally bumped causing a blurry image.

About ten minutes into their show a car drove up and four guys with London accents start frantically breaking open pelican cases and assembling video and computer equipment.  It turns out that these guys were from the BBC and they were sent to tape the show in high-speed HD video.  They got slowed down coming in from El Paso for some reason.  I'll look forward to seeing that video when it comes out.

After the crowds left and we were done with hospitality duties, I got to have a few beers and BS with some of the aircrews who weren't flying out that evening.  It was fun.