Freezing a Thunderbolt in place

Warthog in its element
London, ON
September 2018
Photo originally shared on Instagram

We're still far from home, and I'm still looking for refuge in photography. And if I'm not shooting something in this frozen, sad place, I'm reaching into my photo archives for reminders of happier moments.

And it didn't get happier than this early September day at London's airport. See, air shows are like crack to me, my Super Bowl, Olympics, Stanley Cup, and Tour de France all rolled into one. Despite the inevitable letters to the editor from grumpy old men about noise and frightened cats, there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

One of my kindest friends and I have evolved a bit of a tradition where we basically go to any air show whenever it comes to town. Doesn't matter when, or how busy we might otherwise be. It's an air show, so we go. While we're there, we wander the tarmac, taking it all in as we chat about anything and everything, and eat food truck food that won't earn us any good-nutrition points. And every once in a while, a plane flies by. Other than that, we don't have much of an agenda: Simply being there, in the moment, is more than enough for both of us.

Shooting this fast mover as it split the atmosphere at low level was all I needed in that particular moment. I looked through my viewfinder, camera settings dialed in perfectly, and shifted the lens barrel subtly between my fingers as the Warthog accelerated past. I could feel the rumble of the efficient-but-powerful turbofan engines down the base of my spine as I squeezed the shutter and felt the camera come alive as I tracked from right to left until the pilot was out of sight.

In one aspect it was just a plane in the sky on a grey day. In so many others, it was a point in time that I needed to somehow freeze so that I could recall it with ease months later on a day like today. When the planes were no longer flying, but the memory of them doing so would have to be enough to sustain me.

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