Here are a few quick edits I've gotten to.
Beautiful spot for a show, perfect lighting and gorgeous trees for a back drop. Good lineup even without the CF-18 demo. I was pretty frustrated that the weather went from all sun to overcast all weekend. I would have shot a lot more on Friday if I had known! It was also neat to see some aircraft and acts I don't get very often. The NORAD flybys stole the show. Appreciated the chance to meet some of the West Coast crew, even if it wasn't for long.
Rant warning - Unfortunately my biggest impression from the show came from one particular asshole who I didn't recognize but who obviosuly works for the show in some capacity. On Saturday, the HFF crew decided they wanted to pull Grumpy up to the fence by their tent, where we were already sitting. This entailed moving the fence line back before blocking it with a hulking B-25 in your face. Unfortunately they decided to do this AFTER the gates had opened and the crowd area had filled in. We had already claimed our spot on that fence for over an hour. HFF was at least nice about it and made clear that this is was last minute idea. They weren't sure it was even going to happen so all we could do was gamble that it didn't.
All of a sudden this guy marches over and yells that everyone needs to move. Not in a 'hey sorry to move you but we're changing the plans' kind of way, in a 'fuck you for trying to sit here' way. Airshows treating customers like crap is a major hot button issue for me, plus this meant that I now had nowhere to shoot from. I protested while packing up that this was stupid. My dad said something about there needs to be a plan.
- IMG_3943small.jpg (421.66 KiB) Viewed 19942 times
This asshole puffs his chest up and demands to know who told my dad the plan. He tells everyone within yelling distance that HE WROTE THE PLAN. He insists that moving the fence was his plan all along; clearly not true. Then he notices one of our media credentials and demands to know how we got it even though that's completely beside the point. He threatens to have our credentials revoked and says he will talk to the media director about us and where we sat. I explained to him that we had been sitting in the normal crowd area for over an hour and gladly would have sat somewhere else if any single person had made clear that a plane was going there. We even talked to airport ops, and they said it would be closed for the rest of the day. Since this was done so late, we now had nowhere to sit to shoot photos (AKA do our jobs). He didn't care of course, and threatened a second time to have my credentials revoked.
There's no excuse for treating customers (both paying and media) like this. The airshow organization already has a reputation for being rude and difficult to work with, and this does nothing but reinforce that. I will say that almost everyone else I dealt with was nice or at least helpful. It is extremely unfortunate that one person spoiled so much. I don't know who he is, but he has no business being part of a public event.
We eventually squeezed in to the second row somewhere, but any atmosphere of the show was ruined. Due to this, the weather, and the option to see new things I decided to skip the show on Sunday and instead went to the museums in McMinnville and Tillamook, and explored the coast.
All in all, it was a great trip and I can't wait to post a video of my flight with the Snowbirds!