Pima Air & Space Museum – Night Shoot – 12/14/2013
Article and Photos by Steven Valinski
On Saturday I took part in a night shoot at Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, AZ. Pima Air & Space museum is one of the largest privately-owned aviation museums in the world. They have an impressive list of aircraft and their collection continues to grow.
It was a chilly evening, but, fortunately, it was mildly lit by a 90% full moon. This created some ambient light that reduced some of the exposure time and helped create some lighting for composing the aircraft within the frame. Night photography is something I do not get to do very often, so this was a great opportunity to get some practice in. With an array of terrific aircraft to shoot, it made the evening worthwhile.
Some people do not care for static museum display aircraft. Sure, they are not as exciting as aircraft still flying, but there is a history lesson behind many of these static aircraft. Fortunately, PASM does a very good job documenting the history of these aircraft and they share this information on their website. In the In the near future, I would like to go back to Pima Air & Space museum and photograph many of the aircraft in their current collection and create a photo gallery to share. Until then, here’s a few shots from the night shoot.
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slow and steady steve…. very kool B52 shots with those slow lighting.. an English Lightning? wow…. have not seen those since I was in Hendon in RAF Musuem….Love the MArine Flieger Tornado in those two tone grey color…. is the musuem open that late??
Thanks Dave. The museum closes at 5PM, but the aviation photography group I belong to, Arizona Aviation Photographers (AzAP), works with the museum to arrange several night shoots per year. We were allowed to shoot from 5pm until 10pm.
Awesome set of pics, Steve. Very well composed and executed. In particular, the blue lights made for some great mood lighting.
Looks like they added a few airframes since I was there in 2007.
Thank you Bill. They have added quite a few nice specimens over the past few years. They have been averaging more than 1 restoration per quarter. This year, one of the B-52’s will be getting restored. I enjoy the “night shoots” there because you get to be creative and have fun.