Downtown St. Louis

Downtown St. Louis in the heart of the Midwest. Here you see our Arch, Busch Stadium (home of the St. Louis Cardinals), the Mississippi River, Eads Bridge and more. A helicopter was the source of this photo. I prepared for several days for a 20 minute ride by watching videos, checking my camera and talking to my friends that arranged the flight. Tips: make sure the doors are off, use as a wide lens, use a high ISO for a fast shutter speed, don’t take anything you do not need and buckle in tight!

Riverfront Photoshoot

St. Louis

Yesterday I had the opportunity to tour our riverfront by Helicopter. Since the purpose was to photograph the area, we flew “doors off” so we could hang out for good shots. Included in this photo is downtown St. Louis, the Gateway Arch, Eads’ Bridge, the Stan Musial Bridge and the Mississippi River. On the horizon is the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers.

Be sure to click on the photo to see full size.

Riverfront Photoshoot

Here we are taking off from the airport:

Helocopter Arch-4

Old Courthouse

My hometown, St. Louis, with our old courthouse and the Gateway Arch behind it. The pathway here is part of the new Kiener Plaza (not sure what was wrong with the old Kiener Plaza). Lots to do and photograph in this area but be sure to get the Arch in the background!

This photo was taken about 30 minutes after sunset to get the nice even lighting. Also, this is a three shot bracketed photo to get the lighting right. Everything was processed in Photomatix and Lightroom.

Kiener Plaza

Miss Fleur De Lis

Katie Moeller, Miss Fleur De Lis, at the 2017 VP Parade. The VP Parade (America’s Birthday Parade) is one of the premier events in the United States. This was the 135 year of this parade and was televised in over 60 cities.

Miss Moeller was on of about 10 Miss America Pageant members who participated.  Last year I featured Miss River City in the this parade.

P-51 Mustang

Air shows give you a unique opportunity to photograph unique aircraft. One of the great opportunities is the daredevil pilots will fly very low to the ground to give you a shot that looks like you are up there with them. This photo was taken at the Scott Air Force Base air show. The P-51 Mustang was one of the most popular fighters used during WWII with regular use through the 80’s.

North American P-51 D "Quick Silver"

MIG-17 at Scott AFB Air Show

Every few years the nearby Scott Air Force Base holds an open house and a nice air show with a wide variety of military aircraft. This MIG-17 was the most unique thing flying that day. It looked like a cockpit mounted on a jet engine. However, this was a very deadly aircraft against an adversary.

See more photos of the show, including the Thunderbirds: https://greatrivers.smugmug.com/Events/Air-Shows/Scott-AFB-Air-SHow-2017/

2017 Scott Airforce Base Air Show

Porsche 911 Carrera

1986 Porsche 911 Carrera at St. Louis’ European car show. Lots of cool street and exotic cars at this event and it would actually take all day to see everything. Here is a link to more photos from this event: https://greatrivers.smugmug.com/Events/St-Louis-European-Car-Show-201/

Aston Martin DB6

007’s famed Aston Martin? No, this is a later model at the St. Louis European Auto Show. James Bond had an Aston Martin DB5 and this is a DB6. No machine guns in the headlights or side ramrod/grinder or ejection seat or bullet proof shield in this one.

I did some research and found that the Aston Martin people liked the DB5 and since it was made so popular in the movie, they had no plans to change it. However, the DB5 was a new design and its new form caused the back end to raise up at high speed with unfortunate results. They put the car in a wind tunnel, made some changes and called the new version the DB6.

By the way, there were multiple Aston Martins owned by the studio that made the movies so there was not a single “Bond” car.