September 2009 Sightings

to paint with light may sound poetic, but it’s how Los Angeles-based photographer Eric Curry actually creates his distinctive images. In June 2007, Curry met up with Mike Pupich, owner of Heavenly Body, a B-25J that travels the airshow circuit. At Eagle Field, a dusty World War II-era airstrip in California’s Central Valley, Curry went to work. First he snapped a few shots of a twilight sky. Once darkness fell, he walked around among his subjects, bathing them with hand-held floodlights and making long exposures with his Canon EOS-1 Ds Mark II and a 24-millimeter lens. Peter Plumb in the nose of the airplane, David Peters with the ammunition box, Douglas Aiken grabbing the machine gun, and Chad Sisk in the jeep held their poses for about 15 minutes. Four-legged friend Emma stayed put only when she fell asleep. Eight hundred shots later, Curry drove home and spent 50 hours combining about 200 of the best images with Photoshop and Aperture to render a layered, stylized, even romanticized product, almost a photo-realistic illustration. “I want viewers to feel like they stumbled across the scene,” says Curry. To see more of his work, visit www.americanprideandpassion.com.