General aviation and AOPA Aviation Summit can inspire people in many different ways. For filmmaker and photographer Morgan Harris, the aircraft display at Airportfest was an inspiration to apply a complicated photographic technique to create aviation art.
"It was an amazing opportunity to photograph these incredible flying machines," said Harris. "I remember being inspired by my grandmother's stories about her courageous flying neighbor and friend Charles Lindbergh. I hope to fly myself one day."
The technique is called high dynamic range and involves blending up to nine different exposures of the subject. This wide range of exposures allows the final image to come closer to the extreme range between light and dark that the human eye can see. The artistry comes in as the photographer then maps the different light levels back into an image that can be displayed within the limited dynamic range of photographic paper or a computer screen.
Harris was one of the talented videographers working for AOPA Live at Aviation Summit 2010. Anyone interested in his artwork can reach him by e-mail.