Propellers and Spaceships

April 2022

One of my favorite museums is the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum annex - the Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. If you think the National Mall Air and Space Museum is impressive, then you’ve got to see the Chantilly, Virginia exhibit.

I think it was way back in 2006 when I first heard of this second location for aviation artifacts. The National Mall location is only so big, and in the middle of a city (kinda hard to move whole planes into and out of.) As I’ve read, the Smithsonian had LOADS of full-sized aircraft in storage that couldn’t be displayed, so this location was funded and built just south of, and connected to, Dulles International Airport and its runways. I was blown away the first time I entered the giant museum hanger and found such an eclectic mix of propellers and spaceships. I was even more blown away when, in April of 2012, I stood outside of Udvar-Hazy and photographed space shuttle Discovery roar directly overhead on its piggyback ride to its new museum home.

I hadn’t done any kind of overnighter road trip since 2019, and I still had a few rolls of Kodak Portra 800 left from my gift from Kodak Professional when my blueberry photo was published in their K-Pro Calendar. What a great way to spend a beautiful spring weekend - a nice drive down through the Virginia countryside, some hiking around Harpers Ferry, and then a relaxing Sunday walking beside and under some of the most famous aircraft in the world looking for cool details to photograph. As a little bonus, I also took along a couple rolls of Kodak TMax 3200 black and white film.

Color photos are the Portra 800 loaded in my Nikon F6, The B&W photos are TMax 3200 loaded in my Nikon F100.