2000 Velocity Experimental Aircraft
Up next, we’ve got a cool light painting of a beautiful airplane, the 2000 Velocity Experimental Aircraft N832AB! I traveled to North Carolina to create this one for my friend Grover. I met Grover at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh a couple of years ago. It took a while, but we finally found a time to get it scheduled.
Here’s what the starting image looked like. Once it got dark, the magic began!
What made this project more than a little unique (and, at times, loud) was that we did the actual light painting photography right between two main runways at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport!
Initially, I was kind of intimidated by the location. But after a little while, I found it to be pretty cool! We had aircraft of all kinds (lots of big ones!) taking off and landing just a couple of hundred yards from where we were light painting!
Not Far From Where It All Began
Raleigh-Durham International Airport is only about 200 miles from where the very first powered experimental flight occurred way back on December 17, 1903. That historic flight of the Wright Flyer took place at Kill Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, by Orville and Wilbur Wright. The Wright Brothers made four flights that day, with the longest lasting 59 seconds. With one flight achieving a sustained flight of a whopping 852 feet!
Facts About the 2000 Velocity
The 2000 Velocity Experimental Aircraft is a fast, four-seat canard kitplane. It’s known for its carbon fiber build. The 2000 Velocity can reach speeds of over 200 knots, and is typically powered by either a Lycoming IO-540 (around 260 hp) or an IO-550 (310 hp). It features gull-wing doors and optional retractable landing gear. It has a wingspan of 31 feet and is 20 feet long. It’s made for high-performance cross-country travel.
The interior of this cool aircraft!
Home, Sweet Home
I stayed with Grover and his lovely wife, Teri. I definitely didn’t starve while I was their guest, as Teri is an awesome cook! They have a beautiful home right smack-dab in the forest, just a short distance from the airport.
After arriving that afternoon, Grover took me to the airport to scout out a location for that night’s light painting. It was also the first time that I got to see the 2000 Velocity up close. It’s a pretty cool airplane, that’s for sure! We headed back to their home with a couple of ideas as to where to place the aircraft. We would wait and see what kind of a sunset might be in the plans that night after we enjoyed Teri’s delicious lasagna for dinner!
After dinner, Grove and I headed back to the airport to set up everything. We went with the western sky and the main terminal as the backdrop for the project.
This would be a rare light painting project where I didn’t light paint any of the buildings in the scene. Not only was that impossible because of its size, but it would also have most certainly gotten me in big trouble with security! I decided to go with an alternative plan created in post-production.
Here’s what the Canon R5 camera and iPad Pro saw that night before we got started.
Mother Nature and More
Mother Nature gave us a wonderful, warm evening with not too much wind (which would have made the wings move). It was pretty breezy when we were there a couple of hours earlier, but it quieted down around sunset. Unfortunately, the winds settling down also meant that the dew point could become an issue – and, of course, it did!
About an hour into the project, I was seeing moisture on the wings. Grover did an admirable job of wiping the Velocity down, and we pressed on. We’d light-painted the aircraft’s interior right off the bat, so I didn’t have to worry about the windows being wet. I’m thankful once again that yet another light painting project turned out fabulous, despite the main subject becoming wet.
Light Painting 2000 Velocity N832AB
Yes, the dew point was a pain, but I really felt that the biggest obstacle for this project was all of the security. I never felt like I was in danger, and that was because it’s a major airport. And what do airports use at night for safety and security? Lights, and lots of them (we did get a visit from a very nice security guard)!
Yep, we had no way of turning any security lights off! Because of that, the light painting of Grover’s 2000 Velocity Experimental Aircraft was not created in exactly ideal conditions.
This was the first project in a very, very long time that I wasn’t exactly sure if I had pulled it off. Because of the strong security lighting right over us, I made very short passes with my light wand. That way, I could minimize the effect that the orange color-cast would have on the images. I do say that I’m very pleased with how this cool light painting turned out. It wasn’t the easiest post-production I’ve been involved with, but it’s been one of the most rewarding!
Here’s the first version!
Light Painting a 2000 Velocity – Take Two
Since I didn’t (or should I say couldn’t) light paint the buildings all around us, we were actually done fairly early in the evening (the earlier fall sunset also helped out on that). I’m not sure if it was Grover or me who asked if we should turn the plane around and do the front view, but we decided to give it a shot!
By not moving the camera, we would be able to use a slightly different sunset and much of the background from earlier in the evening. Grover and I carefully turned the plane around and placed it very close to where it was when it was facing the other direction. Then, we went at it once again.
Of course, we still had the orange lighting issues from before, but now the dew point was fully in charge! By the time we finished light painting the second version, the Velocity was dripping wet! Despite all that, I think she looks pretty sweet!
Here’s the second version!
The Build Video
All told, Grover and I took 196 images for the first version, and I ended up using 55 of those, in 83 Photoshop layers to create the Master File. The second version used another sky image from the first version, many parts of the background, and 131 additional exposures combined in 97 Photoshop layers to create its Master File. Whew!
The link to the short Build Video for these pretty light paintings is found at the link below on our YouTube channel.
A big thanks to Grover and Teri for their hospitality and for the opportunity to light paint your fantastic aircraft!
And, it turns out that we were not done yet! Grover had an idea on the way home from the airport that night. You’ll get to see that (very, very cool) idea in our next post! Until then, thank you for taking the time out of your day to read our story! – M&J