Monday Photo Shoot #11: Far and Near

This one, another study in contrasts, gives me an excuse to show you some pictures I took today:

New Monday Photo Shoot #11: Take a picture of something far away - but include something much closer in the same shot.

Every March since we first got to Tucson in 1986, there has been an air show over at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. At least, that's how it seems to me. I've never actually attended the thing, but I remember seeing lots of Blue Angels and Flying Tigers and miscellaneous fighter jets in formation at this time of year. Our current home is beneath the flightpath of the air show. Some years I stand in my driveway for a bit, and try to catch the jets as they zoom around. Today was one of those days.

Most of the time the jets are way far away. If they're even visible, they're little more than wedge-shaped specks in the sky. You hear them before you see them, and try to deduce from the sound where they will appear.

Eventually if you're patient (and live in my neighborhood!), they come close enough that if you zoom in, you might catch them large enough to be seen. Then it's a matter of cropping the photo down to the tiny portion where the planes are. In most of my shots it was easy to keep bits of neighborhood trees in frame.

I never did get these two planes close enough for a clearer shot than this. They almost look like toy airplanes.


Off they go, flying high, right into the sun. In this case the planes are the closer element, the shafts of sunlight more distant.

And here they are flying over Jupiter. Okay, not really, but this is what "Auto Enhance" saw in the sun-streaked sky.

This shot doesn't actually fit my criteria. But I'm including it anyway 'cause it's cool.

Your turn: photograph some distant object, with something closer in the foreground. You can go for extreme distances with stars and planets and such, or show us what's on the horizon. You can even keep the distances relatively short, and photograph something across the room from you. Take your best shot(s), upload to your blog or journal with a link back here, and leave your link in the comments to this entry so we can all take a look! I'll post the roundup of entries next Sunday night. Have fun!

Karen