When making PetaPixel’s documentary about Blair Bunting’s U2 photo shoot at the edge of space (which you should really watch now if you haven’t), one thing we decided not to focus on was the camera gear. But we love talking about cameras and lenses, so Chris sat down with Blair the evening before his epic shoot to discuss the equipment he was bringing up in a U2 spy plane.
Pro-Ukrainian pilots flew a drone they bought from a typical consumer store onto a $328 million Russian spy plane that was later destroyed.
The United States Department of Defense has released a photo taken by a U-2 spy plane pilot that shows a perspective from inside the cockpit and above the Chinese balloon that was shot down earlier this month.
Digital cameras can see in color in near darkness these days, but decades ago, there were very different solutions for capturing usable photos at night. One example is the photoflash bomb, a special type of bomb that was designed specifically to explode in midair and illuminate the world below for aerial photos.
The United States' U-2 spy plane first took to the skies back in 1955 during the heyday of film photography. But even as cameras these days have largely shifted to digital, the U-2 continues to shoot its spy photos on film. The Wall Street Journal made this 19-minute documentary on the U-2 that offers a closer look at the U-2's photography.
Want to see what the Northern Lights look like up close? Ross Franquemont can show you. A U-2 spy plane pilot by day and a photographer by night, Franquemont recently had the privilege of photographing the Aurora Borealis from his cockpit at 70,000 feet.
Back in 2010, San Francisco-based photographer Christopher Michel received a once-in-a-lifetime photo assignment …