Saturday, May 27, 2006
Blue Angels over Annapolis 05-24-06
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The Blue Angels performed in Annapolis as part of the Commissioning Ceremony for new Officers at the United States Naval Academy. I had intended to watch this from the Maryland World War II
Memorial where I had watched the same show a few years ago. There weren’t very many people there and I was shocked when the place was absolutely packed and people were parked for miles along the sides of Rt. 450. I turned around and went back to Annapolis and decided to see if I could get into one of the parking decks. I figured there was little chance of getting in and I was right. They were full. Driving further along I realized there was a strip mall with a parking lot so I pulled in and waited for the show to start. While I did not see all of the fancy low level flying, I think I may have wound up getting better photos from here because I was not directly under the show. The part of the show I could see was still a lot of fun and the roar of fighter jet engines is always exhilarating. These are not the first fighters in flight I have photographed – I scored an F-16 flying over King’s Landing Park a few weeks ago. It was moving very fast and that experience made me think I probably would not get good photos of the Blue Angels. It turns out the Blue Angels were flying much slower. But that is by no means saying they were flying slow. I had to concentrate to keep a lock in my viewfinder even with them some distance away. The show lasted about 45 minutes. Great show Blue Angels! Good luck Academy Graduates!
The Blue Angels performed in Annapolis as part of the Commissioning Ceremony for new Officers at the United States Naval Academy. I had intended to watch this from the Maryland World War II
Memorial where I had watched the same show a few years ago. There weren’t very many people there and I was shocked when the place was absolutely packed and people were parked for miles along the sides of Rt. 450. I turned around and went back to Annapolis and decided to see if I could get into one of the parking decks. I figured there was little chance of getting in and I was right. They were full. Driving further along I realized there was a strip mall with a parking lot so I pulled in and waited for the show to start. While I did not see all of the fancy low level flying, I think I may have wound up getting better photos from here because I was not directly under the show. The part of the show I could see was still a lot of fun and the roar of fighter jet engines is always exhilarating. These are not the first fighters in flight I have photographed – I scored an F-16 flying over King’s Landing Park a few weeks ago. It was moving very fast and that experience made me think I probably would not get good photos of the Blue Angels. It turns out the Blue Angels were flying much slower. But that is by no means saying they were flying slow. I had to concentrate to keep a lock in my viewfinder even with them some distance away. The show lasted about 45 minutes. Great show Blue Angels! Good luck Academy Graduates!
