One High Flying Assignment

by Michael Kirby

This is my second post since I joined the Joint Ventures blog group. In my first post I detailed my background as a photojournalist with our local paper the Auburn Journal. As I was looking through some of the thousands of images I took during my 25-year career I came to the realization that with many of my photos there was a fascinating back story that did not get told mainly from lack of space or the back story just did not go completely with the purpose of the image. I decided to tell the back story of one of my images in this blog post.

There is a saying that a picture is worth a thousand words and this of course is true. I believe and if I could steal a quote from the title of a popular song by singer Rod Stewart better describes what I believe a photo tells and that is “Every picture tells a story.” The back story on this particular image that I am sharing is that this along with being one of the most exciting photojournalist assignments in my career, it also turned out to be one of my favorite published photos.

Many people might know that beginning in 1978 I opened a sign company in Auburn and beginning in 1996 along with my sign work I began working at the Auburn Journal as an intern during an awaking period in my life. I had a desire to break out of the day to day work at my sign company and explore my adolescence age exposure to photography and my deep interest in the community that had become my adoptive home. After a few months the Journal decided that my work was good enough to be given paid assignments and my employment as a freelance stringer began and continued for twenty-five years. During these years I covered all types of assignments a daily newspaper covers and for a couple of years wrote a weekly column titled Community Portraits.

On the day this particular image was captured I was working at my sign shop and received a call from Penne Usher my editor. She explained that the staff photographer was on another assignment and could I take an assignment. Being self-employed it was fairly easy to get away and being in town was a plus. This call was not unusual, as this is the way that most assignments came my way. Sometimes my assignments were arranged in advance but most times there was not much notice and my availability on short notice was a big plus for the Auburn Journal.

The assignment was to get an image that would tease (announce) the upcoming Auburn Air Fair that was coming up on the weekend. Penne asked for an image that would be an aerial view of the Auburn Airport from an airplane with the name of the airport on the runway visible. She said that Tom Dwelle and his son Tom Dwelle Jr. would take me up in a plane to get the shot. It sounded exciting and I dropped what I was doing and rushed to Auburn Airport.

I knew both Dwelle’s from my sign business and some contact through assignments at the AJ. In my mind I assumed that we would go up in a small Cessna or similar plane. When I got to their hanger imagine my surprise when I was directed out front of their hanger to two vintage restored war bird WWII planes. I said, and I am sure they noticed the astonishment in my voice, “Are we going up in those?” The reply came from both of them, “What did you think would take?”

Both Dwelle’s dressed in flight gear motioned me over and I was given some basic flight instruction once in the cockpit. I was to ride with Tom Jr. and Tom Sr. would fly in front of us at what seemed just off our wing tips for me to get the photo. We discussed the details of what I needed for the image and off we went. Soon we were on the runway and even quicker we were in the air circling Auburn. After a few passes as Tom Jr. positioned us in perfect formation as Tom Sr. turned the smoke from his plane on and I snapped several photos for the assignment. Looking at the images on my camera screen I felt confident that I had the image I needed and Tom Jr. then took me on short flight. We flew out over Folsom Lake, along the American River Canyon and over the Foresthill Bridge. I did explain to him that I was not an adrenaline junkie and did not want to vomit in his plane so I declined any rolls or other stunts. He obliged me and we had a wonderful flight.

The next day on the front page was my photo of Tom Sr. over the airport in a bank turn with smoke trailing and even the Auburn Airport clearly in the image. The photo was accompanied by a story about the upcoming Auburn Air Fair. Along with the story on that day was a memory that was created that I have still have not forgotten to this day. The Dwelle’s and I have crossed paths numerous times in the years since this photo was taken and I am sure they probably don’t remember taking a nervous local reporter up for a photo shoot, but I sure do.