Felix’s First Flight

The concept for this session first came to mind almost two years ago — some friends and I were sitting at a friend’s cabin, and talking about my friend Luke’s work as a private pilot. I mentioned how it would be great fun to set up a photo shoot where his son Rainier was a little pilot, since he inherited his father’s love of flying, adventure, and planes.

Time passed, and the logistics for the session never quite panned out at the right time in the right way. Originally I was thinking we would do the session in the private jet Luke flew, but then I started to envision the shoot a bit more, and thought a more vintage Cessna would be cute. There was a yellow one I would always see fly over Vashon Island when we lived there, and I started to set my sights on that one. But then, more time passed, and the vision percolated and developed even more, and that little yellow plane (that I still love) just didn’t feel quite right either.

So, I hopped in my car and drove and walked around the perimeter of Boeing field while on the phone with a friend, looking for the perfect plane. After almost an hour of searching, I drove by a plane that stopped me in my tracks and I pulled over on the side of the road to take a photo. I told my friend I needed to go, to try and track down the owner. I’ll spare you all details here, but it was a bit of a treasure hunt to find the owner, and make other logistics of the shoot come together.

The iphone shot of the plane through the chainlink fence. :)

However, once the magical June evening came, it felt worth it — as most things that take a lot of effort are. It was fun seeing Rainier’s spark and excitement about it all, and watch him pretend to fly “Justice Beaver,” (his stuffed beaver), Felix, (our mascot stuffed bunny), and for a few minutes even his sister Florence got a ride!

This was our mood board for the session, that drove all of the styling and sourcing.