Joe McNally Lighting Around The Important Stuff

Sometimes, it isn’t how you light the subject itself that counts but making the most of what’s around it, as Joe explains…

Recently, there was another in the endless array of hashtag days, one dedicated to the National Geographic. It prompted me to pull out an older frame, one that has stuck to me a bit. Shot at China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, at about 4 or 5am or so, it depicts a prototype drone, called at that time, the X-47A [1]. The guys on the base were great, got up early and parked this down at the end of one of the runways. They let me have it for about two hours. I’ve written about this photo in a chapter in one of my books called Don’t Light It, Light Around It.