Desert Airstrip with Marie Love (Patreon)

Some photo sets just happen because the right people cross paths at the right time. This was one of those. Marie Love is a skydiver, so aviation already feels natural to her world, and getting access to this P-51 Mustang replica turned into one of the most unique shoots I’ve ever been part of. The plane itself is an 80% scale Mustang, which somehow makes it even cooler in person because you still get all the iconic lines and presence without realizing at first that it’s scaled down.

What makes this set special to me is that these photos genuinely would not exist without the combination of Marie, the pilot, and me all making it happen together. It’s one of those shoots where logistics, timing, weather, and trust all had to line up perfectly. Sunset gave us insane skies, and the runway created this huge cinematic environment that made every frame feel larger than life.

From a photography standpoint, I leaned heavily into perspective and scale. Shooting low to the ground with wide lenses let the Mustang feel massive while exaggerating the sky and clouds behind it. The runway lines naturally pull your eye through the frame, and the warm sunset tones against the polished metal gave everything that classic aviation feel. Marie also understood how to pose with the aircraft instead of just standing next to it, which is a huge difference in making a set like this actually work visually.

The final result feels somewhere between vintage aviation imagery and modern editorial photography — and honestly, probably one of the only photo sets in the world quite like it.