Space Shuttle Endeavour's Final Flight
This shot almost didn't happen. My daughter and I drove up to Santa Monica on September 21, 2012 to photograph the Space Shuttle Endeavour as it flew over the pier. After getting some shots there, I wanted to drive down to LAX to photograph it landing. It still had to fly over the Hollywood sign, Dodger Stadium, Griffith Park Observatory, and some other L.A. landmarks, so I figured we would have plenty of time. Boy was I wrong.
While we were driving down the freeway towards the airport, we were listening to news radio broadcast the shuttle's locations. We then got stuck in heavy traffic (Shocking to run into that on L.A. freeways; I know) a couple exits north of the Century Blvd off-ramp. About that same time, the newscaster said the NASA jet that the shuttle was piggybacked on was on it's final approach to the runway.
I was happy with the shots I got by the pier, but I got a little disappointed that we were going to miss the landing. As fate would have it, though, we saw the trio off to our left and descending. Luckily, I hadn't packed up my camera and still had my zoom lens on it. The trio of aircraft passed right in front of us, and I was able to capture a few images through my windshield.
That made me happy. Another piece of history recorded for years to come. On top of that, it was very nostalgic because I remembered watching the first ever space shuttle launch and re-entry on TV back in 1981, and was able to physically witness the very last time a space shuttle would be in the air.
Camera used was a Nikon D7000 with a Nikon 28-300 f/4-5.6 zoom lens. Shutter speed was 1/1000 sec at f/8 and ISO 100.