Best way to get access to someone with a plane?

Long story short, I want to light a plane the same way I light a building (see sig if you don't know how I work). Would love to find someone who would be willing to roll their plane out somewhere for me to shoot. What would be the best way to go about doing this? I live in the LA area so there are plenty of planes here (nothing crazy, I'm just looking to expand my area of work) and I think planes would make an awesome subject for my technique. I obviously don't need a commercial passenger jet or something, just a cessna or king air, something tiny to start with.

Would I be best served by making friends with people at airports? Making friends with someone who owns a plane? Etc etc. I know that some people would probably look at me like I'm crazy but I know I can get some badass results.

Walk into just about any flight school and simply ask to rent an airplane for a static photo shoot.

If you bring some samples of your work so they can see your technique (and if you offer to kick them an image or two for the their website) they may just work with you and not charge you rent.

Now that the weather is starting to cool off here, I plan on doing just this in the very near future...

Do you carry liability insurance in case a stand falls over or something else were to strike the plane? Gonna need a lot of insurance before you'll probably be allowed near a King Air.

Thanks for the idea jay, never even thought about that. I live pretty close to Van Nuys and might have to take a stroll over there for a day.

As far as the insurance...same thing applies to some of these $10mil houses that I shoot

State Farm loves me, we'll put it that way

I figured you had coverage...

Yeah, you'll probably find most flight schools very open to a tit for tat deal. They'll probably even offer to help get the plane in a good place for background and light provided you're "off the beaten path" and not in close proximity to active ramps or taxiways.

Flight schools don't typically have King Airs. Those are most often corporate or charter aircraft. The good news is a charter company might be interested in having some unique photos for advertising, so maybe contact for some type of trade for deal.

Also, if you want to get shots of a very specific type of aircraft, go to the FAA site and perform a search. You should be able to get a list of owners of the model you are interested in and contact info. Drop a postcard in the mail to each one and see what happens.

I own a couple aircraft (a fixed wing and a helicopter). You're more than welcome to come shoot them if you get to the east coast...