Clown Exposure: On the Wing

Well, this certainly seems out of character for Slipknot percussionist and photographer Shawn 'Clown' Crahan. We're used to seeing images of sideshow freaks, dilapidated buildings, dead animals and slutty mannequins; not pretty little pictures of airplanes flying high in the sky.

"I was showing a bunch of my photos to some friends, and when they got to this one they also thought it was out of place," Crahan tells Noisecreep. "And I said to them, 'You know, you gotta break it up.' So, this would be like the intermission."

With that in mind, we'll look forward to something next week that will haunt our dreams and turn our blood cold. And for now, we'll take an open-minded look at 'On the Wing.' Actually, if you're not in the mood for something nasty, the photo is pretty cool. It kind of reminds us of group of Blue Angel military jets flying in tight formation. But as Crahan explains, seeing can sometimes be deceiving.

"There's a military park miles from my house called Camp Dodge, and they have two tanks up there and a couple cannons. And then there's a jet and a mannequin up there wearing a helmet. The sky was beautiful that day, which is really what brought me outside. I was like, 'I need to go out there and study the sky. It's awesome.'

"Now, sometimes I'm guilty of being a lazy photographer and just standing up and shooting what I see straight on. But for this particular shot, I really had to look for it. And I felt like I really got down and found the right angle, and it was the exact angle I needed to be at.

"Everyone I've showed this to asks, 'Oh, my God, were you in another plane? How did you do this? How did you get that close?' And I felt like that was the reward of the day. I actually got off my butt and put myself in some awkward positions to grab the movement and the shot. I love the way the wing at the end is kind of cropped off and the way I got the nose. And then the way those clouds to the left kind of turn in makes your eye move, and there's a little lens flare on the wing in the middle that's natural.

"Usually, it's pretty cool when you get lens flare because it's sort of a defect in the layers of glass within a lens. And when you capture that, you're probably looking into the light a little bit too much, but it adds to it. I think it looks organic. It's a real plane, but it's up on a cement pillar that's holding it about 20 feet in the air."