Philip Makanna (Born 1940) is an American photographer who has been fascinated by flying and aircraft since he was a boy. He used to admire photographs of airplanes he saw in magazines and books. The photography came later and it was by default. Makanna trained as a painter originally because that’s where his heart was. He obtained a Masters degree in Fine Art from the University of California, Berkeley. After graduation, he worked as a painter for a while but developed an interest in sculpture before he turned the tables and became a teacher in both disciplines. Around this time, during the late 1960’s, his college delivered an amount of video equipment under an education initiative sponsored by the United States government. No one knew how to work not even what to do with it.
However, after a while, and working with a couple of students, Makanna started to play with the gear and around after awhile, they produced their first fine arts video. As a young boy, Makanna was taken to many air shows by his father during the late 1960’s and he watched Hurricanes, Spitfires, and a many of other vintage aircraft from the Second World War era. He has fond memories of this era. It was around the same time that he got on board a career that has led to him being regarded as one of the top aviation photographers alive today. By 1974 he had left painting and concentrated on film projects. Today, he’s based in San Francisco.
