Holding it Just Right

Here’s an exercise in placing the camera right against a plate glass window with darkness outside and light behind you. Under these conditions, losing reflections is always the big thing, and here I’m happy to say I excluded them completely. I let the chip handle the dark conditions, and held the camera rock steady against the glass. This is the A380 that is about to bring me back to Australia on April 21^st, 2014—unfortunately the very last time I was on a plane. (It was a fast three-day trip away from teaching, to take in a pop culture convention in London.) I love to watch the activity “air-side” as the technicians and handlers service the big planes, a ballet of vehicles and supplies to turn the plane around for its next flight. This is almost exactly as the chip recorded the image—there was nothing to do baring introduce a dash of extra contrast and a ghost of sharpening. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Fun with Low Light

This is another of the group I took when leaving England in 2010. This is at the very doors of the Heathrow Terminal, looking across the arrivals area, and just before they turned on the purple neon (find that in an older post). Notice the steel anti-ram-raider bollards—I think I rested the camera on top of one of them to stabilise it. In the previous frame a moving vehicle is blurred, telling you how long the shutter was open, while in this one nothing was moving, creating this beautifully textured, nuanced image. The only adjustment I made is a tiny touch of sharpening, otherwise this is exactly as the chip read the moment. This was November 16^th, 2010, and I was glad to be heading home, as I had been quite unwell on this expedition. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

Down the Tube to Lanantarn

Yes, I’m a sucker for vanishing point symmetry, it catches my eye and I’ll shoot it whenever I find it! This is the Heathrow Express terminal deep under Heathrow Airport, at 5.33 and 54 seconds (by the electronic signage) on the morning of Sunday, October 31^st, 2010. My plane had just got into Blighty, Customs was a quick process (I remember we were the very first plane load fronting up to the desks for the day!) and I was eastbound for London Town with my luggage. I travelled with the camera round my neck and shot as I went, and all sorts of interesting things appear as one goes. The light was low, of course, so non-moving subjects were preferred (cameras were less fancy in those days, and soaring ISO speeds were a thing of the future). Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Neon Extravaganza

 

Sometimes things take you by surprise and you shoot almost automatically. This was such an occasion—this is the weather awning of the main entry to Heathrow Airport, west of London, and I was making my way back to Australia on the evening of Tuesday, November 16^th, 2010, having come down from Sunderland by train to King's Cross, passing through much fog on the way, then making my way through the metropolis as the sun went down and finally out to the airport by train from Paddington. Just as I was walking into the airport, they turned on the neon and the effect was stunning! It looks purple but I remember it being individual red and blue fluorescent tubes that together created the illusion of colour. I shot several frames to record it, having already photographed the night-time environs—the camera was in my hand as the lights came on. I could have squared up the image but it would have cut into the thematic material, so this time I'm posting it just as it came off the camera, other than a touch of sharpening, contrast and gamma correction. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Speedbird by Dawn Light

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

I was very tired after three connections so far, but on my final leg from London to Newcastle I still had the energy to keep the camera clapped to the window. It was dawn over London when the domestic left Heathrow, and by the pink light (the first light I'd seen in 21 hours) what should I see but a Concorde! This was years after they were retired from service. If I remember correctly, 'Speedbird' was Concorde's generic radio callsign. I took a series of frames, needing maximum telephoto to catch her properly. The morning was cold, you can see condensation streaming across the wing. Luckily the window was clean. The image was cropped and enhanced (colour, sharpness and contrast). November, 2006. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Aspects of the Journey

"Inward, Looking Outward" could have been the title of this post. This was one of a batch of frames I took late one evening in November, 2007, at Heathrow Airport, London, while waiting for my outbound flight, a Qantas Boeing 747-600, the Longreach, named for the original headquarters of the company in Queensland. It was delayed four hours due to weather on the flightpath, a great many disgruntled people could only sit around and wait. At least I had photography to help pass the time! Had lighting been less bright maybe shots through the plate glass could have been managed to create an outside perspective such as with my shots at Newcastle Airport earlier the same evening, but that was never going to be possible here, and this time the reflections tell their own story: two images, superimposed, the travellers in the lounge and the plane they are about to board, interleaved, thus two aspects of the journey. Sharpened and colour-saturated for publication; Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic exposure. Image by Mike.