Servicing the Giant

A scene enacted countless times since the dawn of commercial aviation, ground crews prepare an airliner for its next flight. Machines have their own innate appeal, and when juxtaposed with the natural world are a poignant metaphor for humans cutting their own furrow alongside, or at right angles to, nature. I took this frame as part of a series at Singapore’s Changi International Airport in November 2011, on my way back from my fourth UK expedition. This was an equatorial evening, and home beckoned at the end of one more long leg in the air. The sun is not quite gone—there was some gold about sixty degrees of arc to the left, but “blue hour” was certainly arriving. This is the Qantas Airbus A-380 Reginald Ansett, named for one of Australia’s commercial aviation pioneers. The photo was taken through plate glass from the terminal, with the usual gymnastics to keep the interior lights from reflecting in the frame. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

The Appeal of the Machine

Aircraft have a beautiful symmetry created by their aerodynamics. They must flow through the air as the air flows over them, the very embodiment of the laws of fluid mechanics. Here is an A400M Atlas of the RAF, photographed at the RAAF Edinburgh airshow, 10th November, 2019, and the sheer size of the aircraft, dwarfing the personnel and spectators, is a delightful commentary on all things mechanical. Machines can be big, which frequently offers aesthetic appeal, and when matched to their symmetries and grace makes for a certain emotional appeal. The craft is like a great bird—serving the humans who created it, in a poetical sense. A simple photo, it exploits the size of the craft to frame the image, with the machine dwarfing the people below. You could read all sorts of romantic of psychological notions into such imagery, if you were inclined. I just think it’s a dynamic picture! Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

Longing for Flight

The title says it all. It is now getting on for twelve years since I was last on a plane. I got a bit blasé about air travel, having been on planes a fair few times between 2006 and 2014, but I did not expect the world, or my circumstances, to change so far that I’d not have the opportunity again. Work, spiralling costs, the pandemic, international unrest, you name it, they all came together to glue me to the spot, thus my overseas photos are now an old selection. Ah well, can’t be helped. I got this frame in November, 2011, on the leg from Melbourne up to Singapore, during my fourth UK trip. The bright colours and sunshine at altitude are so different from the grey, foggy, flat conditions on the ground when I got there! The sky seems welcoming, clouds below in their infinite variety—it makes me miss actually being there and seeing it—the feel of G force as the journey begins, hearing the tire-burn on landing, watching the skyscape stream by with the different times of day, always on the lookout for that interesting pic—I travelled with the camera around my neck most of the time. I’m sure such opportunities will come again, but by then it may be some hypersonic airliner connecting Singapore with London in less time than it takes to get from Adelaide to Singapore... Minor adjustments to contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

Giant Plane, Dense Crowd

I love airshows—so photogenic, so much to see, all manner of weather conditions and lighting angles. I’ve shot in everything from dust storms to overcast, and soaring temperatures too. But there’s nothing like the smell of burning kerosine when vintage planes are on the move! I took this shot at the RAAF Edinburgh Airshow on the 10^th of November 2019, my last airshow before the viral apocalypse took hold, and had the fun of airing two cameras on the day. The resolution is of course higher than the old S-5600, and the chip handles bight light very well, but I’m not sure this unit handles low light better than the older model. Here is a view from the stands across the apron to the RAAF C-17 Globemaster III transport plane, which I first photographed at Avalon Airshow in 1997. They’re gigantic and always very attractive for their dynamic appeal. The day was hot, dusty (very dusty) and quite taxing, but an unforgettable experience. Minor tweaks in Irfanview only. Fuji HS-10. Image by Mike.

Changeing Skies

 

The title of this post has two meanings. I took this frame on my way to the UK on November 8^th, 2012, so I was changing skies between hemispheres, early spring to autumn; but a storm was moving in at the time and the local sky was thus changing rapidly. I had a brief, unplanned stopover in Kuala Lumpur when the Air Malaysia A380 had a technical problem, and the flight resumed in the early afternoon the following day. This frame was taken from the height of the lower deck, a sweet view of an AM 747 as the A380 taxied out. The sky was interesting, quite dramatic in its way, though the foreground had full sun. Coming up behind the POV was a tick weather front, and we took off into a storm. The pic was squared up very slightly with fine rotation, and colour, contrast, brightness and sharpness were marginally adjusted in Irfanview. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

NB: Tomorrow will mark two years since I resurrected this photo blog, and this is my 107^th post in that time.

Evening at Altitude

There’s an axiom in photography that ‘you have to be there to get the shot,’ meaning that nature and events shape themselves, and the photographer freezes a moment in time from a particular place in space, and those things will never align just the same way again. This is so true of shooting skies, or of travel photography, when your own POV is in motion relative to your subject matter. I took this frame on November 7^th, 2012, on my fifth trip to the UK, from a Malaysian Airlines A380 on my way up to Kuala Lumpur on the first leg of the journey, and we had just crossed the Australian north coast. This is the evening light on the Timor Sea, the sun through thick weather reduced to that golden flare reflecting from the waves, as tropical cloud made a riot of shapes and forms, and infinite hues, all about. The sky was particularly forthcoming on that flight, with amazing cloudscapes and lighting qualities, that made the simple act of catching a plane into a photographer’s adventure. Minor post-processing—a touch of contrast and extra colour. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Struggling with the Sun

 

One thing you have no control over when you’re sitting in a window seat on a plane is the relative angle of the sun. If the plane is flying this way, the sun is there, of it’s flying that way, it’s over there, and the sun is either in your field of view early or late in the day, or too high to invade your frames in the middle hours. This pic was one of the series I took on approach to Singapore on the way home from the UK in November, 2007. The sun was low as it was late afternoon when we arrived, and the approach pattern saw a nice panoply of seaways, ships lying at anchor, islands in the glittering waters and so forth, all of which cried out to be photographed. In this frame, the sun is low and, while in picture, the cloud haze has cut the glare, and the chip has handled it very well. There’s only a suggestion of lens flare, and for once the imperfections on the plane window are not apparent. The flaps are already down, which tells you the plane was not far from Changi Airport. Nice texture and toning—contrast, gamma, colour and sharpness were adjusted a little in IrfanVew. I was also shooting at low DPI in those days. Fuji S5600. Image by Mike.

Different Lens Coatings = Different Lens Flare

A few posts back I talked about the lens flare characteristics of different lenses, how when using the old, reliable Fuji S5600 I learned to shade the lens when shooting into the sun quadrant to keep the flare effect from occurring. This frame was captured with that camera’s later brother, the Fuji HS10, and here I was shooting toward the sun by default. I was high in the grandstand of the 2019 RAAF Edinburgh Air Show, and there was no shade at all. I remember shooting with this camera and the S5600 at the same time, both round my neck and being used for different subjects. I was eager to explore the HS10’s high telephoto range, as airshows are notorious for generating lots of pictures of bright skies with aeroplanes so far away and moving so fast they are mere dots, and I found I had plenty of reach with this one, without serious loss of smoothness in the image. Here I’m looking toward the assembly point where aircraft moved from the parking area to the runway. The Gloster Meteor classic jet fighter is frame against the fuel trucks, with a marshal alongside, radio in hand. It’s a closer angle on a frame up I had just done at a wider setting. There is no flare in the image (except around the actual reflection of the sun in the canopy) and I’m going to assume both a superior lens coating on this model, and some degree of shading—usually with my baseball cap. I remember being very busy working the pictures on that day (November 10^th, 2019, just before covid began to run rampage through the community.) Colour, contrast and sharpness were tweaked very slightly. Fuji HS10. Image by Mike.

Pastel Skies

Been very busy and two weeks have gone by since I posted—so this will be a two-post day. First up, one of these shots you just have to be there to get—this is part of a sequence of images taken out the window at my side on the last leg of my journey home in 2010, capturing the changing tones of the sky and light on the aircraft as the sun came up The sun was rising on the other side of the plane, but I got to see the delicate graduated colours in the sky. Luckily, the temperature and humidity conditions conspired to give me a clean, ice-free window at this point. The view is over the starboard wing of an Airbus A-330, the QANTAS plane Noosa, heading into Adelaide on November 17^th of that year. The frame is almost exactly as it came off the camera. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Dawn from Altitude

 

The rising sun breaking through ocean cloud, seen over the wing as my plane approached Singapore on November 16 or so, 2010. This was the midpoint landing on the way back to Australia. Air travel offers the chance of such sights, amazing views of day's beginning or end, of storms and panoramas of the Earth below, and I miss this a lot. Of course, the filthy windows, with persistent drops of condensation between the inner and outer panes that turn to ice crystals at altitude make first-rate aerial images more a matter of luck than skill for the casual traveller. But there are still endless opportunities, and on every trip I had a window seat and my camera to hand for this very reason. This image is unretouched, just as it came from the card. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Almost Air-to-Air

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The marvelous thing about shooting low-flying aircraft is that if you manage to exclude any background details, buildings, trees, you can develop an image which the eye has a hard time telling from a low angle aerial perspective. This is the Aero Delphin, a jet trainer built in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, photographed at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, south of Adelaide. The shot had plenty of telephoto factored in to create the illusion of closer proximity, and extraneous sky background was cropped to enlarge the aircraft in the frame further. The fast shutter speed of the bright conditions stopped the action, and I managed to hold the camera sufficiently steady to have an acceptable rotational angle without messing with it. Enhancements were the usual sharpness, contrast and colour. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Soft Dusk Light

This is one of my Newcastle Airport shots from November, 2007, taken with the camera held firmly against plate glass and with the benefit of a piece of furniture blocking reflections. The sun was down, leaving the world in indirect, long-frequency light, and so long as the camera was steady the chip translated the conditions remarkably well. I framed the standing aircraft and waited for the taxying aircraft to reach the right point in the composition before releasing the shutter, compensating also for the timelag in that operation. Sharpened and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Extreme Distortion

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This is the most extreme example of heat distortion I've yet photographed. My post "Unintentionally Artistic" looked at catching a stem of grass correctly in focus as a consequence of the chip being unable to focus on the heat-distorted aircraft in the background; this is the same aircraft, a T-28 Trojan flown by Wayne Pearce at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, heading in the opposite direction, further away and 100% masked by the heat haze rising from the runway. The photograph was taken at high telephoto, thus the distortion becomes the entire image. Colour-enhanced and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Lens Flare by Night

Given that this image was also taken through a window, it turned out very well. After several hours delay for weather, my plane finally backed away from the terminal at London Heathrow bound for Australia, in the third week of November, 2007. I had photographed the aircraft from the terminal, and at last got some shots through the window as she started to move. Here the massive flood lights burn out in lens flare, and reflect from the wing. The shot was cropped down to better focus on the area of interest, then sharpened. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Precision Flying

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This is a high telephoto shot, and the lack of image resolution is at least partly due to that. But the shutter speed is very high, stopping the vortex of the smoke trail to show each prop-beat eddy perfectly. This is Chris Sperou, Australia's all-time aerobatic champion, in his trademark Pitts biplane, and Warren Stewart in the Beech B33, flying their super-close manoeuvres at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, in South Australia, February 2007. The shot was cropped close from a larger frame area before sizing for publication. The image was sharpened and contrast-enhanced very slightly. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Focal Depth

A fascinating effect of telephoto photography is the available distance over which focus is sharp. Here the photographer in the foreground, inside the focal depth range, appears as sharp as the main subject, which is at least 20 to 30 metres further away. This shot was taken at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, and was sharpened, and colour- and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Personalising the Hardware

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Hardware, machines of any kind, are always interesting textural and light-effects subjects, or of interest for their own sake, but to personalise the image creates another dimension. People depicted in promotional illustration or photography compliment the product by depicting desirable lifestyle, and this is the same mechanism at work. Here the telephoto medium close-up on this D.H. 82 Tiger Mother, at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, in February 2007, has the dimension of personalisation due to capturing the passenger looking toward the camera, creating an emotional exchange in which the viewer participates in the image. Photographically it was not a difficult shot, simply a composition which sought a close angle on subject matter which was being well-documented from all perspectives. The image was sharpened and balanced, and fine rotation was used to help to square up the horizon line, correcting the tendancy to rotate the camera to the right with the shutter release. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Unintentionally Artistic

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When you're shooting on the fly you can only take advantage of what happens in front of you and see what comes out later, and sometimes the results are surprising, things the eye did not register at the time. This is an old T-28 Trojan trainer, flown by Wayne Pearce, at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, an aircraft I captured in many studies. The conditions were bright sunshine (exposure time is short enough to stop the prop) and a strong, buffetting wind, and by afternoon a lot of heat was reflecting from the landing strip, creating the heat haze seen here. I was tracking with the aircraft on landing, at maximum telephoto, and it seems the heat haze meant the sonic focussing beam could not find the subject. But it did find the strands of grass blowing in the foreground, generating an image that suggests I focussed deliberately on the grass to let the subject matter blur artistically. This is serendipity, I certainly couldn't have made it happen! Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Colour- and contrast-balanced. Image by Mike.

Panning with a Moving Subject

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Sometimes the results of a shoot can be surprising. The Goolwa Classic Air Show 2007 was my first time shooting a flying display digitally rather than with the trusty Pentax K1000s and the manual zoom lens, and I was very pleased with the range of effects and benefits that came through. Here I'm panning with the takeoff roll of the restored WWII-vintage Russian Yak-9  fighter, flown by Jim Wickham, managing somehow to keep the horizon level (I think the camera was balanced on top of a fence post) and tracking left to right with the subject at high zoom. Oddly enough, though the shutter speed was fast enough to almost stop the prop, the background is attractively streaked while the subject is sharp and clear. I was not using sport mode, but the day cleared out to bright sunshine (and a buffetting wind) and the chip made great use of the faster available speed range. The image was sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Machine Texture

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An aviation museum has many subtle and visually interesting textures, from the gloss of paint finishes to the not-yet-restored grub and corrosion of metal long exposed to the elements. Here the engine is dismounted from a Mirage III fighter, workhorse of the Royal Australian Air Force in the 1970s, at the Classic Jets Fighter Museum, Parafield Airport, north of Adelaide, and the lighting conditions were a challenge. The shadow areas inside the engine bay contrast with the burned-out primary light source and the chip has found an excellent balance, bringing out good mid-tones. This was further enhanced with gamma-correction, plus a round of sharpening, contrast and colour adjustment. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic; January, 2007. Image by Mike.