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.

 

The First Step

Beginning a journey to the UK from Australia is always a momentous occasion—there and back, one is essentially travelling the equivalent of all the way round the world, more or less. This was only the second frame I grabbed on my second trip to the UK, in November 2007, while waiting for the first leg, a domestic short-haul from Adelaide to Melbourne to connect with the international flight there. What makes this picture interesting is the two lighting conditions captured. The POV is from the interior of the terminal, thus artificial lighting in the foreground or framing elements, against the natural daylight outside. I also did a fair job of framing the subject, getting the picture level—this is not angle-corrected but just as it came off the camera. The moody, blue-grey toned sky over the Adelaide Hills contrasts interestingly with the warm toned interior, diagonally across the frame. 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.

 

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.

Afternoon Storm

Here is an engaging chequerboard of fields and floodings under a brooding sky. Staying with the aviation theme from last time, this shot was one of the series detailing my departure from Kuala Lumpur on November 8^th, 2012, on my way to the UK (a day late, the A380 had a breakdown that put me briefly in a hotel.) The day was changing fast and we took off into a stormfront, but planes that big seem unconcerned about mere weather! I was on the starboard side, so this is looking probably more or less northward. The tropical weather and the saturated landscape have a broody, rich quality that evokes thoughts of history and intrigue. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Spacescape? Not Quite!

Interesting, isn’t it? The deep blue at top left is evocative of space, at least the upper atmosphere, while the cloudscapes to lower right represent the turning planet. The eye tries to see a space perspective—but of course it’s not. I simply tipped the camera relative to the horizon, looking for potential background images for miniature photography. Match the lighting angle on a model aircraft or spacecraft, then use digital techniques to cut the craft from its background and composite it over this real sky photograph, and the result should be quiet convincing! I grabbed this frame on April 22^nd, 2014, on my way to London for a convention at the Park Royal, and was back in Australia a few days later—a wonderful memory! (Sadly, my last overseas trip, and the last time I flew.) This is exactly as the frame came from the camera, no adjustments were made at all; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike. Mm

 

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.

 

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.

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.

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.

A Wild Land

At first glance a jumble of colours and shapes—this is the view over central Australia looking down from the starboard side of an airliner on its way to Singapore, on the first leg of my flight to the UK, on October 31^st, 2010. There are clouds and their shadows, over a dun-ochre landscape—it could almost be Mars, right?—which, one can see from altitude, seems, incongruously, to have been shaped by flowing water. Incongruous, because it’s bone dry most of the year, and subject to flash floods at wide intervals, which, nevertheless, mould the landscape in ways quite distinct from above. I have vivid memories of this flight as we passed by Uluru, and the Captain announced that they had been given permission to deviate slightly from flightpath so as to pass almost over the Rock. Passengers on my side of the plane saw it as we went by. My photos are not very distinct, there seemed much haze on the day, and the window was far from clean. This image, taken some way south of Uluru, probably in the far north of South Australia, has been enhanced a fair bit, gamma value was reduced a long way to compensate for the haze, contrast and colour were intensified, and the whole was sharpened just a little. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

 

New For Old

An interesting and unusual composition—a close up from dead astern of the Waco biplane operated by Adelaide Biplanes, from Aldinga Aerodrome, South Australia. The Waco is a modern-build of a classic 1930’s patent, this particular aircraft dating from 1992. The lines are most engaging, and this unusual aspect presented itself from the way the aircraft was parked near the airfield cafe! I grabbed this frame on January 11^th, 2023, and would love to go see the planes coming and going again! Image was minimally enhanced—contrast, colour and sharpness only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike. (As it’s been two weeks since I posted, I’ll get something else up tomorrow, as well.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hong Kong Smog

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

This photo was taken shortly after dawn from the international terminal at Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong, at the end of October, 2007. I didn't even try to beat the reflections in the plate glass, but just recorded exactly what met the eye: the reflections of the terminal lighting overlie a scene of industry, the fascinating array of cargo-handling systems serving the 747, against the backdrop of dense smog through which the hills are ghostly suggestions of themselves. Sharpened, and colour- and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.