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.

 

Metal and Complex Light

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Here the POV is under the tail of the DeHavilland Sea Venom at the Fast Jets Fighter Museum, Parafield Airport, north of Adelaide, taken in January, 2007, and the range of tonal values the chip has gathered are striking. The shadow areas have been adequately registered, while the main lighting source is burned out, yet the general colours of the environment have been captured with great truth. The image was sharpened, and the colour and contrast adjusted slightly. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. 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.

One Big Ship

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Photographing HMS Victory is not easy. Stand back far enough to see the whole vessel and you tend to get smaller buildings in the shot as well! This was my first glimpse of the historic Georgian warship as I walked through the public access museum area of Portsmouth Naval Dockyard, in the 'Gunwharf Quays' district, on a very grey day in December 2006. The sheer size of the ship is stunning, she towers into the sky and is well over 200 feet long, a triumph of timber engineering. Exposure times were long on this day as the chip dealt with low light levels and intermittent rain, and composition was always going to be a compromise between seeing the ship unobstructed but only in close-up, or longshots that were visually cluttered. Sharpness and colour were enhanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. 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.

Slow Burn Image

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Having experimented with faster virtual filmspeeds and encountered 'digital grain' in the 800 ASA range, I'm actually glad I stayed with 200 ASA and played the camera-motion game at my shoot at the RAF Museum, Hendon, in December, 2006. This is their Lancaster bomber and shooting a black aeroplane in a huge building in which the lumens were never quite right for photography was a technical challenge, but the clarity and liquid-smoothness of the 5mp image were in fact worth it. I saw a photo taken at the Lancaster assembly line during WWII, an early colour negative, with a filmspeed so slow you could see the ghost-images of technicians who were walking through the frame. To my amazement, the same thing appeared in this shot: note the patron at far right. This tells you how long the exposure was. The camera was held solidly against a column to eliminate motion, then the chip simply did its thing with the exposure, rendering a very pleasing final result. Sharpness and colour were enhanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

White on White

Shooting interiors can be difficult, artificial lighting is always an interesting exercise, but here a white subject is seen against white lighting, and that is a recipe for burnout. But the chip compensated amazingly, as the shadow areas and the yellow parts can be seen to be properly exposed. This is an old British Bloodhound surface to air missile, photographed at the Fast Jets Fighter Museum, Parafield Airport, north of Adelaide, in January 2007. Only sharpness and colour were enhanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

In Memoriam

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This is the sort of thing you will never see in Australia, New Zealand, America or Canada, a small, discreet, public memorial to war. There are war memorials all over the world, they didn't call them 'world wars' for nothing. Every town and village in Australia has it's memorial to those who didn't come back. But this is different: a memorial to those who died when the war came to them. I took this simple snapshot on the platform of Middlesborough Station, Yorkshire, UK, in November 2006, and to look at the classic 19th century architecture, dressed-over with late 20th century glasswork, screens, automatic doors and all, was to realise that the same building was the one bombed on that day in 1942. People dressed differently, thought differently, did things for different reasons and the details of their lives were, well, very different. But it was right there that it happened, and that reminds you of both the flow of time and your own mortality. The image was sharpened and brightened a little for publication. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Echoes of Battles Past

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History comes in many forms. This is the old British cruiser HMS Belfast, moored on the Thames and billed as "London's floating naval museum." She was commissioned in 1939, fought through the Second World War, served in Korea, was decomissioned in 1963 and, after a preservation campaign, was saved from the cutting torch and became a museum in 1971. Now seventy years old, she represents not just naval history or a symbol of national pride, but a tangible link with the past as surely as the Tower of London which stands opposite. Together they are overlooked by futuristic organic architecture, and passed by sleek 'Thames Clipper' tour boats, linking the past with the present and the promise of a future in which both will be remembered. This was one of a batch of images framing the ship from both sides of the river and in company with a variety of backgrounds, taken in the later afternoon light on a Sunday in November, 2007, and the camera did a fine job of extracting the mid-tones from the ship while preserving the luminosity of the evening sky. The image was subtly enhanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Classic Backlight with Foreground Illumination

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The long row of windows along one side of the first display hall at the RAF Museum, Hendon, in northern London, made for tricky lighting throughout, as the natural light of a drizzly, grey day vied with the artificial lighting inside. This shot of their immaculate Mustang was taken from the mezzanine gallery on the opposite side of the hall, shooting under the nose of their suspended lifesize mockup of the Eurofighter, and I was mildly amazed that everything balanced out properly. The exposure was comparatively long, the overcast afternoon completely burned out the windows, but, remarkably, the school kids at bottom right were moving little enough not to blur. The ring of lights under the plane have registered amazingly well, making this a delightful play of light and reflection. The camera was solidly supported on a handrail. Enhancements include sharpness, contrast and colour. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto; December, 2006. Image by Mike.

Last of the "Wooden Walls"

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Now here is living history: the last surviving warship of Georgian times, HMS Victory, which though she has been preserved in drydock as a British national treasure also remains a commissioned vessel in the Royal Navy. The Captain and Executive Officer have reserved parking places next to the ship... This ship, Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, typifies the 'wooden walls of England' that protected the country from invasion in the warlike 17th and 18th centuries, and is the technological ancestor of 1869's HMS Warrior, which lies a few hundred yards away at the Historic Portsmouth Naval Dockyard. I visited on a grey day in December, 2006, a day when rain was sweeping through in light, cold showers and the overcast made exposures difficult. Note that the sky is burned out to white to properly expose the ship. She was simply too big to frame the whole ship properly amongst the jumble of buildings surrounding the drydock, but I captured many excellent detail closeups. Sharpened, contrast- and colour-enhanced for publication. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Tall Ship And Towering Sky

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This photograph I find so reminiscent of the maritime artistic tradition of the 19th century that sometimes I have to blink and remind myself I took it. It was December 2006 and the S5600 and I were in Portsmouth for a day visit, specifically Portsmouth Historic Naval Dockyard, to see HMS Victory, the Mary Rose, and this one, HMS Warrior. In many ways she is in the best condition of any of them; for one thing, she's afloat! In 1869 Warrior was the fastest, most powerful battleship in the world, and her restoration (8 million pounds, if I remember correctly) has returned her to amazing condition. I took many photos that day, but this one, with the sun pretty much gone and a towering Atlantic sky coming up over the vessel's masts and rigging, while the low tide stranded many small craft on the mud, was so powerfully evocative of the art of Turner and his ilk, that it feels like a 19th century scene. Yet within half a mile were a modern aircraft carrier and a futuristic harbour control tower: past and present can coexist in the most amazing ways. The camera was supported for a steady image, and the frame was digitally enhanced only slightly, some sharpening, some gamma correction to bring out mid-tone areas, and tweaks of contrast and colour saturation. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic exposure. Image by Mike.