My March really started with a bang, as I was a passenger in a formation flight of three Grob Tutors operating out of RAF Wittering. It was very much a surprise, and I can’t say I was very prepared! Some notes made in vague hope a few months before suddenly came in clutch, but other than that I was working on instinct.
Taking air-to-air photos is a whole art of its own. Yes, many of the usual rules still apply, but there are several new factors to consider. The main one in my case was that the purpose of the flight was not to take pictures of the aircraft and their occupants, but rather to do a ‘tail chase’, planned aerobatic manoeuvres performed in sequence by all three aircraft in a ‘line astern’ formation, with some swanning about in ‘vic’ formation in between. As I was in no way directing the proceedings, I had to get my shots in where I could.
My techniques and takeaways from this project will be fully discussed in another post, but the two most pressing points were how to work around reflections and prop shadows. Both are quite difficult to avoid, especially when shooting forwards, which is what you really want to be doing when in line astern. A polariser doesn’t help, as whilst it may dim the reflections in your canopy, the other canopies in formation will suddenly be covered with rainbow swirls, almost like oil on water.
Whilst we formed up for the next series of aerobatics, I tried to get a ‘Tutors and the moon’ shot from the back of the line, but both of the above issues showed their faces. In the left-hand image below, the top right shows reflections of instruments in the canopy, and also the large dark blur of a prop blade. In the right-hand image below, the first problem was solved, but the second lingered. I ended up abandoning both shots as deliverable material in favour of others.
Finally, although the whole shoot turned out better than I could have imagined, I did manage to get one absolute gem, without even realising it at the time. It being a sortie into the local area, this included the lake of Rutland Water, not only a perfect backdrop for an aircraft, but particularly relevant to Wittering as it serves as a common navigational feature, the peninsula pointing directly to the airfield. As we banked to remain in our booked airspace, this scene appeared, and I feel incredibly happy to have caught it.
I also made a return to Duxford, where the aircraft were more varied and interesting than January’s visit, but the weather was greyer. I got to practice my timing on a number of departures and arrivals, many of them repeat performers over the few hours I was there, including a Hawker Hurricane (top left), de Havilland Puss Moth (top right), Jodel Mousquetaire (bottom left), and Supermarine Spitfire (bottom right).
I tried to avoid the more generic shots, such as my love of a flat side profile, opting instead to wait for more interesting compositions. I was waiting a long time. Of course, the aircraft aren’t there just to pose for me, rather to go about their multi-thousand-pound business (I’ve found myself looking longingly at a flight in a Spitfire several times!), but I did catch a few nice moments. Being near the threshold of the 06 runway, a more out of the way spot than is usual for me at this airfield, I caught a lot of engine tests and holds, and it made a nice change to have the aircraft sit still for me at close quarters- yes, I suppose, posing.
I also found a corner that I’d somehow missed in my many previous visits: the Spitfire Memorial. Apart from being marred by cones and blue rope tie-downs, the scene created by the static aircraft sitting on its roundel was quite atmospheric, combining with two other elements of Duxford’s history to create a poignant scene. In this case, I welcomed the grey sky, as it added a sombre atmosphere.
This project’s images are cropped to squares as I optimised them for posting to Instagram whilst still in post-processing- not something I’ll readily be doing again.
Coming back down to earth, the last week of March took me to Flaine, France for a skiing trip. The amazing experiences were not only with the sport, but the scenery too – snow is not an environment I get to work with often, being based in the southern UK. It caused me a little trouble with overexposure at the beginning, but I soon learned to compensate, and bring out the shadows and highlights as they really appeared. Processing these pictures reminded me several times that it’s better to under-expose than over-expose, as the former is much easier to save in post.
My main targets were the landscapes which framed the slopes, both in the resort and at the various lunch stops and breaks. Some of the accompanying clouds were very interesting and detailed in person, but hard to render with a camera. In Lightroom, I pushed the limits of the ‘Dehaze’ slider to see what it could get back, and got a little more than I bargained for.
I tried several times to take pictures of the skiers and snowboarders around me, but autofocus simply couldn’t find them, or at least not quick enough for it to be worth anything. After briefly considering using manual focus and settings, I rightly realised that that wouldn’t help. In the end, the only people which made the cut were mainly accidental, such as these spots of red.
The resort of Flaine itself was also very photogenic, being of Brutalist style, and designed by the Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer. One of the most well-known buildings features a cantilevered aspect which overlooks the nursery slopes. Throughout the village, there are many instances of symmetricity, such as on the façade of the Cassiopée block (right).
The smooth water in this image was achieved without a Neutral Density filter, as the area where I found this in a miniature valley under some trees and beside a cliff was very dim, though I did make use of my Joby mini tripod. The low light and carefully balanced settings, being sure not to overdo the shutter speed, got me the desired effect surprisingly easily. 1s, f/22, ISO 160.
Several attempts were made to get long-exposure light trails of the piste-bashers doing their jobs at night, with some of them turning out quite well (below left, 20s, f/22, ISO 1250). The better subject of those settings, though, was a box lift between the two levels of the resort, which with some extra vibrance and saturation began to look almost cyberpunk (right, 20s, f/22, ISO 1600).
The weather changed very dramatically over the time I was there, starting with medium-cold temperatures and not much snow on the day I arrived, followed by a white-out on the first morning, before becoming crystal clear. The week was characterised by short relapses into gloom and warmth, interspersed with freezing, clear nights. The two pictures below were taken just twenty-four hours apart.
Overall, the week was very fast paced, and felt more like a month with all the different situations I found myself in. Cloudy bright days, sunny bright days, night and day long-exposures, landscapes, portraits, architecture, group shots, and fast-moving subjects, this trip really had it all. Oh, yes! And I did some skiing as well.
How to round out such an eventful month? Well, quickly, as there wasn’t much time for other projects or even small tasks. This pair of photos were taken on the same walk, with the clouds on the left giving an omen (which I shouldn’t have ignored…) of approaching bad weather, which later caused the extremely vibrant double rainbow on the right.
