Taking Photos vs Looking With The Naked Eye

Wise words! BW Roger

Well, forgot about re-registering! But now that I’m here again. . . .

About taking pictures, I would suggest you take all the pics you can – of everything!

Spent many years in the RAF all over the place working different aircraft, etc. Saw many memorable sights in terms of flying aircraft, “moments” and events. Looking back, my regret is that I didn’t take pictures! Had the gear but, being young, there was always “tomorrow”, next thing you know you’re on the kite flying home.
Now, many, many severals later, having pics to support stories would be good, not someone else’s pics, but your own. But not just to support stories, to bring back memories as well. I do have pictures (but not enough of the “right” kind) and, browsing through these nowadays, it is remarkable how the doors of memory are inched open.

The value of having your own pictures is not measured against another’s “better” pic (in my case others are always better, especially Damien’s), the value is in the memories they evoke in later life – especially when your kids grow up and ask about your “previous”.

As for getting the “best” shot at air shows, well. . . Damien does it better than anybody I know! We’ve both had the same picture sometimes, but Damien’s is always better – but then, he’s younger by orders of magnitude so doesn’t suffer from camera-shake as much as those like me.

So, I strongly recommend you take pics of everything around you at air shows (and by the back fence at airfields) as you will be thankfull in the years to come.

Fair enough.

Not worth falling out about 🙂

Moggy

Sorry, got to disagree about this

Hey Damien,

It’s not the aircraft that are the problem I have with Mr Dobson’s displays. It is just the fact that I have watched a few, and they are pretty sloppy.

Check out his 45s.

They aren’t.

Sometimes they are 35s, sometimes they are 55s and sometimes they wobble about between the extremes and average 45.

OK, he’s a thousand times better than I’ll ever be, I admire his determination, his promotional abilities and almost everything else about the guy. But by world class standards he’s Vauxhall Conference stuff.

In my opinion.

Moggy

RogerS, what a fantastic image 😀

Why do we take pictures…?

Well, for me, it is for several reasons. I love to be around aircraft, enjoying their sights and sounds. I do try not to spend an entire show with the camera glued to my face. I want to eyeball the aircraft directly to know that I saw it myself. If that means missing a photo of a great pass, well, that’s what memory is for. Who am I taking the photo for anyway? If I’m at a show with family and friends, do I smeg off info the distance to get the maybe-perfect location, or enjoy their company?

Where do my pictures go? For the most part, they hit my website, as most of the regulars here probably know. I have been lucky enough to have received requests for pictures as a direct result of this, which have ended up in magazines and some forthcoming books. This I am proud of, and spurs me on to take more pictures. However the greatest pleasure I get from my pictures is to take the best images from a show, print them out big and enjoy the sight of an aircraft in its element 🙂

I love the unusual, and any aircraft that I haven’t seen before is fair game for my lens. I follow civil aviation a lot and go to loads of fly-ins, where in amongst the Cessnas and Pipers, there are any amount of interesting beasties to be found. Although collecting numbers is beyond me, collecting types is proving to be another matter 😉

Moggy has a good point about Shuttleworth. If there was ever a good place for the all-round aviation nut, this is it. Warbirds, historics, civil fly-in visitors, usually some sun, picnic location, a cracking shaped flightline and plenty of passes. Whatever your tastes, you can satisfy them there.

And after all this, I’m still only learning. I’m sure everyone has a long list of missed opportunities or almost-good shots. I’m working on making that list grow less quickly 😉

Seafuryfan, what a question have you asked me. Why do I photograph or do I chase for “the perfect shot”.

I started to take photographs of aircraft in 1969, as a 10 year old with my late grandfathers camera. In 1975, I was given a Practica SLR, and from that time on, photography started to become more serious. I found out that better gear ment “better” photo’s and soon I was photographing everything within sight. I was/am never interested in “registrations”, which ment that I took/take different photographs than most others … In stead of the reg, I went for a clean backgrounds, special effects created by telelenses, lightning, using the diafragma for blurred, or very sharp, fore/backgrounds.

For some reason this style of work caught the eye of somebody involved in the magazine branche and a week later I was paid (while being a student at the universaty) to take photographs of aircraft , fast cars and fast boats.

This is still the current situation. Aviation (or better “fast objects”) photography is a weekend and holiday job for me. It is not something I was chasing for, but it just was “given” to me and I still enjoys it. On the other side 70% of the photowork I do is without an assignment. It is to update my archive (200.000 slides (without a decent system)).

I realise that it is an obtion to buy magazines, or the occasianal photo book, but for me this isn’t working. I want to take the shot(s) myself. It is something unexplainable I’ll guess I don’t know if this answers your question. I am still as enthousiastic a photographer as I was 20 years ago, I am only bored by the high standarisation today, especially in military aviation, with eg half the world flying that (in my eyes obnoctious) F-16 all in that terrible bring livery. The variation is gone. The enclosed photo I shot in 1981 at Volel AFB in Holland, in the good old days when airshows were being flown a bit closer than today. Bw Roger

Originally posted by Seafuryfan

I just resigned myself to the reality that it’s more convinient for me to buy, say, a Dibbs production with all the air-to-airs I could only dream of rather than struggle myself against the elements, the sun, the crowd, the walk for the best spot etc

Some good viewpoints. I think I stopped taking my film camera to airshows (OK, Duxford as it is real aircraft I like to watch :D) when I realised I had shoeboxes full of prints in the loft I never looked at. And I wonder now, do all the avid photographers really look at all the pictures they take, after they get them back from the lab?

Seafuryfan – you have summed up my POV on this with your statement above. When I do see all these first class ‘air2air’ shots in the various books, calendars etc I have to say to myself why bother struggling against the “elements” when for the price of a film or two you can have such wonderful images, which you will go back and look at (in the case of a book) or see everyday if it is a calendar.
I type this as the sharknose of Spitfire HF MkVIIIc MV239 flies towards me out of the “Ghosts 2003” calendar (picked up for £5 first week in January!) – wonderful images I could only dream of capturing. And in their true element – high in the sky!!

Thanks for the replies so far – views here from all spectrums.

Like Bob, I have bought a few air show videos over the years, and although the early ones were a bit ropey, some recent ones (Spitfire 50th at Duxford 98) are, IMHO, really superb. especially as I cannot get to many shows, they great to dip in and out of for a ‘fix’.

Moggy, sounds as if we are singing off the same hymn sheet. I think I’ll invest in a small, ‘put in yer pocket’ digital camera soon, so that I can, like you, take pics of the unusual (remember when you come across something you just HAVE to snap? Like the pilot climbing out of AR501:) ), and just as importantly, my family and friends (if they want to be photographed!). Any recommendations?

On the other side of the coin, I have to admit that there have been a few occassions when I’m so glad I did actually bring an SLR with long lens. An example of this was when I had decided ‘oh…..alright then’ to pack the camera for a Duxford show mid-90’s. It was when Black 6 arrived with Hanns Dittes 109 from Germany. I was so pleased with capturing that, particularly the ground taxiing shots and both aircraft parked next to each other as the light faded. Magnificent……..

Roger S, if I may respectfully ask (because I had to ask myself the same thing), do you ever think ‘a perfect shot of this Sea Vixen flyby will appear in the mags, so why am I doing it too?’ Sorry, that sounded cheeky, it wasn’t meant to be! I just resigned myself to the reality that it’s more convinient for me to buy, say, a Dibbs production with all the air-to-airs I could only dream of rather than struggle myself against the elements, the sun, the crowd, the walk for the best spot etc. I suppose what I really want to know is what is it that really drives you with your photography? Is it so you can be pleased with that ultimate photo? To build an extensive photo library for yourself or to share? I’m interested, because as you can tell my teen/20’s enthusiasm for aviation photography waned over the years….

Arthur, if you have any Eastern European spotter tails (forgive the pun) I’m sure we’d love to hear them 🙂

I have to agree – even though i like taking a picture every now and then (with borrowed cameras nowadays, my own cameras all had a very short service life) i want to experience the Mk1 Eyeball-experience first.

Also, being a military spotter for most of the time, getting that number is my priority rather then getting that beautiful shot. Back in the days of the Russian withdrawal from East Germany, lots of people went there for their final chance to take pictures of MiG-27s and the lot. I always like to think that at least some people took the effort of putting their heads in the wheelbays…

For me taking photo’s is an essential part of my “aviation virus”. I am very black/white in this, which means that if there is an increadibily good airshow, of which I know that the sun is “in the lens” all day, or that the aircraft are on a “Fairford” like ground display, which means that they are closely fenced off with public in the back, let alone things like hamburger stands, I just don’t go (anymore). Airshows/displays are for me the platforms to get as perfect aircraft pictures possible, which indeed means that my camera gear is in action all the time. Bw Roger

Me too

I reckon it’s an age thing.

I remember lusting after longer and longer lenses to capture that elusive ‘great shot’

There were shows when my only objective was to get into the best position for photography and stay there from start to finish.

Then, almost imperceptibly, I realised that I was missing the point. Here were all these wonderful aircraft, restored, maintained and brought here at great cost, flown with consumate skill by dedicated pilots and what was I doing?

Interposing a tiny little window of mirrors and glass between me and the magnificent vastness of the sky. Removing the aircraft from its natural element and trying to capture the sight, noise and smells in a two dimensional box about 35mm high.

And what you end up with (Due deference to some of the wonderful pics I’ve seen on this very site) is as little a representation of the real things as are the rows of faded moths and butterflies pinned forever to a board within some dusty showcase.

Nowdays my favourite show is Shuttleworth.

Sitting comfortably by the car with a picnic spread out around us, shared with a few good chums.

The aircraft demand attention a lot of the time, but it is within a setting, not as isolated elements. And when Denny Dobson appears, at least it gives you the chance to wander across to the facilities, or take a leisurely walk up the flightline to the shop.

Still haven’t broken the habit completely. I’ve never been to a show without my little buzz-click Vivitar or Rollei. I’ll let you know if that day ever comes.

Moggy

Personal preferences only. Each to his own.

Seafuryfan,
I must admit that I prefer to eyeball the goings on, as opposed to squinting through a viewfinder from 2-5pm. I take the camera now purely to catch something out of the ordinary, and tend to buy the video at a later date just to refresh the memory (I’m talking about Flying Legends here).
I took my digital camcorder in 2001, and though it was nice to replay it now and again, it didn’t have the advantage of the choice filming locations of the pros, so heads and parents telling kids off spoilt my attempts at doing a Speilberg!!