Duxford Flying Legends Airshow.

Leading up to the final assignment I have been thinking about various ideas, one of which is having my subject as the Flying Legends Airshow at Duxford. After discussion with my tutor I decided not to use this idea, as my tutor put it, it will look like I have photographed my family day out. This is a very valid point! I therefore decided to go along and use it as further practice for the assignment. I took around 300 photos and found the whole day to be a great experience.

Before the day I produced a story/ideas board of various things I could photograph there in the hope that there would be more structure to my day.

When choosing which images to include here I had kept in my mind that the final assignment requires 6-12 images. I was also conscious of showing a wide variety of images to portray the day but they must still all link together.

1/30 f4.5 ISO 250 28mm WB AUTO



1/200 f4.5 ISO 250 32mm WB AUTO

1/30 F4.5 ISO 250 34mm WB AUTO

This image shows a Liberty V12 aero engine from the first world war and is actually my favourite image from the whole set. I particularly like the composition which i have really tried hard with to produce something visually interesting.

1/20 f4.5 ISO 250 35mm WB AUTO

Using photoshop I have made this image slightly underexposed as I was trying to recreate a slightly dark image. I have also photographed with the camera slightly out of focus because I was trying to make it look as though this had just happened and there was a lot of dust. I kept thinking that if you were there at the time you would maybe lose the ability to focus yourself as you tried to work out what had just happened.

1/4000 f7.1 ISO 250 105mm WB AUTO

1/640 f7.1 ISO 250 70mm WB daylight.

The day all of a sudden got brighter, it had been threatening to rain on and off which is when I took the opportunity to visit the hangers. This gentleman had walked passed while I was watching the airshow. His outfit had immediately caught my eye as he paused near to me. I thought I would take the chance to photograph him as he too watched the show, but just as I had got in position he turned to face the camera. Afterwards he was actually rather pleased I had photographed him.

1/800 f5.6 ISO 250 105mm WB AUTO

1/4000 f5.6 ISO 250 105mm WB daylight

Here I wanted to concentrate on the lines produced by the planes as opposed to the actual planes themselves. I wanted the plane to appear almost like a silhouette.

1/4000 f5.6 ISO 250 105mm WB daylight.

1/4000 f5.6 ISO 250 105mm WB AUTO

The sky had started to darken again which was unfortunate. I have filled the light in slightly using photoshop. I think that this image captures the day as a whole.

Conclusion.

Using this day as a 'practice' for the final assignment has given me a lot to think about. I have had to deal with things that have been out of my control such as the weather. I have had to think about composition a lot more than I have previously. I have also had to think about settings as well as change them quite quickly. I got much better at this as the day went on and it became almost second nature. Shutter speed has also been an issue as the planes all travel at different speeds so I have also had to practice a bit with these settings. I could of really done with a longer lens at times, to be able to produce the images I had in my mind but I am happy with what I have produced. I feel like this has really been a worthwhile exercise.