'Moonlit Mission'

Lysander returning from a delivery mission to France circa 1943.

Composite of Duxford airshow photographs and local skyscapes. Your

comments appreciated.

Looks quite a bit like a painting. Something doesnt seem quite right though for this to be a photograph. I like the composition a lot though. The position of the moon keeps the upper right from being void and helps to balance the picture well.

"Looks like a painting" is exactly what I thought! Pat, you know that I am a bit of a grumpy old luddite, and not a fan of the various things spawned from te digital epidemic... but... Well, I don't know what it is - I find more and more of your creations find their way into my heart. I think the reasoning is many-fold, starting with the lack of pretense or masquarading as a photo - it is what it is, and you make no bones about it. Lets me put my little militant outbursts aside and enjoy the composition as an image. And more importantly, at least to me, there is an obvious love and passion as well as a wealth of knowledge and intimate understanding of the subject matter. Your creations that speaks very loudly to someone like me, someone who holds these airplanes and the people who flew them and designed them and built them in a very special, I would dare say unequalled,place in my heart. And this one is a good one indeed.

And I need not mention that I am a long winded bastard at best of times... :)

Wouldn't change a thing. Really captures the mission of the Lizzie, dropping SOE agents by night. Cheers, Alex

Dan, the composite is virtually all original photographs albeit with some changes to saturation etc. The only additions, put in with some degree of, hopefully artistic, licence are the wee stars, just appearing and the moon glow. The pic below will give you some idea of the progress top the final effort. I try to make all of my composites tell a story or create an emotion so I guess they depart to some degree from the orignal concept of the photograph - posting on PN helps to let me know how successful my aim has been. Thanks for your contribution. Regards.........Pat

 

Thanks Peter - nice to know I 'rang your bell' a little bit, I enjoyed doing this one. The crews who flew these missions, and their passengers, were all acting above and beyond the call of duty and their attrition rate was horrendous. Hope this can serve to make some recognition. Regards........Pat

Those "wee stars" aren't real? Surely not :-)

Pat, it's to your credit that the images you're posting are now being questioned as to whether they are composites or real photo's. It's always a pleasure to see your work, I hope there's plenty more in the pipeline.

Cheers,

Alex