'How Airline Blankets Were Meant to Be Used' (Prior to Christmas 2009)

Prior to Christmas 2009, when a terrorist blew up and burned part of his

leg(s) and probably his 'private parts' as well, with an airline blanket

hiding his actions as he lighted his chemical concoction (intended to be

a bomb), this is how people on transAtlantic flights used airline

blankets. Their future use now may be in jeopardy. Your ratings,

critiques, and observations are invited and most welcome. If you rate

harshly, critically, or wish to make an observation, please submit a

helpful and constructive comment; please share your photographic

knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

The topicality of this photo may have caused its worth as a serious photo to be overlooked.

Just because some zealot tried to take several hundred people to a fiery plane crash by igniting his leg and genitals, in a failed attempt to firebomb an international jetliner bound for Detroit out of the skies, all done under an airline blanket, doesn't take away from this as a true 'photo'.

There is an incredible range of Exposure Values' in this, and the test was which ones to let appear to remain 'blown out' though for most of the apparently blown out tones, there was some information, but it would have taken away from the underlying diagonal of the composition, separating light from darkness and dividing the frame's rectangle into two right triangles.

See, I told you it had serious composition.

I had completely forgotten about this photo, taken on a prior transatlantic trip some two years ago, when last evening I randomly clicked on an old file on an old hard drive archive to show a prospective Photoshopper how I wanted NEF (raw) files to be handled, and voila, it was THIS FILE and immediately I saw not only its topicality, but it was a serious photo which, like many, I had simply no time then to follow up on, and at the time formerly, Photoshop was not sufficiently flexible, nor my skills sufficiently developed to handle its processing (until now).

So, voici, here it is (I know that is redundant if you understand French).

We discussed how to work it properly by using color channels in 'raw converter' since the blankets are blue, his shirt is blue and the aisle walker's jeans and shirt are blue, -- and thus by adjusting the blue color channel, I was able to show her how much control over the final tones (and texture) we could achieve in those fabrics - a lesson well conveyed, I think.

(Otherwise she has incredible skills, but is self-taught entirely and still a thousand miles more advanced than I. It's just that I have some fundamental knowledge she skipped as she vaulted to excellence.)

She would have left the blue blankets more grayish, with much more texture (markedly so in the original) and thus detracted, I think, from the bipartite nature of the photo, while I diminished the 'blue channel' in 'raw' processing thereby diminishing the grayness of the 'blues' throughout, sending them more towards darkness and diminishing also what I thought was somewhat bothersome and excess texture in the blankets, while still keeping that texture, throughout but simply not letting it compete.

(I take my photos seriously, and the advent of 'raw' processing with color channels for black and white conversions has been a Godsend, even if my final versions still look like they were done by kindergarteners. I lack special 'filters' that more experienced and able Photoshoppers have, I have discovered, such as special noise reducers, and sharpeners, and she will teach me how to use those . . I hope.

Like photography itself, I also have never had a Photoshop lesson. . . .

My photography may be distinctive and 'original' (maybe even in the way that Grandma Moses was 'original' because of her lack of tutelage and her primitive style, but I do OK with the photography. With Photoshop, however, that's an entirely other issue, that has me scratching my head (and that of friend Giuseppe Pasquale, also, who mourns my poor Photoshop skills.)

Ah, well, that just means I must take better and better photos to stand out,so I must try harder.

At least that's what I tell myself.

Best to you, deniele.

John (Crosley)

in some way it is unsettling because of it's drama.

I don't want to describe it, it is not necessary, but the two passengers look as if they are bound, suffering prisoners. The space looks incredibly crammed, even more crammed than planes in reality are.

The flash of sunlight from the window adds to the drama.

Very unusual.

I'm currently looking for a new one.

Somehow I'm in a quandary, having every lens in the book but a replacement for this one (stolen).

I sometimes had two, and carried three cameras at times.

I miss this particular lens (12~24 mm f 4 Nikkor).

john

John (Crosley)

That's why I post these things for comment:

The words 'bound' and 'suffering' had not crossed my mind, but the image to me was quite profound, showing what I thought was both 'usual' an 'unusual' which is to say, 'usual' to those who fly a lot or who have been on long-haul transoceanic flights, and 'unusual' to those who do not take such flights, or who compare human beings so 'presented' to humans depicted anywhere else, or those 'bound and gagged, such as at Al Ghraib prison in Iraq. All that is missing is the dogs?

Your supposition that they appear almost 'bound and suffering' comes way, way too close to the truth, as a matter of fact, though they are not exactly 'bound' except by 'rules of good conduct' and their 'contract of carriage' plus those plastic handcuffs that the flight crew carries to subdue them should they cross the magic marker that separates the 'economy class' aka cattle class' from the 'business and first class' (upper classes) even in societies that otherwise are considered 'classless'.

Even the Soviet Union's Aeroflot, during Soviet days, I am reliably informed, had First Class though all comrades supposedly were equal -- emphasis on 'supposedly'.

I've suffered those travails, sometimes after a night or two or no sleep prior to boarding for a 16-hour non-stop flight with connections making it a 29-hour onward journey, either because of ongoing business exigencies, packing problems or other requirements, before the getaway - even a couple of times staying up all night on a snowy, icy highway side leading to a foreign airport at more than one time in my longer life -- then one of those times boarding a propeller plane for a two-stop hop across the Atlantic that took about 16 hours, in a plane that was pretty small by today's standards, with a stop in Iceland with a forced deplanement to an aircraft terminal that looked like a hangar where they sold Icelandic sweaters to passengers and other regional stuff to bleary-eyed passengers before the plane was refueled and reloaded for the onward journey.

Bound and suffering.

Suffering I will agree with, though if the 'lights are out' as they are for this man (see his mouth drooping in his sleep?), then one doesn't feel anything until one rouses from one's drowse for a moment or two and feels sometimes excruciating pain and dreads the pain of the passing moments until the drowse returns.

Ah gads.

I did this very thing twice last week. (yes, truthfully)

This same flight.

Going and coming.

Or coming and going.

Depending on your viewpoint.

It's never easy.

(At one time a kindly flight attendant supplied me with 'passes' which were good for business and first class, which I was more than happy to use and for paid travel a very nice airline employee upgraded me out of cattle class for each and every flight I took all the way through business class often to first class, regardless of restrictions on such things, all for about 8 to ten years, until he retired.

I can hardly thank him enough, and never got a chance, not knowing in advance of his retirement and not knowing how to reach him otherwise.

(thank you kind former airline guy now retired!!!!)

And Luca, thank you for adding to my knowledge of my own photo -- by adding the 'bound' and 'suffering' idea - something I had 'seen' but not verbalized -- a critique worth its weight in precious metal.

john

John (Crosley)

Notice the rising diagonal, left to right (from viewer's viewpoint), completed by the passenger in the aisle.

That was no 'accident' but entirely intentional, as a photo of two sleeping people might have some interest, especially for sleeping guy's drooping, masked face, but the tall guy in aisle, clad in blue jeans adds a vertical element to the photo which allows a line to ascend from the left completing the diagonal which bisects this photo - dividing it roughly into two triangles, one of darkness - the other of brightness. (more or less).

John (Crosley)