Untitled

This is from Flying Legends 2000 at Duxford. It was pretty poor

weather with low light, and I had only a slow lens, forcing me to use

grainy 400 film (and not a very good film at that). I ended up with

moody pictures like this. With today's tools I can brighten up the

photo and remove most of the grain, but I like it better this way.

The only post-processing to this picture was to desaturate the

magenta elements of the grain. I feel that the bright clouds at the

bottom are essential here to anchor the high end of the tonal range

and show that it is not merely an underexposed photo.

The moodyness tends to make view this more as a poainting than a photo, which i think is kind of interesting. I like the composition and the placement of the brighter clouds at the bottom of the frame. There appears to be a slight green cast on the plane though? Might just be the grain though.

I like the moodiness and grain. It makes it feel almost as an early color shot from 1940. I am a bit distracted by the frozen prop, though.

Other than the prop, great shot. I can almost (ALMOST, that is) hear Glenn Miller's band in the background!

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

 

The prop, yes, I suppose so. Prop blur has never been a hangup of mine and so I didn't notice it.

 

Dan, not sure about the color. The white in the roundel and fin flash is pretty close to neutral. Bear in mind this is a Sea Hurricane so the camouflage is not brown/green, it's slate grey (a greenish grey) and extra dark sea grey. I think it is actually about right. The light clouds at the bottom have a noticeable yellowish cast, but that's the way I remember them.

 

interesting, looks a lot better on my laptop monitor. Here, the colors look accurate. I think i may need to re-calibrate my desktop CRT monitor, may end some of my confusion...

The grain adds a kind of texture to the whole image, that gives it an extra dimension. Without it, this would be another snapshot of a [rare classic fighter] plane against a gloomy British sky :-)

 

The bright cloud at the bottom gives the tones the lift as you say, and does suppress my urge to tell you to increase the brightness!

 

Sorry to say that prop blur is hangup of mine, but that's my subjective privilege!

Good composition. Amazing you got the plane in near exact profile. No doubt the muted colors and lead sky make this look more interesting than most airshow photographs. Plus, the Hawker monoplane has always been my favourite WWII fighter. The ungainly humpback, biplane fabric fuselage mated to that thoroughbred Merlin engined nose makes it very unique!