PeterW
Lifetime Member
Member has Passed
Posts: 3,804
|
Post by PeterW on Sept 29, 2007 16:58:43 GMT -5
Nice picture, Bob. In this case, as with most sunset or dawn pictures where there's colour in the sky, I prefer the colour version. There are exceptions of course. Here's a late evening pic I took years ago of a B17 being bedded down for the night by its ground crew. I delibertely underexposed the shadow foreground to catch the tones in the wings and fuselage and bring out the dark clouds. It was taken on black and white, but I don't think it would look a lot different in colour, though maybe less dramatic. PeterW
|
|
PeterW
Lifetime Member
Member has Passed
Posts: 3,804
|
Post by PeterW on Sept 29, 2007 17:05:15 GMT -5
I realised after I posted the B17 pic that it would look better if I trimmed a bit off the left edge to cut out the distracting body hatch which doesn't contribute anything.
PeterW
|
|
mickeyobe
Lifetime Member
Resident President
Posts: 7,280
|
Post by mickeyobe on Sept 30, 2007 13:26:17 GMT -5
Peter,
It is a strong, somewhat eerie picture. The shadowy figures add to the mysterious quality. I think the body hatch contains the picture keeping the fuselage from running off the left side.
Mickey
|
|
|
Post by olroy2044 on Sept 30, 2007 20:27:21 GMT -5
PeterW: I really like the B-17 shot. I agree with Mickey about the hatch. I blocked the edge of the image with a card, and I don't think the pic looks as finished without the hatch. But as you know, I'm a real aircraft buff ( my wife calls me a propeller head ;D ) and I look for details such as this in photos. Where and when was this taken? Awesome photo! Roy
|
|
|
Post by nikonbob on Oct 1, 2007 5:43:01 GMT -5
PeterW
You are right of course about sunsets and sunrises being more appealing in colour. It really make you understand the usefulness of having colour as an option when you think of those who only had the B&W option, back in the day. I think B&W was perfect for the B-17 photo and colour would have added little to it. Mickey hit it when he mentioned that it had an eerie quality to it. I don't think including the waist gunners cut out in the photo detracts from it and would not have noticed it if you had not drawn my attention to it. Classically done photo of a classic aircraft.
Bob
|
|
PeterW
Lifetime Member
Member has Passed
Posts: 3,804
|
Post by PeterW on Oct 1, 2007 16:47:14 GMT -5
Re B17 picture: Thanks, Mickey, Roy and Bob. I'm now having second thoughts about leaving that waist hatch in. On the whole I'm inclined to agree, so second thoughts are sometimes best. The picture looks as if it could have been taken during the war, at least that's the atmosphere I was trying to re-create, but it wasn't. It's the Sally B, in polished aluminium before she got her repaint to take part in a couple of films. It was taken at an air show at Biggin Hill in Kent in, if I remember rightly, the late 1970s. Foolishly I neglected to date the negative envelope. Having press passes dangling round our necks meant that Valerie and I could wander more or less where we liked at air shows, car race meetings and the like provided we didn't put ourselves, or anyone else, into danger, and didn't have to stay behind the barriers for the general public. What it's like these days with security mania and armed security guards I don't know as I haven't been to an air show for some years. We also got opportunities to talk with the aircrews and ground crews of the planes, and didn't necessarily have to leave at official closing time. The Sally B had been moved from the dispay area to one of the old dispersal bays dotted round the perimeter track, and as I was wandering round her my eye was taken by the way the light caught the side of the fuselage. For the plane buffs among you here's a more conventional picture of the Sally B taken earlier during the day when she was in the display area just before her air demonstration. The camera was one of my Canons, I forget now which model, possibly a TLb, and the film ws FP4 processed, as usual, in ID11. PeterW
|
|
|
Post by nikonbob on Oct 1, 2007 17:05:06 GMT -5
PeterW
I think you did a good job of trying to capture what I would think of as being a wartime photo not being old enough to have been there during wartime. We were at an air show at Biggin Hill an number of years ago. The show itself was great but to be taking place at such an historic airfield added immensely to my enjoyment of it.
Bob
|
|
|
Post by kiev4a on Oct 1, 2007 17:47:51 GMT -5
Isn't the B17 missing it's top gun turret?
|
|
|
Post by nikonbob on Oct 1, 2007 18:16:10 GMT -5
Oh, what the heck, while we are being picky where is the chin turret? It looks like there is a fairing for it.
Bob
|
|
PeterW
Lifetime Member
Member has Passed
Posts: 3,804
|
Post by PeterW on Oct 1, 2007 18:28:39 GMT -5
Well spotted, both.
Yes, all the turrets were missing at the time but they were refitted later when the Sally B took part in a TV documentary about the 'Mighty Eighth'. There's a flying picture of the Sally B in warpaint and complete with turrets, accompanied by a Spitfire in a still from the documentary, on the Sally B preservation website. Google will find it. Sally B is the only remaining airworthy B17 left in the UK out of about 70,000 during the 1940s.
PeterW
|
|
|
Post by olroy2044 on Oct 2, 2007 0:48:00 GMT -5
Here's one from Fort Bragg, Ca. Taken with ( OMG! Don't tell anyone --Olympus p/s digital ) Roy
|
|
|
Post by Michael Fraley on Dec 30, 2007 14:53:14 GMT -5
Here are a couple of pictures taken recently at Ocean Beach, San Francisco This woman is twirling metal canisters with fluid and a burning wick -- kind of like the tops of tiki torches, on chains: And here we have a couple, one of whom is practicing mid-air splits:
|
|
mickeyobe
Lifetime Member
Resident President
Posts: 7,280
|
Post by mickeyobe on Dec 30, 2007 15:40:46 GMT -5
People do do strange things in California.
Without my specs the woman seems to be cut in half.
How did you manage to stop the action in what appears to be low light?
Mickey
|
|
|
Post by Michael Fraley on Dec 30, 2007 20:35:06 GMT -5
Hi Mickey,
It was taken at f2, probably 1/30ish, ISO 100. The aperture priority exposure on the M7 is pretty reliable. Here I should have compensated for the backlighting but I don't think I did.
|
|
|
Post by GeneW on Dec 31, 2007 7:34:14 GMT -5
Michael, neat sunset shots at the beach. The one of the young woman with her flaming canisters is intriguing. Some kind of pagan ritual? Insuring the sun will rise the next day? Good shooting!
Gene
|
|