Continuing the theme of casting back into the past for shots of things that compensate for not going anywhere anymore, this one isn’t too long ago. Our visit to Victoria in the run up to Christmas involved staying in a hotel alongside the harbor. We had a view from our hotel room across to the legislative building which is nicely illuminated at night – not just for Christmas but all the time. Here is the shot from the hotel window!
I posted here about KLM retiring their 747s early as a result of the COVID-19 related pummeling that the airlines have taken. It wasn’t long before another airline made the same announcement – this time it was Qantas. Qantas has operated the 747s since the beginning and it is quite a shame to see that they are no more. Here are some of my Qantas 747s from over the years. I should note that there is a rumor that they may not be gone for good and could return. That would be great but I suspect it will not be the case given that they didn’t have long left anyway and things are going to be rough for a while for the airlines in all probability.
For those that haven’t visited Tokyo before (and maybe for some that have), the image of the city is a dense metropolitan space with high rise buildings and grand structures. There is also a lot of smaller building with offices and housing. However, the city is also pretty industrial. The bay has been a center for commerce for centuries and much heavy industry grew up along the waterfront and has continued to prosper. Haneda Airport is a short ride from Tokyo’s heart and is very convenient. It is also surrounded by industry. When in the terminal and looking across the airfield, you get a clear idea of the amount of industry so close to the city. This isn’t a one off either. Head south out of the city and you lots of similar industrial spaces.
I posted some shots of the jets at Haneda reversing thrust and throwing up a lot of spray in the process as a result of the rain that day. Stills can be good for showing off spray but the motion of the spray in the reverser flows is more apparent in video. Consequently, I shot a bunch of video that day. Only recently have I caught up with my video editing backlog courtesy of the ample time I have at home as a result of not being able to go out anywhere. Here is a sample of the airliner movements from that day.
If you are a regular reader of the blog, firstly, thank you. Second, you will have noticed that the style has changed a bit. I have been using the same WordPress theme since starting the blog. I wasn’t desperate for a change but I was motivated to do something by a Facebook issue. It used to be that I could put the link to a blog post in to Facebook and it would include the link and an image from the post – usually the first one. The first image is usually my favorite for illustrating the topic so it gets the prime slot on the post. However, something happened in the Facebook algorithms. I would put in the link, the page would auto populate beneath the text with the right image and then I would hit post and it defaulted to the banner image from the theme rather than my actual image.
As a result of this, I had taken to deleting the link after it auto populated and then pasted in the main image manually. This was a pin and it also seemed to reduce the number of people actually clicking on the post rather than just looking at the picture on Facebook. I decided to try going to a more recent theme design to see if this fixed the issue. I looked at a variety of them. Some seemed okay but others were more business focused. I selected a slightly newer theme but it still had a simple look to it which I liked. I tested the change over and configured it as I wanted before switching. I like the look and it now behaves better with Facebook so the whole exercise seems to have been worthwhile.
When putting together some images for a group online that I am involved with, a dug out a couple of shots of jets departing O’Hare I shot years back. When coming off 22L, some of the jets make an early turn to the south and you can get a view of them that is either quite level with the wing line or slightly above. When shooting them, they are climbing so it is obvious what you were shooting. However, as I looked at these shots, it occurred to me that they looked a lot like an air to air position except the angles were wrong because of the climb. Since I had shot quite tightly, re-cropping the shot required some Photoshop work.
Taking the image out of Lightroom and in to Photoshop, I selected the crop tool and rotated the image to be the sort of angle that an air to air shot might be. Doing this crops off the nose and tail of the jet. However, one feature of the crop tool in Photoshop is that, if you then drag the edges of the tool back out, you can expand the canvas size. You now have the whole plane in shot but have added some white space in each corner where no image previously existed.
It is a simple task to then use Content Aware Fill to add sky back in to these areas. The result is a shot that looks almost as if you had been flying in formation at altitude. Would you have spotted it? Having done it with an A320, I then had a go with a 757. The light angle makes it look a bit like we are flying along towards a setting sun. I was rather pleased with the trick.
When we still lived in Lancashire, we made a trip to Shropshire to visit my uncle and his family. As part of the visit, we went to Ironbridge. For those not familiar with industrial architecture, this is a significant place for the bridge made of iron (you’d never have guessed) that was a major innovation at the time. There is a great museum nearby which has old buildings and forging/casting techniques still practiced. Here is a view of the bridge itself and the steeply sided river valley that required it. Maybe we will get back there at some point on a future trip. We have friends that aren’t so far away!
A Boeing F-15SA development airframe has been in the PNW. The F-15SA is a development of the Strike Eagle family specifically for the Royal Saudi Air Force. They are buying new jets as well as updating the F-15S jets they bought years ago. Production jets have been delivered for a while now but testing activities continue. I had heard that a jet was at Boeing Field for a while and had even seen the tails parked on the ramp as I drove by but I hadn’t seen it moving.
Military jets don’t usually show up on the mainstream flight tracking apps (but this one had when it traveled cross country) so I didn’t know it was airborne. However, I heard it call up on approach so stopped what I was doing and grabbed the camera. Sure enough, it came zipping down the approach. A few quick shots and then it was down. Apparently I was rather lucky. A couple of days later it headed back across country.
My previous trip with Kenmore including some low flight over Lake Washington which gives a good view of some of the local houses. Lakefront property is likely to be nice and these certainly looked like they were okay! Here are some of the shots I got. I was hoping to do this again soon but Kenmore has just canceled flights (as of the time of writing rather than posting) so I guess I will have to wait.
When a new Star Wars movie is released, it seems to be the thing to arrange a tie in with an airline and have them paint jets in special Star Wars themed liveries. ANA was a part of this and I have shot a variety of their special paint scheme jets which you can see here and here. For the most recent movie, The Rise of Skywalker, United got in on the game and painted a 737 in a black livery with special marking including one side with a blue lightsaber and one with a red. I had not seen the jet before. It has been to SeaTac a few times but never when I could get there (or when it was daylight). Finally it showed up one evening when the weather was great so nice light. Only one side to see of course but here it is!
