Sometimes my job is pretty cool! I recently completed a project with YQQ (Comox Airport) and while shooting I suggested we create a few images at night with one of WestJet’s 737s parked on the tarmac overnight, the resulting images were a lot of fun, I love photographing BIG projects that are challenging yet produce the coolest results.
Work begins @ 3am, haven’t even had a coffee yet!
Tungsten based light is “painted” towards the rear of the aircraft to help with the existing illumination from the base buildings in behind and also to counterbalance the “cold” light of the sodium vapour spotlights form the terminal.
Tungsten light is again used here to light up the underside of the aircraft’s wing, mixing light sources is an effective and dynamic way to create interest with your photographs, look for it and have fun with it, the results are at times pleasantly unexpected.
Ambient light is starting to illuminate the image with the eventual rising of the sun, you need to be on your game at this point as things happen very quickly now and the challenge is to maintain the balance between your supplemental light and the ambient light. The front of the aircraft was lit with a halogen light source, subtle but effective.
This HDR shot is the result of three images, the trick in using this technique is to not over “cook” it and making the resulting image look abnormal.
More of a stock type image, at this point the ambient light controls much of the lighting in this image, I lit the front of the aircraft along the side to help control a bit of the contrast in the image.