Been there blog that

Sun Sep 11

I won the second place on the Eurofighter Amateur Photography Competition which felt like a first place. Not only because is the first time I get any recognition of my photography, but especially because is an aviation photo and my expectations of winning where low. Also when I saw the eventual winner that feeling grew even more, competing against an amazing mach loop photo is quite difficult because nothing can match a photo of a fast jet flying low and fast in the loop.

When I received the first email from the Eurofighter communications team asking questions about the photo I got really excited, all my careful planning selecting a suitable photo seemed to have paid off. First my Eurofighter material was small, -they are too busy in Libya lately- then it was important to have an action shoot which showed the Typhoon capabilities in some way plus being a visually impacting capture. To many variables that are not easy to get when most of the fast jet action at airshows is far and sparse, plus weather never plays ball, either you have a very dull background or a very dark situation.

In this case I had almost all the components, the Typhoon climbing with full afterburner, the heat from the exhaust showing the path, dramatic storm clouds as background and some vapor starting to form at the wings. It was just lacking of closeness and quality, so I tried to surpass those flaws by doing a clever post processing to accentuate the good characteristics of the rest of the photo: Composition, dramatic clouds and engine heat.

All that thinking and execution resulted on having a finalist photo, which is the outcome of all the time I put into photography in general, if I had applied the usual rules of aviation photography things would have been quite different. Profile photos of planes certainly are good for collecting registrations but does not make a good photo, neither the center framed and cropped to death photos do, its the whole package that makes a good photo, not the plain subject. All these is nothing new for seasoned photographers but is good to get all that into the head of some aviation photography screeners and shooters.

Many thanks to all the communications team at Eurofighter Typhoon and congrats to Ian Ramsbottom for winning the competition, it was certainly a winning shoot.

Read the press release.