L Is For Large

You'll Never See Windshield Wipers This High Up

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Yes, I know it looks like I've just taken a standard windshield wiper shot. But think again. It's not every day you get to stand in front of one of these huge beasts. Let me just say I used my long lens to achieve this view and I had it at full stretch (300mm) for the first shot of this sequence.


Here's a slightly different focal length. I was still standing in the same spot, but shot this with the lens fully retracted (70mm). Now you're starting to get an idea of exactly what my subject was, right?

Let's take a good look at the nose and you can actually see the weather-beaten look across the matt paintwork. Now you know that I’m shooting an aircraft, and not a small one at that. Can you identify it at this stage, or do you need to scroll down a bit further?


This shot brings you a slightly different aspect. Now I’ve pointed the camera further up and along the fuselage, back from the recessed canopy. You can actually see the detail on the metal skin that runs along the spine of the fuselage, but let’s see if the next frame (below, taken at 85mm) gives you a big clue.


The distinctive T-shape of this huge, high tail (above) should give you a big clue. Yes. It’s a C-5 Galaxy of the US Air Force. The heavy lifter has a wingspan of 222.9 feet (almost 68 metres) and is 247.1 feet (75 metres) long. The tail that you can see in this shot is 65 feet (almost 20 metres) above ground. I guess those statistics also tell you how hard you have to work to get your camera angles just right.

This shot gives you an idea of just how bad the late-evening light was while I was photographing the Galaxy. That single factor was crucial in my decision to shoot close-ups using the long lens, rather than the 18-125mm lens I normally use.


Because the light was fading so quickly, I decided to shoot the Galaxy as if it were a piece of outdoor architecture. It’s an interesting approach, but because of the huge surface area, there is no shortage of arresting angles to capture. This was shot from under the starboard (right) wing.


This too, was shot from behind the inboard of the two huge engines on the starboard wing. Each of the four engines is 27 feet (almost 9 metres) long and the diameter of the air intake is 8.5 feet (2.6 metres) and, given the beautiful bulbous contour of the body, I was able to frame the curves against the sky, using the trailing edge of the wing as a strong horizontal point of reference.

Midway through this photo sequence, I happened to glance up from behind the towering Galaxy towards the eastern sky, where there was one solitary burst of pastel colour. I composed this shot very deliberately, using the wing as an artificial horizon, when a single bird flew into the frame.

I wasn’t exactly where I wanted to be, but I realised I had to hit the shutter immediately to capture the perfect symbolism of a native Australian bird silhouetted (and dwarfed) by the largest manmade bird in the US arsenal.

Sometimes, you just have to recognise a moment of good luck.


For the home of ABC Wednesday, go to Mrs Nesbitt's Place.

Things That Go Whoosh In The Night

Trust Me, It's A Flaming Difficult Task

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Here’s the equation. It’s very delicately balanced and even the slightest variation could tip the scales towards total mediocrity.

It’s dusk at the 2009 Australian International Air Show, the weather has closed in and the public address system has been telling us for the past half an hour that the night-flying segment might not take place.

By the time total darkness has fallen, the Super Constellation has revved its engines and begun its stately journey towards one end of the runway. It won’t be taking off. Instead, it will do a high-speed roll down the runway before braking, turning round and doing the same thing in the opposite direction.

Yes, I’m looking forward to this, because the flaming exhaust stubs will make a great image.

But in a different section, I can see some serious activity around an F-111 of the Royal Australian Air Force and a couple of F-16 Falcons of the USAF. Sure enough, a few minutes later, they are positioned down the northern end of the runway. It is several minutes before a decision is made. They will fly. A cheer goes up around me.

But the equation has been running through my head, unresolved, for quite a while. I’m not using a tripod (I never do). It’s completely dark. There is some peripheral light, but the F-111 and the F-16s are well away from the floodlights. What settings am I going to use on the camera?

I want to capture the glow from each afterburner as the fighters accelerate past me. Without a tripod, in the darkness, I don’t have a hope of capturing each jet in totality. All I’ll get is a blur, even if I can get a clear shot over the heads of the people in front of and beside me.

I know there will be no second chance for a while, because the next air show will be held in 2011. I have discarded my 18-125mm lens and screwed in the 70-300mm lens instead. Because of the darkness and the speed of the F-111 as it accelerates down the runway, I know I have to compose as tight a shot as possible, to combat the blur and to emphasise the afterburner instead.

The results are very, very far from perfect – but that is the true joy of experimentation.


For other participants in Dot’s concept, go to Sky Watch HQ.

J Is For Judgement

Never Let The Weather Deter You

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Weather is an all-important factor for any photographer. I'm okay with the notion of getting soaked outdoors for the sake of a good shot, but when you have to use your camera in extremely murky light, you really have to think outside the square.

In those conditions, there's no point using your camera just as you would in bright light and then shaking your head and scrapping every shot when the results are sub-standard. So you just take a different approach and try and shoot your subject with a different emphasis.

If this first shot (and the others that follow it) make you look twice, then I guess I achieved my goal. Simply by looking at the first frame, were you able to correctly identify what I've shot?

Just for the record, it's a US Air Force F-16 Falcon. But this is the story of why you should never despair in unfriendly weather.


Sometimes you have to make a snap decision. You make the judgement call and then you wonder whether you should have taken a different option instead. A couple of weeks ago, an extraneous factor got in the way of my plans to get to the 2009 Australian International Air Show.

I literally had a five-minute window of opportunity to decide whether I would go (chronically late) that evening, or whether I would hold off and go the next morning, giving myself plenty of leisure time at the show, shooting in perfect light.

Friday evening? Or Saturday morning? Friday? Saturday? The weather had changed rapidly on Friday evening and I knew it was going to be very cloudy and hazy by the time I made the long journey to Avalon airport. If I waited until the next day, I would have many hours to explore the show.

If I persisted on Friday, I ran the risk of arriving there at dusk, in unfriendly light. If I chose to postpone my plans and go on Saturday, I would be able to shoot several hundred images in daylight.


Let me put this into context for you. The show is only held every two years, so if for some reason I missed it, I would have to wait until 2011 for the next opportunity.

Accordingly, I made my decision and pressed on. Friday evening it had to be. I caught a V/Line train from Southern Cross station and during the train journey to Avalon, I watched with growing dismay as the quality of light started to deteriorate.

I reached into my camera bag to remove the 18-125mm all-purpose lens that I normally use. Off it came, to be swiftly replaced by my 70-300mm lens. As the last vestiges of blue sky vanished, to be replaced by 360-degree haze, I knew that I would have to rely on fairly tight compositions instead of wide, generous frames of expensive flying machines from every era.


So there I was at the show, in a light drizzle in the swiftly-gathering dusk, trying to shoot an sleek grey supersonic fighter under a glowering grey sky with very little variance in colour. No sunlight. No contrasts. No shadows. No easy answers. So I ducked around the back of the huge open-air enclosure and opted to embrace the fact that this fighter was basically the same colour as the sky.

I decided to shoot the tightest frames possible. And I opted to shoot each composition as a monochrome. As you know, I do not use filters, nor do I edit my photographs in any way. But because I embraced the challenge, I ended up with a set of half-a-dozen or so images that I'll always be proud of.

Oh, by the way, I'm glad I stuck out my neck and went on Friday. The long-awaited rain bucketed down on the weekend.


For the home of ABC Wednesday, go to Mrs Nesbitt's Place.

Greased Lightning

Not Your Normal Sundowner

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

There is always a solution to a problem. And when a photographer does not have enough light, there can be no greater problem than that.

I was in a hurry as I walked into the 2009 Australian International Air Show late on Friday evening, because I had a very long walk ahead of me and the late-evening light had suddenly turned murky as the clouds rolled in across the horizon and visibility began to close in.

In theory, I should have had about 75 minutes of pure light until sunset - but that rule applies only in a cloudless sky. Haze had developed and there was now a thick blanket of cloud on all points of the compass. To my disappointment, the sun was sinking rapidly into the greying haze, like a brilliant gold doubloon being submerged into an acid bath.

As soon as I had passed through the turnstiles, I got my camera out of my bag and shot the first frame (above). It was an interesting sky, with distinct layers across the horizon, each with a different saturation of colour.


I still had a long way to go to the area where the larger jets and the warbirds were parked and I knew the sun would have vanished by the time I got there, leaving only the last vestiges of weak, diffused light before darkness.

I knew that I would not get a single shot of an aircraft with the setting sun in the background. Accordingly, I doubled back a couple of hundred metres to where the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter was parked, to utilise the light conditions before they deteriorated any further.

The fighter has an interesting story behind it, because it was the product of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme across several partner countries. It is also called the Lightning in honour of the World War II-era fighter, the P-38 Lightning. I also seem to recall that one of the names under discussion was the Spitfire II, after the famous British fighter created by Reginald Mitchell.

I was able to stand on tiptoe to shoot above the heads of other patrons and because I was using my long lens (a 70-300mm Sigma) I was able to compose a very tight frame with the cockpit canopy and the setting sun in perfect alignment.

It's always great to have a flash of Lightning at sunset.


For other participants in Dot’s concept, go to Sky Watch HQ.

I Is For Incendiary

Looks Like Someone Just Dropped A Bombshell

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

On Friday night I was at the 2009 Australian International Air Show and things didn’t quite go according to schedule. I had planned to get to the Show by about 4pm or 4.30pm at the latest. I’d been monitoring the weather reports for a few days and I knew it was going to be a hot day, which in turn meant I would be able to shoot under a clear, cloudless sky.

And as the week progressed, the weather seemed to be tailor-made for what I wanted to do. There was a chance of a storm late in the evening, which meant after shooting several frames in clear, bright light, I would be able to shoot several sequences in cloudy conditions at dusk - which would have been perfect, given that most of my subjects would be metallic in nature, even though most are hi-tech alloys.


So it looked as if I’d get a couple of hours in bright light and at least an hour and a half in soft light. Just before darkness fell, I would pack up and head for home. But that was not quite as it turned out. A couple of unforeseen glitches meant that I only walked through the entrance to the show at about 6.45pm, with the light fairly murky in thick cloud.

This in turn meant that I stayed on longer than I had planned to - so I was treated to this display of high explosives in a great display of precision use of armament. The weather had been assessed very carefully because of the fog that rolled in with the heavy cloud, so for a while there was a real question mark over whether any night flying would be possible.

There is, as I was about to discover, a very interesting discipline in photography of this nature. It was stygian blackness all around, save for the runway lights, and I quickly computed what settings to use on my camera. I had opted for the 70-300mm lens, just for the need to shoot over people’s heads for a clear close-up.


So picture this. You’re waiting in the darkness, not knowing which side of the runway the aircraft will approach. In addition, you have no idea where the armament will be dropped, so even if you were using a tripod (I never do) there is no knowing where to point your camera.

Flexibility is everything in this sort of situation. Because I’m so tall, I’m lucky enough to get a clear view over most people’s heads. And when the firewall began, I was quickly able to capture the pyrotechnics.

Someone who saw these images before they were published asked me if this sort of photography requires a lot of skill. My honest answer was, "Not really, but you do need a lot of patience and a certain degree of luck".

Sometimes it pays to be kept in the dark.


For the home of ABC Wednesday, go to Mrs Nesbitt's Place.

Roo Awakening

The Best Time To Spot Animals Is Sunset

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

While I was at the 2009 Australian International Air Show on Friday evening, I was on my way to check out the historic warbirds when I saw this sight. The Royal Australian Air Force flag was flying proudly in a brisk breeze - and it was as if a switch immediately flipped in my brain (okay, so it doesn’t happen often!) prompting me to take the shot for Camera Critters.

It had been a hot afternoon with a warm breeze, but weather conditions can change very rapidly here in Melbourne. The breeze had just turned 180 degrees and was whipping in from the south. The temperature had dropped at least 10 degrees or more in a few minutes.

As the flag fluttered, I realised that the cloud cover had increased significantly and the setting sun was providing a golden haze in the west. Problem was, the sun was behind me and the flag was in front of me.

A bit of quick manoeuvring - never the easiest thing to do when you’re moving against a huge crowd - meant that I was able to line up the flag with the sunset. I had to pause patiently several seconds for this shot, because I was waiting for the flag to fly in a particular direction.

The first shot I took wasn’t quite what I had envisaged, but the second frame (the one I’ve published here - was about as close as I was ever going to get. The diffused sunlight through the clouds has actually rendered the fabric of the flag translucent in this shot, which is very apt .

I’ve always wanted to shoot an image of a kangaroo against the setting sun.

Check out the rules at Camera Critters or go to Misty Dawn.