B744/748 Photography

[Mariano]

Enjoy these:

https://jpcvanheijst.com/portfolio/aviation-photography/boeing-747

Regards,

Mariano

[Phil Bunch]

Thanks - several of these photos became my favorite 747 photos of their type.

[cagarini]

Thx for sharing Mariano!

[Hessel Oosten]

This is ART !
Thanks.

Hessel

[Markus Vitzethum]

If you like Christiaan's photos, make sure not to miss his latest book "Cargopilot".



https://www.amazon.com/Cargopilot-Christiaan-Van-Heijst/dp/0993260446/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491513350&sr=8-1&keywords=cargopilot

Many of the photos are printed in there and it really looks good in high quality print. I received the book a few weeks ago for my birthday and I really like it.

Markus

[Peter Lang]

Very nice, thanks for sharing.

Peter

[Will]

I hate to be a contrarian... but many of those photos are too obviously post-processed for my taste. There are perhaps two extremes amongst photographers: those who seek to create the final image with the camera, and those who create the final image in post-processing with all of those sliders for clarity, saturation, vibrance, hue, white balance, brightness, exposure, sharpening, HDR, vignetting, and so on. The artist in many of these images seems to have leaned with a pretty heavy hand on all those image processing tools, which gives the final shots an artificial look. But that's just my taste. Everyone will have their own preferences. :-)

[Hardy Heinlin]

In my opinion it makes no sense to split the process of making art into two processes -- "in-camera" and "post-camera" -- just to declare the "in-camera" process as the only valid process. I mean it's a continuous process from the first photon hitting the sensor or film molecule all the way through zillions of glass molecules through in-camera AD converters through camera software filters to the memory stick off to the hard disk and then again through software filters onto monitor LEDs or ink drops etc. The same happens with pencil drawings and oil paintings, or with wooden music instruments, or with vinyl records -- it's all artificial. All tools and chemicals are artifical man made culture. From the first pigment and photon to the nerves in our eyes. The main thing, in my view, is how the result looks like. There is a lot of digital crap out there, of course. But if it's crap, it's not crap because it's digitial but because it's a bad design, i.e. a bad color palette, or bad structural composition, or too unemotional etc.

I find those photos above fantastic because they reflect that special mood that we all know. That mood sits behind those panels and colors, and these pictures capture these mental phenomena brilliantly. The whole thing consists of more than just the number of its pieces; there are also relations between these objects. These pics are full of symbols, like a a set design of a theater or concert hall. And then there are those gradual, harmonic links between outside world and cockpit world. This is music in my eyes. And poetry, with lots of metaphors. Like a great, well-balanced symphonic story. The pics tell something. I don't care how many tools are involved. A piano is a tool as well. Just use all tools available that can transport the ideas that are in your mind out to the audience.


|-|ardy

[mgeiss]

Post processing is - and has always been - a major part of photography. In the analogue days, most master photographers also had their master printers, who would bring the negatives to their full potential in the darkroom, which in many cases would mean several hours of work on a single print.

I only photopgraph on black&white and x-ray film (which is essentially just a normal b&w film), mostly large format up to 8x10", and print the negs in my own darkroom using "modern" silver gelatin papers or older alternative processes like cyanotypes, van dyke brown printing etc.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/21230102@N05/ (shameless plug)

At least with silver-gelatin prints, I can't think of a single negative that just got printed "as is", but not because I took a "bad" picture or didn't get the exposure or development right.

[tim96]

Thank you very much for sharing. I really enjoy this beautiful pictures.
Love it.

Cheers
Volker

[Flex]

Absolutely Stunning!

[jpcvanheijst]

Good evening to everybody, and a special thank you to Mariano for the link to my site and the book!
Also a huge thank-you to Hardy Heinlin for the words regarding the photography in general. You are one of the few people who really understands 'why' I want to share this photography, even though I find it difficult to put it in words myself haha. Thanks again, you clearly got the message I tried to put in those pixels!

I suddenly noticed a lot of visitors to my site last week and saw that many of them came in through Aerowinx.com, so naturally I found this post regarding my photography.

In regard to the comment of Will about the post-processing, I am wondering what shots you think are artificial? Especially the 747 photos on my website are, believe it or not, hardly processed (except for the milky way shots and a few black and white pictures that require some fine balancing of light and shadows in post-processing).
As you can see, most (if not all) of my images are taken with very little light. It took me nearly 14 years of practice, failure, practice and more practice and failure to create a feeling for the photos and what is needed for capturing the moods and atmospheres that are so delicate to capture.
One of the (many) little tricks I use is using long shutter times (of between 2 and 30 seconds) and underexposing the photos, even though this might sound contradictory.
Using some of the best camera equipment and lenses in combination with those long exposures create very bright colours and contrasts by default. And since the cockpit is so small, using a high-end fisheye lens gives that extra feeling and sharpness that is needed for such shots in confined spaces.
I always shoot in RAW, so they always require some editing or twisting of the values, but this is exactly what used to be done in the old days when processing film into photos.
The camera is still just a computer that produces what he 'thinks' you want to see. And high up in the air where light is so difficult to process for a camera, it always come out rather different to what you've had in mind. So yes, it always requires a tiny bit of editing. As would have been done in the old days when processing prints.

Its funny that I'm now being told my photos are too artificial and post-processed, while I think I'm one of the very few aviation-photographers that's hardly digitally altering the photos. HDR photos are most of the time rewarded with thousands of likes and applause, while I deeply contest those sort of digital artifacts that have nothing to do with photography in my eyes, let alone showing the beauty of aviation.

Anyway, I guess some people are never pleased, no matter what they are presented.

Thanks again guys (and girls?), great motivation to keep on going!

Blue skies and happy landings!

[Will]

Not my intention at all to veer too far off topic, so I'll just leave it at that. Thanks for sharing your work! It certainly looks like it was fun to go get those shots.

I especially like the Korean Air Cargo shot with all the condensation over the wings.

[Hardy Heinlin]

I would be interested in your opinion, Will. Being a painter and designer, for me such art discussions can never be off topic :-)

Hello JPC, thank you for visiting this little forum! What a nice surprise :-)


Regards,

|-|ardy

[Will]

Well, I'll throw in some opinions, because I enjoy a good conversation about art, but please, understand that I know my opinions are my own and I'm not commenting on any objective measures of quality, but merely on my own personal taste, and I totally recognize that everyone has their own equally valid preferences and mine aren't any more valid than anyone else's. End of disclaimer!

So my approach to photography is more like the reportage school. I like photographs that look like the photographer was there in the moment, part of the action, almost, and was recording what was happening around him or her. Contrast that with the (equally valid) idea that the final product justifies the means by which it was created, which often comes by using the various tools that are available to the photographer in post-production. Moving all of those sliders, as it were, until the ideal image is created, out of an aesthetic balance of all the things one can do with an image after it's captured on the sensor.

Looking at JPC's photos, with all due respect, and with thanks for the privilege of viewing his work, I see images that look like the "drama" was in some cases created outside of the camera. An example is shot #1 in the Cathay Pacific folder. I don't know what was done to the photo, but my guess is that it was shot in color, and then converted to B&W, and then had some fairly aggressive post-crop vignetting applied. (I could be wrong, but that's what it looks like. If the vignetting was natural, then that day had an extremely remarkable cloud configuration, or else the lens has some wild light fall-off in the corners.) Furthermore, it's a very contrasty photo. As we all know, Cathy's color palette is made up of pastel blues and greens, and yet this photo makes the livery look virtually black and white. Which is probably not how the image looked to the naked eye at the time of capture.

So I would guess the shot was made with maximum telephoto, fastest F-stop, slow enough exposure to blur the fan blades, vignetting applied in post, converting to B&W, and then working the contrast to get the nose of the aircraft looking "punchy" compared to the background.

Could I be wrong? Of course.

My point is that that type of photo looks like the artist was creating a dramatic image, as opposed to looking like what the artist saw live in the moment.

Can I now please repeat my disclaimer? I don't mean to disparage any approach and I don't want to imply that my opinion is more valid than anyone else's, and I understand that there are different tastes and approaches.

Thanks.

[funkyhut]

Not so often that art blends with technology in such a beautiful motion. Thank you for the share.

[farrokh747]

Nice work, Christiaan ....!

and matthias too -  I used to love printing on Agfa Portriga Rapid, and when that went away, I switched to Illford Warmtone...  I believe it's still in production....

Recently, we produced a limited series of my Jazz images, digitally printed on Hahnemuehle Baryta Warmtone, and i have to say, I was impressed with the print quality....

The post processing debate never ends, especially in the world of beauty and fashion...  where I have lived for 32 years... :-)

fc

[Hardy Heinlin]

Now I understand your background, Will. Thanks!

The two categories -- "in-camera" versus "post-processing" -- are what I call "journalism" versus "art". In other words, the problem is not what technique is applied but what genre is targeted. Newspaper versus songbook. Sciene report versus science fiction. Documentation versus novel. So it's not the "post-processing" per se; it's the genre that I expect. When I open a poetry book I don't expect journalistic precision.

I think the only difference between my taste and your taste is this (I'm trying to put it into a metaphor): I like both newspapers and poetry. You prefer newspapers.

I saw the flight deck photos and some others -- the flight deck photos being my favourites; I must admit I had not taken a look at the last folder that contains those Cathay pictures. Now I saw those too. Indeed, there are some takeoff pics in there with an extreme cyan-orange color grading. I wouldn't count these to my favourites. However, it's not because of the color grading per see (color grading is even applied in journalism); it's because I don't like the cyan-orange tone in particular. In the film and DVD business it's called "teal & orange"; it's a fashion that started about 15 years ago, and some film producers think the more "teal & orange" the more bucks :-) It's a phenomenon similar to the "loudness war" in the music industry in the past 20 years: Producers think the more loudness the better, no dynamic details anymore, put every single tone amplitude up to the 0 dB max from the beginning of the song to the end. -- Anyway, those cyan-orange color graded pics are the only ones that are not to my taste. But I say again, I do "allow" color grading; color grading already happens in the camera, be it on film or sensors, glass filters or digital filters. I just don't like that contemporary "teal & orange" in particular (on the Cathay takeoff pics).


Cheers,

|-|ardy


If you google for "teal & orange"; here's a nice example:
http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.de/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood-please-stop.html

[Mariano]

JPC,

Actually, my wife found your amazing photos online a few years ago while on one of her routine sweeps of the internet in search of rare and unique 747 pictures. They have since become our absolute preferred ones.

Please keep sharing them with all of us, and we look forward to your next book.

Your work is highly inspirational and very much appreciated.

Best regards,

Mariano

[jpcvanheijst]

@ Will,
Ah interesting, and I get your background now as well. Concerning the 'heavy editing' I was referring to the cockpit shots initially where I thought you were hinting at.
Indeed, many of the images from the ground (Alaska, Cathay) have been edited (sometimes quite heavily). There are so many spotters with good camera's now these days that a regular boring shot of any plane will just dissipate in the masses of pictures taken today. And I love to add a bit of myself in the shot to make it more dramatic/interesting.
Looking at some images now (most Alaskan images have been taken a few years back), I would maybe edit them differently. Though personally I like the 'harsh' treatment of some black and white images, especially if there is an interesting play with shadows and light. And (if I'm not mistaken) with that image I used my old Tamron 50-500 DX lens on the FX D800 that created a lot of vignetting. Could have removed it but guess I left it in. Not to everybody's liking, but hey, so many people so many opinions
By the way, its not the fan blades that are blurry in that particular image; it's the huge amount of vapor that condensate because of the low intake pressure that creates those clouds inside the engine cowling. Under the right conditions they can be seen like this.
Normally for those ground-shots I use Aperture mode and f/5.0 or something like that; during daylight I leave the shutter time to the camera. When there is enough ambient light the camera does a great job.

In regard of editing pictures, it's just a matter of perception. Even many journalistic images are edited by cropping out certain parts, putting a child-doll in some rubble to make it more dramatic etc (there are many examples of those sorts of tricks)... in the end it's all about the perception of the viewer.

@ funkyhut & farrokh747 & Mariano; thanks so much!
It's really a big honor to see that so many people like my views and images from 'up there'.

@ Hardy,
You're welcome. I'm finding myself every now and then on this forum and I'm amazed with the detailed reproduction of the 747 for Flight Simulator. Nothing short of spectacular and I can imagine the addiction to make the simulation as perfect as possible!
Yeah you're quite right there about the teal & orange as well.
Indeed, on many of the Alaska/ground images I used some heavy editing to make the shots more interesting, but I try to call that my artistic expression instead of 'altering' the image