Coming back from this shoot I’ve realized I can watch planes being parked all day there is something very calming about watching people precisely park these beautiful machines. I had never shot a plane until this day, funnily I’ve shot a few now in my career I should curate them all maybe.
Every shoot has it’s niggles or something you haven’t planned for causes some trouble after all you cant plan for everything. One of these niggles was the hangar we were shooting at was casting a huge shadow on the plane luckily after a few attempts at moving the plane and also racing against the setting sun we got our shots in. Another niggle was that the plane was actually a lot smaller than it looked on the outside so shooting inside it was a problem.
I had a giant beauty dish to light the model as I wanted something harsher than a softbox but not bare bulb, plus I like the specularity of beauty dishes it just makes everything look so glossy. However I couldn’t fit the damn dish in the plane and I was also shooting on a phase one which literally only gave a decent image at ISO 50 so I needed light. After a little problem solving and rigging on the spot we made it work. I used a translucent reflector to cover the window from the outside and shot the beauty dish through it creating a softbox kind of look.
For the shots outside the plane I used a silver lined beauty dish to replicate a similar quality of light as sunlight. Even with the little niggles I feel like I could not go wrong after all I was photographing a private f****** jet with a medium format camera and a cool model who happens to be a famous singer from the UK.
