However, first things first – family priority requires that I respond to my sister’s blog post in which she posted this picture:

According to some absurd cult ritual in the Scottard part of uncivilized UK, November is the month of Movember where you wear a moustache for charity…(I think my dad should be their spokesperson)…anyway, the point is that they wanna see what we ALL look like with moustaches…so…after countless seconds…

VOILA!

@Linzhi, sorry your moustache looks retarded – who ask u not to pose properly…

having said that…lets move on to the next thing on the agenda – Flying.

Before I begin I hope you (whoever reads this) understands that this blog is more of a Plog (word created by yours truly – remember you saw it here first!). This means its a picture-log. What THAT means is that I don’t really care what I write and don’t expect you to read it…its just a way to fill in gaps in between pictures.

Pictures themselves come in two flavours:-

• watermarked
• unsigned

Watermarked ones are those that are worthy of flickr and I actually bothered to put them into photoshop even if I don’t do anything except for adding the watermark, saving a backup of the original and uploading reduced file size version.

Unsigned ones are crap shots/ happy snaps that people in them should enjoy but aren’t something that I’d put up on flickr (eg. group photos).

…glad we got that sorted out.

so where were we…ah! who attended:

• Jiaren
• Aaron
• Yew Meng
• Elena
• Wilson
• Sabrina

From closest to furthest: front row: Wilson, Yew Meng. back row: Sabrina, Elena

can see the guys heads getting distorted from the wide angle…heres a better shot:

heres one with less distortion...

Sabrina surprised this on Wilson as a belated birthday present…apparently his dream is to become a pilot…hes achieving that somehow by studying multimedia at USQ…ironic huh?

If you look closely you can see Aaron being a moron in the background

Aaron and I waited this one out…they went first and we went up for the next flight…

In the meantime we just chit chatted and took photos of random things, and various parts of the plane such as this:

Aaron told me but I cant remember what this is for...all I remember is that its something like a dipstick thingie and theres some liquid inside...

shutter speed: 1/1250 (plane wasn't on full throttle though)

of course we also took them about to take off...

...before returing to taking pictures of various components...behold - the Engine!

Lycoming - best aviation engine manufacturer?

no idea what this is...

instrument for calculating altitude, speed, etc...so don't forgetto take it off before flight!

nostrils?

Aaron.

This is a Piper. A piper is different from a Cessena in that its wing is under the body instead of on top.

When they landed it was our turn and because we were paying by the hour we couldn’t afford to waste time so I didn’t take any snaps during this transition…

up up and away!

Ps. Yew Meng; ex-Singapore air force - from cockpit to pulpit.

ooh...many buttons...must...resist...temptation...

view from the heavens!

You can see the runway in the above picture…wind was really strong that day and we barely used a quarter for both take off and landing!

click on the image to see where I live!

This was the second time I’ve been up here but the first time I had my dSLR with me…so a quick tip for wannabe aerial photogs with no experience:

1. First time enjoy the view. Forget the camera because you’ll get air sick and feel like vomitting. Looking through a viewfinder doesn’t make it better.
2. Second time up stick to the telephoto lens. In this case it was a clear day so aperture wasn’t a problem. I used a 70-300mm VR lens which is very flexible.
3. forget the lens hood. It’ll just make it harder to shoot.
4. Hold the lens at its furthest point with a finger extended against the glass to suppress vibration.
5. A monopod may come in handy but I didn’t have one.
6. At that distance everything is infinity. Use manual focus with shutter priority or manual. Most shots taken at 1/4000 so ISO had to be bumped up.
7. Take a picture. Check histogram levels. Adjust accordingly. then take another hundred or so pictures before checking again. DONT waste your time reviewing pictures on the plane. Plenty of time on the ground for that later on.
8. most importantly, HAVE FUN!

First try at doing a tilt-shift miniature fake

Being in an elavated position I figured it was an ideal time to try out some shots for making tilt-shift miniature fakes. Basically what this does is it makes large images appear smaller so that the images produced appear to be a model instead of a real life scene. What do you think? Any comments?

Here’s another one of my university:

University of Southern Queensland as a miniature model.

The university was probably too big to look good as a miniature but it looked better like this than a regular aerial photography shot so I left it as it is.

After we landed Uncle Yew Meng wanted some pictures and since the sky was so beautiful I took advantage of the wide angle lens:

...and my favourite one to finish it off...also printed one of these on A3 for them.

Done. Next I’ll be blogging about a recent mother son photoshoot I did…I’ll admit its not my best work but I was crap tired that day and it had been a while since my last portraiture session. Either way, they loved the pics and I got to brush up on my photoshoot techniques. Ultimately, it was huge fun both for them and myself – and thats whats important!

sneak preview:

Auntie Ivy and Gabriel.

till then…chao!