The Annual Pilgrimage to Gloucestershire

Every year in July, RAF Fairford is home to the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT for short), the largest military air show in Britain, and for the second successive year Yol and myself headed down to Gloucester to meet up with wonderful friends and take in the airshow in VIP luxury! RIAT offers a range of admission packages, and we went for the Aviation Club package, with a great viewing place, a marquee and seats, dinner and regular cuppas, and (the best perk) exclusive parking which doesn't take four hours to get into. It may be expensive, but it's worth every penny!

RIAT is a hog's heaven for me, it's a day of watching some serious hardware taking to the skies, and it's a day of getting my camera out and shooting like a nutter. Last year I shot 1700 exposures in one day, this year I topped it with over 1800, and edited them down to about 120 photos.

The day itself started out wet and cloudy, and it looked like it was all set to be a washout. We took in a section of the static display before taking cover in the marquee and waiting for the worst of the rain to subside:




Even the mightiest of aircraft landing on the runway were obscured by the rain, as the spectactors huddled to keep dry and wait for the weather to change:



The first of the aircraft to take part in the flying display didn't even get to fly, all they were cleared to do were taxi-passes, but this still gave us the opportunity to get our lenses out and shoot some of the world's greatest aircraft:



But before long the weather turned, and then the real flying could begin. Shooting aircraft in flight is always a tricky thing; starting with airport shoots is always a good move, but when it comes to airshows you're dealing with aircraft that are smaller and faster than your average commercial airliner! So it's a balance between keeping focus, depth of field, and exposure. Some you win, some you lose, and in my own experience I was getting one good shot for every 100 or so exposures. But the ones I got, I'm extremely proud of!:





The full set of photos from RIAT 2011 can be seen here on Flickr - thanks for looking!

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Back to the Homeland, Two Chance Encounters, and a Local Landmark

Last weekend saw Yol and myself taking a trip back to our Homeland of Grimsby for the christening of Yol's cousin's daughter, and whilst we were back there we decided to do some local sightseeing and get some more shots down the lens! Grimsby is one of those places where, if you live there, you don't see the beauty that surrounds it because you see it every day. It's only when you see the place through refreshed eyes do you see what's really there, and that's true of pretty much everywhere.

When I was growing up, one of the familiar sounds of the area was the screeching roar of the Lightning jets flying out of RAF Binbrook, an air base ten miles south of the town. The Lightnings were retired a long time ago, but the base remains, and so Yol and I set off armed with the camera and the sat-nav to try to find the place. Parts of the base have now been repurposed, with the barracks and residential quarters being turned into the village of Brookenby, and the hangar section turned into an industrial estate. A little research online beforehand gave me hope that there would still be a Lightning on the ground, so we aimed for the hangar section and hoped for the best.

Once we'd found the industrial estate, we spotted signage for 'Hangar 3' and set off in that direction, and hit a jackpot of sorts. We did find a grounded plane there, not a Lightning, but a Sea Harrier:


It was here that we had the first of our chance encounters. As I was getting ready to shoot, a door opening and a chap stepped out of the Hangar 3 building and came over to check on what I was doing. Once I'd explained that I was looking for planes to shoot, he was more than happy to oblige, and gave me some directions to where there was a Lightning on the estate. I asked him what 'Hangar 3' was, and he just smiled and said "Make sure you don't photograph the building..."

So, back in the car, and after following the gentleman's directions we located the Lightning. Alas, it was in a fenced off area and partly covered with a tarpaulin, so I was limited in the shots that I could get of it:



It was a pity to see the old girl tucked away like that, but it was still nice to see her!

After our trip down to Binbrook, we took a run up to the site of Thornton Abbey to shoot the buildings there. Shooting buildings and architecture has become something of an interest of mine, rather through accident than design, but it's something that I do look forward to and engage in when the opportunity arises. The Abbey itself is in ruins, there's not a great deal there, but the Abbey Gatehouse is very well preserved and looked after.




The Gatehouse is accessible and as well as giving some nice views of the surrounding countryside, it also provides a great setting to experiment with some low-light shooting:



Outside of the Gatehouse are the remnants of the Abbey itself, sitting in the grass:



Whilst looking around the Abbey, we came across a dig site, and this is where the second of our chance encounters happened. On the dig site we found an archaeologist documenting the find, and he was more than happy to share information about the site and his work. The archaeologist was Dr Hugh Willmott of the University of Sheffield, and as well as sharing his information he was also happy to pose for a photo that fitted perfectly into my recent challenge for the ECM Flickr group:



Thank you Dr Willmott!

As the christening was scheduled for the Sunday afternoon, I took the chance to go and shoot a couple of things that I've wanted to shoot for a while. The first was in the front garden of a house in the village of Holton-le-Clay, near Grimsby. As garden ornaments go, this one's somewhat different!:



Then it was on to Grimsby Docks, once a thriving fishing port, now somewhat subdued. Many of the factories are now derelict, one of the dock areas converted into a marina. As time was getting short, we were unable to visit the east end of the docks, which are still functional, but we did get chance to go to the north end and shoot a local landmark, the Dock Tower:




The north end of the docks has a couple of jetties, now largely unused, but still very much photogenic!



There's a peacefulness about the place now, a far cry from the bustling fishing port that once was.

The above photos can be seen in their full sized glory on Flickr here.

My Twitter feed can be seen here.

Thanks for reading!