Category: Photography

Things aviation and the ‘wow’ effect.

Some stunning pictures.

Of the six active authors on this Blog, four have been or still are pilots. Of course, only young Bob Derham is a ‘real’ pilot having been an Air Transport pilot for almost as long as Pontious Pilate (sorry, that’s an awful pun!).

Anyway, there has been a growing collection of some incredible photographs from odd sources around the Web and it seemed time to share a few.

Here’s a wonderful picture of an F-15C Eagle Fighter circling over the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida with Shuttle Mission STS 108 on the launch pad.

011129-F-1279W-025

See more aviation pictures

Sunrise

Here in San Carlos, Mexico, we have good sunrises most mornings. But this one made me grab my camera. The picture is unedited. Very simple things can provide a huge amount of pleasure.

Sunrise

Taken at 06:15 local time (GMT -7hrs) Camera is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8

By Paul Handover

Well it is Sunday!

Time for bed

Unlike the funny pic posted yesterday which clearly has been ‘edited’ this one looks to be genuine.

dog and boy praying

Thanks to Dan G for forwarding it. Classic!

By Paul Handover

Unintended consequences – for the albatross!

Using our Planet as a dustbin!

Once again, a piece in Naked Capitalism caught my eye this time courtesy on one of Yves’ readers who came across this:

These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

Midway chick

More pictures of this terrible way to treat a magnificent bird are here.

By Paul Handover

Carrier landings: “A perishable skill!” Notes

Background information behind the YouTube Background videos shown on Learning from Dogs

Many will have found the video extracts about carrier operations on USS Nimitz thrilling, fascinating and superb watching. The first was shown two days ago and the second yesterday. In fact they come from an brilliantly executed

10-hour series from PBS in the US called Carrier. The film has an associated web site including the ability to watch all ten episodes in full. [NB – it has been discovered that the PBS videos may not be available in all countries due to licensing issues.]

The USS Nimitz was launched in 1972 and has an overall length of nearly 1,100 feet. WikiPedia has a good summary.

The final Post on this topic will be published tomorrow and will explore the questions of integrity and ethics that are associated with the emotions raised by the videos.

By Paul Handover

Mach Loop, North Wales, Great Britain

High speed military aircraft at low level – all in a day’s work.

Most private pilots love to watch the professionals at work, whether it’s in the cockpit of an airliner or fast military jets.

Does this not get the blood stirring?

The Jaguar XK120 Motor Car

You’ll never feel this way about a modern car!

A few weeks ago I attended a 70^th Birthday celebration for a cousin.

70! Hey this chap has been riding bicycles at competition level, and running marathons for many years, so the surprise party was very upbeat, with two bands keeping everybody dancing. Everything from the Shadows to Roy Orbison.

It was a lovely day so I took my old XK120 Roadster, mainly because another cousin was going along, and he had helped rebuild this car 30 years previously. Actually we arrived together. The XK was running beautifully, but my cousin’s Mercedes had burst a water pipe, and the car park was flooded with coloured radiator water. We laughed that it was the new car that had broken down.

Another breath-taking picture from Patrick Smith

Cannon Beach, Oregon

Copyright (c) 2009 Patrick Smith Photography

Patrick says of this picture:

This is a view that includes only one of the needles, so that you can get a closer view of Haystack Rock. The light was too good to resist for about two minutes, so I captured several variations of this scene..

Photograph reproduced with the kind, written permission of Patrick Smith.

By Paul Handover