Mum’s Birthday Fly-Past

Each July we try and get together for my Mum’s birthday. This year I went alone (Marie headed north to see her brother Craig, whose birthday is on the same day as Mum’s – July 26th), looking forward to a day with a bit of variety, with a few different photographic challenges. Mum’s 76 this year (2009), and in mid morning I arrived at the house which big brother Mark shares with Tracey. More of the house later – it’s a bit special – but here, we see (from left) Tracey’s Mum Iris, the birthday girl, Mark and Tracey in M&T’s rather nice ’second living room’. If this was the 19th century, or if we were posh, it would be called the drawing room. Think of it as a living room without a TV in it: 

Nikon D300, Sigma 10-20mm lens at 10mm, 1/80 at f 4.0, ISO 400, hand held with flash. I added a bit of vignette in Lightroom to embellish what was already rather a warm, painterly scene. Lovely colours in this one, it took me several gos and different settings before I got this scene right. Luckily we had time: we’d all just been fed, and Mum was opening her prezzies before we headed off to where Mark and Tracey work, BAE Systems in Rochester, Kent. They were holding an open day there, and for the first time we were going to have a look at where they’ve been working for years, creating mysterious war machines under the official secrets act.

And above Rochester, soon after we got there, one of the very best war machines ever made was being thrown around in the sky: 

Nikon D300, Nikon 70-300mm VR lens at 110mm, 1/2000 at f 4.5, ISO 400, hand held no flash. This is the mighty Lancaster bomber, ‘City Of Lincoln’, one of only two left flying. For ten minutes it made a series of thunderous (it makes a magnificent noise) low passes above the airfield at BAE Systems, while we all cricked our necks in awe. When one of these things flies directly overhead, with its four engines hammering away and that big twin-fin tail, for many true Brits it’s a lump in the throat moment. It’s 66 years since the immortal ‘Dambusters’ raid, one of the defining moments in our country’s modern history, and the Lancaster represents so many important things to those of us who care about where we came from: bravery, ingenuity, craftsmanship, defiance, and glory. What a sight.

I had the Nikon set on Continuous High mode, and rattled off 135 frames, having no clue what the results would be. Rarely for me I used Manual mode to freeze it in flight: I guessed a few settings, pointed the long 70-300mm VR lens at the sky, and hoped for the best. The shot above caught the steely light just right, and again I added a wee vignette in Lightroom, and tweaked it a bit until I got the above effect. I think it’s one of the best action pictures I have ever taken.

Here’s a more classic in-flight shot:

Nikon D300, Nikon 70-300mm VR lens at 110mm, 1/2500 at f 4.5, ISO 400, hand held no flash. Exactly the same settings as the picture before, taken just three seconds beforehand. This was the Lancaster’s very first fly-past, and I got the two best pictures within the first three seconds… Overall they were mostly right on the money, in fact.

Inside one of the BAE Systems buildings, all we really wanted to do was find the amazing helmet which Mark’s team have been working on for years. Here it is, held by Mark and his highly proud Mum: 

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 24mm, 1/100 at f 4.0, ISO 640, hand held no flash. This is the helmet worn by pilots in the new Eurofighter Typhoon. The plane cost the UK well over £20 billion to develop, against an initial budget of £7 bn. I like to think that Mark’s team contributed wholeheartedly to several billion of the overspend. Good work, bro. It’s a clever piece of kit, one of the better boy’s toys.

Here’s Tracey wearing one he made earlier:

Nikon D300, Sigma 10-20mm lens at 10mm, 1/20 at f 4.0, ISO 3200, hand held no flash. Tracey is also a key part of the team at BAE Systems, and the two of them work just feet apart deep within one of Britain’s more secrets-laden buildings. They’re both pretty high up the chain of command, and are probably spies really. The above pic was taken in a very gloomy room, I didn’t want to use flash as it would’ve bounced off the helmet’s visor, so instead I pushed the ISO way up to 3200. Still a great result in near darkness, the D300 is a really top camera in low light. Once again the Sigma wide-angle lens showed how good it is under pressure, too.

Back out in the sunshine, after we’d toured the factory where they make the secret weapons, we headed back to the car. On the way, a man was parking a tank on a lorry. These things are very heavy, and if he’d slipped off that flatbed, I’d have been flattened. That wide, wide-angle Sigma lens lets you get VERY close…I could have reached out and touched this thing. On reflection, I was probably a bit too close, but it’s a striking picture: 

Nikon D300, Sigma 10-20mm lens at 10mm, 1/1250 at f 5.6, ISO 200, hand held no flash. Really very, very close. Great colours (I usually have the D300 set two stops up from middle on Vibrant setting), and a litle darkening of the corners in Lightroom afterwards.

And now to Mark and Tracey’s house, which is frankly awesome. This is the River Medway, taken from the bottom of their garden: 

Nikon D300, Sigma 10-20mm lens at 10mm, 1/160 at f 16, ISO 200, hand held no flash. What a thing to have at the end of the garden. If it was my place, I’d have built the jetty by now, and had a boat moored up there. M&T have left it wild, so you can’t really stand on the riverbank without ducking through the undergrowth. But when you do, it’s very pretty indeed.

Turn around, and look back up the immense garden to the house, and you get an idea of how big their plot of land is:  

Nikon D300, Sigma 10-20mm lens at 10mm, 1/1600 at f 4.5, ISO 200, hand held no flash. They also have a great big veggie garden, and all sorts of other stuff there. It is without question the best building a Hiseman has owned in living memory. Mark and Tracey (who is a Jackson, still – none of us are sure why they haven’t got married yet) are solid gold ‘Dinkies’ (Dual Income, No Kids). With a couple of fine salaries, and no PlayStation habit to fund, they’re looking good…

Happy Birthday Mum, another year closer to a letter from the Queen. Good sunny, fresh air sort of day with the family, a great way to spend a Saturday.