People often ask me why and how I got interesting in aviation photography. This article is a short story about the chance meeting that convinced me that I should give aviation photography a go, and some of my journey to date.
It just takes a spark to reignite the passion
It’s funny how things work out. I’d been doing bird photography pretty regularly for a couple of years, and had been thinking about starting to photograph aircraft, which were an old passion of mine. In November 2017 I attended a macro photography meetup that was organised by a birding buddy of mine. I didn’t intend on photographing bugs or flowers, so I took my birding gear to get some photos of the many waterbirds that inhabit the botanic gardens where the meetup was held. There I met a guy named Daniel, who has since become a good friend. We got to talking about photography over a coffee and he said his main photographic interest was in aviation. As I was already thinking about doing this too, he only steeled my resolve to take up this genre. The more we talked, the keener I became to get started.
My background
As a child of the ’70s, I was like most young boys and made Matchbox and Airfix model kits of WWII and Cold War era aircraft. I loved movies like The Battle of Britain, The Dambusters, Tora, Tora, Tora and The Battle of Midway. A neighbor and I would religiously watch “Baa Baa Black Sheep” of a Friday night. Thanks very much to my mother, I collected the entire set of 140+ weekly editions of “Purnell’s Weapons and Warfare” magazine (which I still have). Yes, you could say I was into planes as a youngster and everyone in the family knew it. In 1982 I joined the Royal Australian Air Force as an electronics technician (the RAAF trade was called “Radio Technician Air”). When I completed training, my first assignment was working on the iconic General Dynamics F-111, a dream for a wide-eyed young fellow starting his career of choice. In the rest of my time in the RAAF I worked on Bell Iroquois, Boeing-Vertol Chinook, Boeing 707 transport/tankers, a C-130E Hercules flight simulator and finally fell into the field of computer support. My interest in aircraft had waned, while I still enjoyed watching them I had definitely grown tired of working on them and became used to the clean, air conditioned office environment. I left the RAAF in 1997 to further my IT career, which continues to this day.
Serendipity
Walking home through Toowong Cemetery from the Brisbane Botanic Gardens where the meetup was held, I heard the turbine whine of a big airliner climbing and headed my way. Looking up, I spied a Qantas Boeing 747 (referred to by local aviation fans as “the queen of the skies”) climbing out of Brisbane International Airport and heading directly towards me! With some low cloud and high humidity, she was generating some nice wingtip vortices and wing condensation sheets. I snapped a few shots and was pretty excited to get home and see what I’d captured. Going through the photos, two I had excellent images – to say I was happy would be a massive understatement!
Incidentally I had hoped that my next door neighbor may have been flying the aircraft, as he is a Qantas 747 captain. Alas, when he checked his log book he wasn’t on this particular flight.
The spark ignited
That’s how I got started in aviation photography, and I was hooked. I had taken photos of aircraft on some previous holidays, although only as part of the general photography of the trip. From this point on, aviation photography was to become a major focus of my photography. At time of writing this blog, it is now just over two years later. In that time I’ve been to several airshows and fly-in events, taken photos at local airports and military bases and even managed to work aviation into my family holidays. As of 1st Jan 2020 I’ve taken over 30,000 images of aircraft since taking it up (with about a 10% keeper rate), am still thoroughly enjoying the genre and keen to keep shooting and improving my images. I hope that I can instil the same spark of excitement that I get from aviation into you, the viewer.
Other Information
Image Galleries
If you’d like to view more of images on this topic, below are some links to my photography gallery website.
2 Responses
Hello Mick, very interested to read your page on how you managed into aviation. I was a 7 year old living in a village in Scotland as the aircraft thundered over on finals into Glasgow Airport in the early 1960s. Asked my dad what aircraft they were, next thing I had an Observers book of Aircraft. Progressed to travelling to Glasgow Airport and ‘spotted’ types without a camera. Emigrated to Australia late 1973 (Qantas 707 VH-EAB LHR-THR-DEL-KUL-SYD). Did a stint in the RAAF but not suitable for service life and my last posting was Base Squadron Townsville. Met my wife through unusual circumstances in 1976 and we are still going to date. Have many aircraft albums of 35mm negatives, thousands of colour slides both overseas and in Australia…with heaps of spares….Many albums of colour 6×4 prints of aircraft all over the world and here in Australia. B&W as well. Have digital images of old and new aircraft, B&W and colour on computer in fact so many I have lost track of what I have on file….!!!……..Also a multitude of airline paraphernalia/timetables/etc and a heap of aircraft/airline safety cards that so many, I still have to catch up and file…..I am retired and have plenty of time on my hands. I have travelled between Australia and the UK many times, last overseas trip was with daughter in 2019 when we did a Cosmos tour of Ireland/Scotland flying Eithad/KLM between BNE-AUH-AMS-DUB then GLA-AMS-AUH-BNE…..the 14 hour flights numbed my backside…!.Flew on 6 aircraft and came back with 9 safety cards…naughty…
Hi John, please let me apologise first for not noticing your comment from one year ago. I haven’t been putting any time into my blog site, decided to finally go through all the blog comments and yours was the only one out of 137 that wasn’t spam! Sounds like you became a real aviation buff at a young age like myself, and also enlisted in the RAAF like me. I’m sure glad I only started photographing in the digital age, being an IT nerd by trade I devised a good digital workflow from the start and tag everything so I can easily find anything I have a photo of from my Adobe Lightroom catalog. I don’t envy you having to go through all those old slides to scan and catalog them. There’s a Facebook group named “Aviation Historical Society of Australia” that a guy named Alan Flett posts to, he like you has photos going back 50 years and is methodically going through the boxes of slides, scanning and cataloging and posting some amazing Australian aviation history. That’s how I think of what I’m doing now, photographing aircraft, events and aviators that won’t be around when people are looking at my photos in various places in 50 years time.
I’ve recently taken a couple of months off from editing and posting photos (to Facebook) which was refreshing, now I’m semi-retired I should be able to find a lot more time to get out there and photograph, also to work on the blog and produce a lot more articles.
Thanks very much for letting me know your story, all the best and have a Happy Christmas and New Year.
Cheers, Mick McKean (MMPI Aviation Photography).