Why Take Pictures of Planes? Finding Art in Aviation
I few years ago I took the Photography Certificate through the continuing education department at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. My first courses were in film photography and concentrated on composition and dark room techniques. We learned how to critique our own work; how to follow the rules and break them for artistic merit. Through the photography of great photographers like the legendary Ansel Adams, who captured the beauty of the American wilderness, we learned that photographic art is the manipulation of light to capture a moment in time. And, as photographers, we must be able to speak to why and how a subject speaks to us – and tells a story.
If you can’t do that, a photograph simply is a “pretty picture”.
Following aviation and the space program has always been a part of my life. One of my first memories was of playing with my dad and my then toddler brother with the old floor model black and white television set on in the background. Although I was very young, I still remember stopping to watch news coverage of Apollo 16 and the Lunar and Service Modules linking for the return trip to Earth. I remember also vividly watching (and hearing) fighter jets screaming over the house for the first time, and the sense of travel I got after watching my first chopper lift off a pad headed to do a task.
Growing up near CFB Shearwater, aviation spotting became a passion. I remember long summer afternoons in the front yard or in my other favourite spots to watch arrivals and departures. The hours I spent watching and reading about aviation would eventually lead me pursue a degree in political science and study defence and foreign policy.
This is why I was taken aback one evening when a photography instructor when he questioned whether my aviation photography was art or photo journalism. Once the ego is put in check, the question becomes valid. Even though I’ve been interested in aviation as my main subject for photography for a while now, I only recently started to question why certain photos stand out and what do I want to convey. As a student of photography, I can see Adams hiking through national parklands with basic camera equipment and waiting for hours until light and subject merged into the perfect shot. But, for my work, timing is everything and you don’t have time to plan and compose a shot when a 747 is speeding towards landing near where you stand. I’m learning that “eye” for what makes an aviation photo comes after the fact during the editing process. It can be a ray of sunlight on an engine or a vortex of a vapor trail off a prop; how you edit, crop and present sets an aviation photograph aside from a “pretty airplane picture”.
I’m learning that tell the story of aviation and planespotting at Halifax Stanfield (or any airport) is not about capturing every plane that lands and takes off, it’s about convening that same interest and love in these amazing pieces on human ingenuity that prompted a four year-old to shop playing with his dad long enough to be interested in a docking spacecraft. Or, perhaps, explain why I continue to look up.
