Airport disaster
I had a really interesting job at the airport recently for a client who handles the aircraft used to transport organs for transplants. Newcastle Airport had just been set up as the hub for the north of England, and the bigwigs from the NHS, aviation industry, and media were all invited for a simulated organ delivery, and flight. My job was two fold – firstly to capture some images of the aircraft’s interior and exterior for inclusion in the company’s literature, and secondly to record the events, people, and flight for the trade press, and national media. The BBC had a TV crew, and the journal had sent a photographer for their coverage. PR photographer’s will know the sinking feeling of having to share space with the press guys, as you can’t relax and work properly – you have to compete for pictures in a limited time frame, as they’re always trying to get the stereotypical “quirky” angle for the paper.
The plane itself was parked in the freight area, and I had to go through freight security, don my HV overcoat, and head out to the tarmac with the co-pilot. The aircraft was a turbo-prop affair, and was in a position without any clear backdrop. I shot straight shots from all angles (including various angles of the registration numbers, as I’d been asked to replace these afterwards in Photoshop – and then got some abstract shots of bits of wing, propellers, door, cockpit etc. The weather was awful – cloudy, with the odd bit of sun poking through. I couldn’t get the backlit abstract shots i was looking for. The cockpit interior was amazing – always freaks me out a bit. Anyway, I did a load of shots before the vip’s turned up, then went back to the building to change lenses for the simulated organ delivery and press shots. At this point I realised that my equipment became instantly weightless, and a split-second later I heard the sickening crunch of a Nikon D3 and 70-200mm VR lens crashing to the ground, as my uber-expensive, posh shoulder strap disengaged from the camera eyelets. £5K hitting the deck would be enough to make Spartacus cry, but I nonchalantly stooped down, picked up the battered gear, re-attached the strap, and walked over to the vip’s. Every single person was standing with their mouth open, with a look of horror.
None of the executives were particularly impressed by my snapped-off lens. The gear was perfectly usable of course. That’s the difference between pro gear and consumer camera’s. The end of the lens took the brunt of it – with the filter thread completely bent inwards. I think that the camera pentaprism has been knocked out of alignment, so that the viewfinder image is not completely accurate to what the sensor records. Exposure was always about 3 stops over for the rest of the day, but I just compensated by working on manual exposure. ( I found afterwards that the metering dial on the prism had been knocked to spot metering, so this is why the over exposure was happening). The rest of the shoot went ok – I got staged shots of the surgeons and aviation chiefs, took some reportage stuff of the organs dash, and the the best bit – getting in the airport vehicle, and driving to the edge of the runway so that we could all get footage of the plane taking off. A couple of KLM 737’s landed and took off first. The Beeb filmed the chief exec in the hangar, and I drove home after a successful couple of hours.
The camera is operational, but I’ll send it to Fixation for the annual service when things quieten down over the kids holidays. Another £500 to find.
