PC12 ULURU

PC-12 ULURU, AUSTRALIA
Calendar shoot for Pilatus

This was a commission for Pilatus Aircraft in Switzerland, for their annual corporate worldwide calendar. I shot this at 0600 just as dawn was starting to illuminate the ancient rock face. The Cameraship or photo platform was a Robinson R44 Astro helicopter with the doors removed. A shoot like this is quite complex, expensive and involves a lot of people and planning. But it's a very cool feeling just sitting in the open doorway, knowing all this spectacle has been organized just for your camera! It gives you a lot of confidence knowing you have the ability to get the job in the can. We are both flying at about 115 kts to maintain a steady formation. In order to do this though, the PC12 must have its flaps out to slow his speed to ours, which means he will be slightly ‘nose up’ to keep this speed.
a) Unfortunately it’s not a good look for the manufacturer to have the aircrafts flaps out, ‘flashing its knickers’ or so they like to say. So in post-production I can remove the flaps in Photoshop.
b) has the flaps removed and colour corrected. Together with a bit of added contrast, that’s about the most I would do in Photoshop with an image like this.
c) I always shoot a ‘behind the scenes’ image to show the proximity to my subject. It gives an idea just how close you have to get in order to get a good wide shot of an aircraft and its environment. Camera: Nikon D300. Lens: Nikon 14-28mm.