Luftbruckendenkmal - Berlin Airlift Memorial

[TheBigE]

I have been reading most recently about making an image - that is planning your image before arrival. I decided to give this a go and had planned to catch a sunrise at the Luftbrückendenkmal - Berlin Airlift Memorial near Frankfurt Airport. I reviewed the location, determined my optimum spot for sunrise using Photopils app and proudly (or foolishly??) set my alarm for 0430 to get up and drive there for sunrise. Sounds like a great plan...right?

All well and good until i realized the location was only accessible via a 1.4 km hike (no big deal, I had time)....only to arrive after the hike to find out the memorial does not open until 8 am....so standing outside the gate at 0615 - I had some time to kill. Mind you there was no website for the memorial and google maps showed it was just "off the road". Memorial 1, Erik 0

Fortunately I had my 70-300mm lens with me and took the follow shots - there is a nice overlook onto Frankfurt Airport. So I decided to make some lemonade.

1. Lufthansa Parking. I like that this photo is busy, but still has a focus (as least as I fell) with the Lufthansa plane being the obvious focus point.

270mm f/9.0 1/640s ISO 320

2. Passanger Plane Departing Not much of story or context with this photo, just an unusual angle.

240mm f/8.0 1/640s ISO 400

3. Lufthansa Cargo Plane. - Overall like how this one came out and the relative sharpness of this photo for this lens.

240mm f/8.0 1/800s ISO320

Finally the gates opened for the memorial.

4. Berlin 550 km Berlin is just a short 550 km Flight from Frankfurt. The Airlift Memorial (Luftbrückendenkmal) in the background was named “hunger rake” is a commemoration for the airlift.

A bit of a crop with this one but still like the trails in the sky and wish the bush on the left was not present. I felt this was a good use of UWA.

10mm f/11 1/200s ISO100

5. Rosinen Bomber - Raisin Bombers (Rosinenbomber) or "Candy Bombers" were the terms Berliners gave to the Western Allied transport aircraft.

This one was a bit of luminosity masking to bring out some of the detail in the plane, I tried to be subtle about it and not overdue the PP or make it look unnatural due to the direction of the sunlight.

11mm f/20 1/400s ISO1000

6. C47 and Memorial. The C47 was the workhouse of the airlift - 32 flights and 89 tons in the first day alone of the airlift.

I played around with both color and BW on this one and think I prefer the BW rendition.

24mm f/9.0 1/1000s ISO400

C&C welcome and most appreciated. Thanks

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[rpcrowe]

I enjoyed these images.

I feel connected to the Berlin Airlift. When I was stationed at the Naval Weapons Evaluation Facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico during 1972 to 1976 we had a Navy C-54 (civilian equivalent DC-4) aircraft which was a veteran of the Berlin Airlift and was still flying!

Two Navy transport squadrons did a great job during OPERATION VITTLES...
http://steeljawscribe.com/tag/berlin-airlift

[Wavelength]

Excellent set; and #5 i love much

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Erik,

I also enjoyed these ...

Living under a Heathrow landing run, #2 is a view I see often (though usually with the "legs" hangin' out) - there's something good about seeing the sun underneath the aircraft (with sky above)

I think you fully achieved your objective with #5, that's probably one of the best processed examples of sun in shot I have seen for a while.
As a quirky afterthought: the contrail could almost be a meteor trail
(or a sun ray)

Cheers, Dave

[TheBigE]

Nice series.

Thanks John!!

I enjoyed these images.

I feel connected to the Berlin Airlift. When I was stationed at the Naval Weapons Evaluation Facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico during 1972 to 1976 we had a Navy C-54 (civilian equivalent DC-4) aircraft which was a veteran of the Berlin Airlift and was still flying!

Two Navy transport squadrons did a great job during OPERATION VITTLES...
http://steeljawscribe.com/tag/berlin-airlift

Thanks for the link Richard - good to know the Navy had a pivotal role in the airlift. C54 is nice, I have ALWAYS had a soft spot for the C47. I had planned on being a Naval Aviator but vision ended up getting in the way - decided to try the Bubblehead life!!

Excellent set; and #5 i love much

Thanks Nandakumar. I am really happy the way #5 came out overall, the UWA worked well on the sunburst. I tried a Sunburst with my 16-85 and well, it did not work out...even bracketing.

Hi Erik,

I also enjoyed these ...

Living under a Heathrow landing run, #2 is a view I see often (though usually with the "legs" hangin' out) - there's something good about seeing the sun underneath the aircraft (with sky above)

I think you fully achieved your objective with #5, that's probably one of the best processed examples of sun in shot I have seen for a while.
As a quirky afterthought: the contrail could almost be a meteor trail
(or a sun ray)

Cheers, Dave

I am glad you enjoyed them Dave. The flying planes are nice, and add a different light to the subject than is normally seen (sun on bottom). It was a good way to kill some time waiting for the Memorial to open. Also I learned of a good spot to photograph Airport Activity next time - thinking maybe renting one of those long lenses for a weekend. I am impressed with the performance of my 70-300mm lens in this case.

The sunburst in #5 worked out quite well and some PP on the plane to bring out the details, overall I was impressed and thanks for the comments!!! It is nice to know that my early morning wakeup produced some good results despite the small comedy of errors that day...

So I went back to my favorite which is the C47 #6 and pushed it through SilverEfex Pro for the BW conversion....I liked the Sepia tone effect. Thoughts? Included is the color version as well....

Sepia Version



Color Version

[rpcrowe]

"Thanks for the link Richard - good to know the Navy had a pivotal role in the airlift. C54 is nice, I have ALWAYS had a soft spot for the C47. I had planned on being a Naval Aviator but vision ended up getting in the way - decided to try the Bubblehead life!!"

The Air Force (and prior to that the Army Air Corps) always had far better press agents than did the Navy. However, the press agents were not always honest.

As examples:

1. After Naval aviators creamed the Japanese Fleet at the Battle of Midway in June 1942, sinking all four of the Japanese carriers plus a cruiser and putting Japan's Navy on the defensive for the rest of the war; headlines in America announced: "Army Flying Fortresses Sink Japanese Fleet". The Army Air Force B-17's did not score a single hit on a Japanese ship

2. After the Air Force could not achieve any low level photographic reconnaissance of Cuba during the Missile Crisis of 1962 (the did do the initial U-2 reconnaissance), the Air Force actually stole the Navy's low level photos and released them as their own. In fact Look Magazine published a low level reconnaissance image of a Russian Missile Site on Cuba as a U.S. Air Force Photo when there was a shadow of a Navy F-8 Crusader photo plane on the ground next to the missile site. After the first day's reconnaissance, we were told that "No photo will leave the Navy photo lab that is not stamped "Official U.S. Navy Photograph"