Test Day for a Seamster

Ben Rice, a top London Photographer working for International Corporate companies had been asked to create a series of panoramas within a series of executive jets, and very kindly asked me to provide some technical help in their production – on site.

The location for the test run was to be at London City Airport at the Jet Centre. We met up in their Car Park at the start of the day; probably the hottest day in London for several years! I learnt at the end it had reached 32˚ C.

We had to go through a few preliminary security checks to go airside as we were to work in a converted container at the very end of the runway with the aircraft, a Hawker 800 close by. We soon found that its normal role was storage for bottled water, which steadily dwindled as we sweated our way through the day.

The first two tasks were to rig black fabric over the open end of the container, and for Ben's assistant to start papering over the aircraft windows with tracing paper to sort out the lighting for the aircraft's interior. Next was setting up two MacBook Pro computers and hard drives for me to work at to perform my brand of magic as the seamster.

Once that was completed, I joined Ben in the interior of the aircraft for the setting up of the panoramic head, after that Ben was on his own; at least until he realised that it was too cramped for a grown man to keep clambering over the tripod and camera in such a cramped space. He then sought out a willing and lithe young lady who between shots from beyond the tripod, would hide in the loo as Ben fired the shutter. Her transfer of weight was less disruptive than his, on the camera's stability.

There were three points within the aircraft to shoot the panoramas, and there were several sets to do with two different lenses, and after each run, I would be handed the card to extract the files from, and do the stitching, in two programs, Photoshop and PTGui, after which Ben and the client would run through my results until everyone was satisfied. We had a short break in the middle of the day and continued till well after six, and I shall make a further apology for spending much of the time stripped to the waist!