Panoramic photo of the control tower at Brussels Airport
Belgocontrol, the autonomous public company in charge of air traffic control in Belgium, commissioned a panoramic photo of the inside of the air traffic control tower at Brussels Airport from me.
The photo had to reflect the atmosphere, the wealth of technology, the complexity of the work, the importance of the human beings, and so on. As the weather forecast indicated that meteorological conditions would be bad for the coming days, I suggested I go to the site straightaway, to take advantage of the best possible light conditions. So I was in improvisation mode.
Technically, this is three photos taken and assembled taking into account various considerations linked to this type of shot: adjustment of the optical center, choice of angle bearing in mind the constraints of the place and geometric distortion, overlapping shots, low light and sensitivity, heightened contrast, shutter speed and the movements and positions of the air traffic controllers, who obviously did not have a second to spend on me. And then there was the time element. It was imperative to take the photo after sunset but before the sky became completely dark (blue hour), hence the extremely tight timeframe. I used Photoshop to put the three photos together, and finally prepared the file in InDesign to meet the printer's technical specifications. The final file was 60,000 px wide.
The main objective was to achieve a photo of the best possible quality so that it could be printed in high resolution on a giant canvas measuring 9m x 3m (30ft x 10ft), which would then be used for all kinds of events. As indeed it was on Aviation Day, which was held at Brussels Airport on 22 April 2017 (10,000 visitors).
© Brussels Airport
Just before sunset, I had the opportunity to take a panoramic view of the whole airport. As the sky was relatively unstable and there was little color in it, I ended up using a few cursors in Photoshop to create what might be considered a more artistic view.
Hardware:
• camera: Nikon D7200
• lens: Sigma 18-35 mm – ƒ1.8
• tripod: Benro – head: Manfrotto
• remote control: Hähnel
