Aerial Photography How To

Richard Cooke is a British action photographer who has been making amazing images of everything from fighter jets to Arctic warfare for the past 40 years. In the video below, you’ll see some incredible shots he captured on film in 1977 of the Red Arrows—an acrobatic team of flyers within Britain’s Royal Air force.

Cooke pioneered the technique of photographing fighter jets, and his head-on images are quite amazing since he was shooting “blind” from within the cockpit without modern technology like wireless remotes to provide of view of what’s being photographed.

As he explains in the video, Cooke attached a Nikkormat EL (Nikon’s first electronic camera) beneath the aircraft he was in. The camera was loaded with Kodachrome 64 and was fitted with an autowinder and 24mm Nikkor lens with a polarizing filter. Inside the cockpit Cooke also had a Nikon F2 Photomic with 24mm and 35mm lenses—both outfitted with polarizing filters.

Cooke did plenty of testing on the ground before shooting these images from the air. By determining the precise distance of his lens from the aircraft he was able preset the focus. With only one 36-exposure roll of film in his camera beneath the airplane, we’d say his batting average was excellent.

You can read more about Cooke's aerial images on this website where you can view and purchase a number of these great shots

Via DIY Photography