Hi!

Here’s a bit about my passion for aviation photography, which as you can probably see is somewhat dominant, but I also have strong interests in travel & associated general photography, cars (especially Italian sports), music and cycling.

My interest in aviation was sparked by growing up under the approach to Southend Airport, which in those days flourished with classic prop aircraft. These are still my favourite, along with early generation jets.

I began shooting slides in 1970, but have been based near Heathrow where I’ve worked for the last 34 years. I always favoured Kodachrome 25, even for action shots, despite its slow speed as I believe the colour rendition and overall quality was significantly better than its faster stable-mate, KR64. When Kodak sadly discontinued it, I put a big stash of the slow stuff in a special freezer, but the demise of Kodachrome processing finally pushed me into embracing the undeniable advantages of digital photography.

Since the digital switch I have greatly enjoyed coaxing the best out of those treasured slides courtesy of the Minolta 5400 DiMage Elite scanner and progressively better PS skills.

I use Nikon equipment, and during the later pre-digital days relied mainly on F100s with 35-70 2.8 and 80-200 2.8 lenses. The latter one is awesomely good, the best optic I’ve ever had the pleasure of using. Originally tried a Nikon D70 DSLR in 2004 but was unimpressed by comparison with results from the Canon competition so quickly sold, and have since had D50, D80, D90 and then excellent D5200 with 18-105 & 70-300VR. I soon added a D5500 which I still have along with a full frame D780, Nikon 200-500 and 10-20.

One thing that seems to differentiate my approach to the hobby is that I've only ever collected those slides and photos which I've actually shot myself, thus making things much more difficult.

I like to travel as much as my understanding family will allow and have managed to cover approaching 100 countries with favourites in South America, Asia and most definitely Russia and the republics where I was escape the onslaught of amorphous modern wide-bodies until they inevitably succumbed to western types.

Thanks for showing an interest in my work; I do try very hard to produce pleasing results...

Richard Vandervord, 18.5.14

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