Third area took me to RAF Newtownards, half of the area can easily be accessed by the public as it is a nature walk around the costal line. Previous recce to the area I could see some of the buildings were on the original airfield within Ulster Flying Club. I phoned the flying club to see if I could get access to the buildings and they agreed to escort me around. I arranged to meet them around 8pm thinking that this would be a good time to recce location and the lighting to be just right, but as it turns out it was an extremely hot and sunny evening with no soft diffused light to be seen. I decided to push on anyways I took my DLSR and a Hasselblad to see if I could get use to a film camera. Same as my other shoots the lighting was not quite right, too much contrast. I don’t think these images work with harsh highlights and shadows, adds too much distraction to the images and the shadows conceal information. Another problem was the amount greenery and foliage around the buildings/structures. Normally I like to see how the landscape entwines with the buildings, but on this airfield most of buildings were covered up and made it impossible to recognise some of them. This would be improved considerably if I shot these in the winter.
I wasn’t as relaxed with this shoot either, I was being escorted to each area, so I was conscious that I didn’t take up too much of his time. Not being used to the workings of a Hasselblad, that also took quite a bit of my time with exposure and composition. In high insight maybe, this wasn’t the best shoot to be using the film camera because I was still trying to get the right images too with my DLSR. This has been my least favourite shoot, but I did ask the flying club if I could come back in the winter which they agreed. I learnt Hasselblad unfortunately is not for me, but I do like that square format.
Critical Research Journal 