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Gallery: flying high in black and white

May 21, 2025 / 24 Comments

Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

Leonardo da Vinci

I think we humans must always have considered flight as something magical. After all, we can travel easily over the ground but without some supporting device are unable to leave it. Consider how many mythical creatures have the power of flight, from fairies to winged horses to dragons.

Terri’s Sunday Stills theme this week has prompted me to search my archives for photos that capture some of the magic of flight. And as you’ve probably seen some at least before, and as this week’s Monochrome Madness is theme-free, I’ve chosen to convert them to black and white.

All of these photos were edited with Nik Silver Efex Pro apart from the feature shot of skimmers on the beach in Cape May, New Jersey. For that one I used a vintage effects filter in Nik Color Efex Pro. It has kept a touch of red in their legs which I rather liked.

Birds in flight

But I’ll start with creatures who unlike us are able to fly unaided. I love photographing birds but while it’s quite a challenge to get a good shot of one sitting on a tree or elsewhere, capturing them in flight is harder still. However I have managed it on occasion, so I’ll start with a selection of them.

Click on any photo to open a slideshow of all, with captions explaining where each was taken

Flying machines

And now on to manmade flight. I have almost no photos of planes etc. in flight but I found a few. I confess I cheated a little with the helicopter. It was in flight when I photographed it but only just, hovering a few metres above the ground. I used Photoshop to change the background to all sky to make it look higher! Meanwhile the photo pf the plane, with a completely unedited sky, was taken from our back garden especially for this challenge!

The remaining photos here were taken while I was in flight. The ‘magic’ of being able to fly has never left me and although these days I find long haul flights tiring I am still always thrilled to be able to look out and down at the earth beneath. Unlike ‘birds in flight’ and ‘flying machines’ I have a very large number of such shots, so I’ve had to be very disciplined and selective!

Looking back over these after editing I realised that in most cases I prefer the colour version. Maybe that’s why it’s called Monochrome Madness!

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