Photo insight
Aviation photographer Lloyd Horgan on his action shot of a Chinook
Aviation pro Lloyd Horgan captured this striking action shot of a Chinook for a magazine commission. His assignment was to document a short embed with the Royal Canadian Air Force in Gao, Mali, part of a UN mission (MINUSMA) providing medical and casualty evacuation, troop and utility transport.
Part of the deployment involved training with other nations. Together with a Dutch long-range patrol team, a MEDEVAC mission was simulated, which involved two separate injuries to personnel and lasted 40 minutes. Lloyd’s job as the photographer was to capture a series of formation shots of the various aircraft involved to showcase their roles in the mission. He tells us, ‘ The Chinook’s role is to fly the CMERT (Canadian Medical Emergency Team) to the point of injury so that they recover the casualty, load them on the helicopter and then fly them back to base to give them the best care possible.’ As well as the time constraints that come with training simulations, Lloyd had to adhere to the challenging dusty conditions of shooting in a desert. ‘One of the trickier parts is the landing, owing to the enormous amount of rotor wash the Chinook produces,’ says Lloyd. ‘It whips up a ridiculous amount of sand and dust. Given the environment, it was a musthave shot for the feature we were working on.’ After the mission was completed they returned to Gao to drop off the casualties and medical crew and switched from the Chinook to the Griffon to shoot the air-to-air images. Images of desert conditions are pretty synonymous in helicopter operations but Lloyd wanted to capture something unique. The shot Lloyd had in mind was dependent on a number of factors all coming together. The Chinook crew found a large, flat area that had a single tree situated in the middle. ‘Crews make use of landmarks to keep their situational awareness,’ explains Lloyd. ‘ They ran through three landings, all the time we were flying alongside them in a CH-146 Griffon helicopter. As the dust started to engulf the Chinook, we flew a wide orbit around and cut across the rear of it when I took this shot.’ He continues, ‘It was at this point while they were holding in a low hover waiting for the worst of the dust to disperse before landing that I captured the image I’d pictured in my head.’
Because he was shooting from another moving aircraft, Lloyd had to compensate for his movement – another factor he’d had to consider. ‘I would usually shoot with a slower shutter speed as the blades of a Chinook rotate slower than most single-rotor aircraft, but owing to the fact we weren’t in a hover when taking the shot, I upped the speed and sacrificed some of the blur.’
It’s situations like this when Lloyd has limited opportunities to capture the shots he’s envisioned. But
‘Owing to the fact we weren’t in a hover when taking the shot, I upped the shutter speed and sacrificed some of the blur’
despite its challenges, he enjoys the pressure. ‘Shooting on the fly and working around a crew’s schedule can produce some really natural images, especially with portraits of crew members as they’re too busy concentrating on their job to notice a camera pointing in their direction.’
The nature of this genre does have its dangers, but that doesn’t stop Lloyd from enjoying what he does best. ‘I love flying so whenever I get to go up in the air I feel incredibly privileged. These crews fly into situations which can be inherently dangerous to save human lives, so it’s so much more than just flying helicopters, and that’s what I want to try and show through my work.’
Lloyd’s tips for photos from an aircraft
‘I will typically shoot from anywhere between 1/50sec to 1/200sec; however, helicopters are not the smoothest of aircrafts to shoot from so having a lens with a good VR system helps a lot. Some photographers also use gyro stabilisers, which attach to the bottom of the camera and soak up a lot of the vibrations.
‘Safety is also a big point – nobody wants to have a mid-air collision, so trying to work out a clear photo brief before launching for the flight is essential to make sure everyone knows what they’re doing, and more importantly what to do if anything goes wrong.’