Pic(k) of the week 25: REFLECTING ON THE AIRBUS A380

June 14, 2016

Pic(k) of the week 25: REFLECTING ON THE AIRBUS A380

Most of the blog visitors probably know that I fly airplanes for a living... While this is foremost a photography blog, sometimes aviation and photography meet in the middle. Such is the case for todays Pic(k) of the week!

It is hard to believe it has been more than 11 years since the worlds largest passenger plane took to the skies for the very first time in Toulouse, France. While the Airbus A380 did its maiden commercial service in October 2007, I've flying the 575ton double decker Airbus for just under four years now.

When looking back on the experience, I personally think it is the "best flying" Airbus I've flown (A319/A320/A321/A330-200/A340-300 and A340-500) and even several years after the entry into service, passengers are still specifically booking flights to get on an A380; loving its spacious and quiet cabin.

It might not be the most pretty of the airliners, but it sure moves a lot of people and it does so in total comfort! A few days ago, I was airborne with 650 people; more people than the total population of some of the smaller villages back home in Belgium!

Back to photography... last week, I asked the local fire-brigade to spray some water in front of a parked A380, in order to come up with an interesting reflection and commemorate the big mamma! No, just kidding. I did add the reflection in Photoshop to give the image a more interesting perspective. I guess for a very modern and technologically advanced aircraft, one can use some more advanced photoshop techniques!

Although I'm not sure he did it in Photoshop, I had initially seen the technique been applied by Austrian Aviation photographer Dietmar Schreiber. Since I'm not really a Photoshop expert, I decided to follow an online Youtube tutorial made by PSDesire. I'm pretty happy with the natural looking result of the reflection and would like to hear what you think.