How did it begin part 3?
Welcome back readers to part three of how did it begin?? in this part we move into the year of 2018, where more London photography took place including some nighttime photography, also a trip to the Irish city of Dublin with some awesome flying displays from the largest military air show.
Starting off the year where not much happened in the terms of photography, it was a quieter year with me and photography. 2018 was the start of the final months till I finished college for good. There was a lot of coursework and deadlines to meet so I didn't do too much outside of college. In March time we had a nice snow day, I remember walking through Nonsuch Park, looking how beautiful the area looked in the snow. The photo below was taken on my phone (no DSLR camera was used here) There wasn’t many people outside in the park which made this photo that tad bit better. I love when there are no people in the picture.
Nonsuch Park, shot on iPhone 6s Plus
Date-2nd March 2018
Roll on a month into the month of April, once again I made my way into London. This was just a small little break away in the city. I think I did some exploring (mainly the same sights) but this time I remember staying around Tower Bridge/The Tower of London.
Sitting on the green by Tower Bridge ( I still didn’t have my own camera) I was still using my brother’s Canon 1300D. I still didn't know much about editing as I didn’t really have the tools to edit photos.
Date-14th April 2018
The unique shape of this London building aka the Walkie Talkie. Located at the top of this building is sky garden which is very popular (I have never been there before). This woudln’t be the first shots I would take of this very funny shaped building.
Date 14th April 2018
I remember we brought a massive bag of M&M’s so I was trying a close up macro shot of the M&M’s.
Date-14th April 2018
When looking back on the early 2018 photos I thought I took more photos in London (Give it a year or two, that’s all going to change). I had a few photos taken of me while in London, which I won’t share as you don’t need to see that photos haha. In 2018 I remember doing a few activates with my brother, we did GoApe for the first time which was really awesome. If you don’t know what GoApe is, basically you have climbing equipment (wearing a harness) you climb up trees and get to zip line down to next areas. My brother and I went to the GoApe at Bracknell. we was basically the only ones on our course so we could take time doing the course.
The other exciting activity we did was we climbed the o2 dome. This was given as a birthday present to both my brother, I say I would highly recommend it. It was very fun. When we did it was windy but it was very fun. Can be difficult at times but its worth the climb. We noticed it was steeper coming down than going up.
Can’t tell who the gorilla is??
Date-10th June 2018
The view at the top the o2 was amazing. The sun shining does help with how beautiful the city looks. I mean you could not tell how windy it was but it was extremely windy up there.
Date-16th June 2018
The harness was quite tight… but hey got the keep safe photo of the amazing experience
Date-16th June 2018
New equipment
Some exciting stuff happened between June and July. I finally got myself a MacBook Pro. This was the 15 inch with top specs. This was going to lead into me starting properly photo editing through Lightroom. My dream had come for me to own my first ever MacBook. I have always loved the Apple Mac line. I was thinking about getting an iMac but I didn’t really have the space for it in my room (yes it is quite small). Now I have my iPad Pro 12.9 inch and my MacBook Pro 15 inch which is a great combination to multitask with different applications. I didn’t actually start photo editing until later on down the year. I used my new MacBook Pro to manage all my photos, used it for other admin tasks in my own personal life.
Leading into the the month of July, my brother and I went to the largest military airshow called the Royal International Air Tattoo. It is located in Fairford (Gloucestershire) at the base of RAF Fairford. This base is used by the US Air Force. Every year this air show happens and brings many people from around the world to this show, You will find families, military enthusiasts, plane geeks (like myself), photographers (again like myself). I have never been to this airshow before but my brother had and he took me. I thoughly enjoyed myself.
At this time I will point out I didn’t have my own camera so my brother and I shared it during the two days when we visited the airshow. The airshow lasts from Friday-Sunday, we went to the Friday and Saturday airshows (which we now do all the time). We shared on who did the photography over the long weekend. Most of the static photos were taken by my brother and if I am not mistaken I think most of the flying photos were taken by me with some of them being taken by my brother. Now I wouldn’t be able to tell you which photo was taken by who (my mind isn’t that good)
Below you will find some variety of photos from the airshow, from the static to the flying display… These photos were taken in the JPEG format and non of them were edited.
We spent the morning on the Friday walking around the show ground at the static aircraft they had on offer. The flying didn’t start until 11:00am. There was a lot of aircraft to see, many small stands with some awesome merchandise to buy. I remember buying a RIAT jumper (which I still have). Once we looked at most of the aircraft we made our way to the viewing area to watch the displays. I wasn’t ready for how loud it was going to be. As I said I had never been to a proper airshow before, this was going to be an awesome experience.
On the camera we was using the longer kit lens which was the 70-300mm (Which I still have) we was also using the 18-54mm kit lens as well for the static aircraft on the ground. It got to 11:00 and the flying displays began. It was a special year this year the Royal Air Force was celebrating its 100th birthday, so we got some very good displays from the RAF.
Below you will see a collective of photos of the displays over the two days…
1 of 2 flying Lancasters in the world. This one belongs to the Royal Air Force Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF)
Date-13th July 2018
Incoming Spitfire and Hurricane from behind.
Date-13th July 2018
The beautiful fly past of the most iconic aircrafts in the world.
Date-13th July 2018
The Airbus A400 doing what it does best..steep take off capabilities
The advance F-35 soaring through the blue skies. This is a very similar design of the F-22. In my honest opinion the F-22 is a much better looking design. I still haven’t seen that aircraft fly, it’s currently on my list of things to see.
Date-13th July 2018
The Swiss Air Force display team and there F-18 Hornet in a beautiful fly past formation.
Date 13th July 2018
The C-27J Spartan is one of the most agile 2 engine aircraft with its amazing capabilities, such as doing alerons rolls and barrel rolls.
Date-13th July 2018
The iconic blade slap from the two blades of the Chinook display team.
Date-13th July 2018
Not the Eurofighter Typhoon but its equivalent which was flown by the French. The Ralfé is a close competition to the Eurofighter Typhoon.
Date-18th July 2018
Solo Turk doing some really amazing display items. One of the best displays I have ever seen.
Date-13th July 2018
This is one of the awesome shots of the EuroFighter Typhoon. Judging on the picture I am not sure if this the Royal Air Force display team or if it was from another country.
Date-13th July 2018
The Italian Tricolore display team doing what they do best. I would say they are close to the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team The Red Arrows in sense of best displays team but The Red Arrows takes the number 1 spot.
Date-13th July 2018
The beautiful Italian colours flown by the display team.
Date-13th July 2018
The iconic fly past from the Spitfire, F-35 and the P-51 mustang.
Date-14th July 2018
The iconic Eurofighter Typhoon display team from the Royal Air Force. This has the iconic 100th birthday livery on the tail of the aircraft.
Well, well, well what do we have here?? the most recognisable display team in the world, The Red Arrows. Flying over the crowd to start their display.
Date-14th July 2018
The most beautiful sight you’ll ever see. The BBMF in all of its glory. The Lancaster Bomber, Dakota, Spitfire and Hurricane in an amazing formation flight.
Date-14th July 2018
As the Royal Air Force was celebrating 100 years, they had some exclusive displays on the Saturday. 9 Eurofighter Typhoons in formation (which you never get to see at many airshows)
Date-14th July 2018
Another iconic display that happened which was the combination of past, present and future. 617 Squadron aka the Dambusters. The Lancaster, the beautiful Tornado (one of my favourite aircraft) and the new F-35 which the Royal Air Force will now fly alongside the Eurofighter Typhoon.
Date-14th July 2018
The pictures show a lot more emotion if you know what was happening at the end of the year. The Tornado (on the right) was retiring to let the F-35 take over as one of the work horse of the Royal Air Force. This photo shows them two splitting ways one saying goodbye to the other.
Date-14th July 2018
This wraps up for the 2018 RIAT section of the blog. There was so many photos to show but I picked a few of my favourites. In later blogs you may see some of these pictures again. This is because of me editing photos and I went back looking through these photos. This airshow was absolutely amazing. My ears were definitely ringing after it all. This would then start a trend of my brother and I going to this airshow every year as you will see in upcoming blogs.
Let’s carry on, we move to a few months later into the month of September, where I get a new phone. I upgraded my iPhone 6s Plus to the new iPhone XS Max. This had a great camera on it which I was definitely going to utilise i.e the portrait mode. Most of the pictures you will now see is taken from the iPhone…
While waiting for the train to go home, I used the portrait mode on the iPhone and took this picture. For me its one of my favourite photos I took on my phone.
Date-5th October 2018
When I started my new job back in July I used to get the bus to work as it was cheaper. When I got my new phone I liked taking pictures of the morning and seeing the low autumn light.
Date-1st October 2018
Once again the morning light on my way to work was absoultley stunning, The beautiful red sunrise was just stunning to look at. Got to love sitting at the top of the bus on the way to work.
Date-9th October 2018
Near the end of October, my brother and I went to Wembley to watch the American football. We went to see its as a family back in 2015, as things had changed, me and my brother went to see the Los Angles Chargers vs Tennessee Titans .
Date-21st October 2018
The panoramic view of the stadium in all its glory with a packed crowd. It is one of the best experiences you could have. So many different fans from all points of the globe.
Date-21st October 2018
One of the most memorable moments of the year was 11th November. This is remembrance day, my brother and I were very lucky to be part of the march past the cenotaph. We went in our smart uniform that we had as cadets. We had a poppy reef to lay down at the cenotaph during the march. It was one of the proudest moments we’ve had to commemorate the 100 years since the end of World War One.
Date-11th November 2018
After we did the march, we made our way to the Tower of London in the evening as they were holding a service there. During the year they were planting ceramic poppies that people could buy to be planted (we actually have it at home)
Date-11th November 2018
The beautiful Tower of London in the nighttime. The low light photography on the iPhone is actually very good.
Date-11th November 2018
Instead of catching the London Underground back to London Waterloo station we decided to walk back. The street were very quiet (well it was a Sunday). St Pauls Cathedral is a very iconic landmark in London, we made our way past it to head to the Millennium Bridge (aka the wobbly wobbly bridge). The light was lighting up the central part of the cathedral which made it perfect to take a shot.
Date-11th November 2018
Closer up shot of St Pauls. It is genuinely a beautiful landmark and the fact it didn’t get hit during the Blitz in World War Two.
Date-11th November 2018
In the middle of November I took a trip to Dublin with my brother. Okay I should probably just say his name is Dan or Daniel, I don’t know why I kept referring him to my brother. Say hello to Dan. We had some points from British Airways that needed to be used so we was trying to figure out where to go. Then we thought how about Dublin. On the 13th November we headed to London Heathrow terminal 5. Very lucky we actually got to fly out business class which meant we could use the business class lounge.
Yummy breakfast in the British Airways lounge.
Date-13th November 2018
You can’t beat a wing view on a flight, they are the best seats on a flight. We was getting closer to Dublin at this point of the flight. The flight isn’t too long, I think it was about 1 hour and half, (I could be wrong). On the flight we got served a child’s meals which Dan and I found funny.
Date-13th November 2018
When we arrived into Dublin airport we made our way to the bus terminal to get into the centre of Dublin city centre. It was a quick journey into the city. There wasn’t much traffic around which was amazing. Even though it was winter time we found that it wasn’t massively cold in Dublin.
We didn’t need anywhere fancy to stay so we chose a good old Travelodge which did the job for the next few days while we was there. It was in the centre and was close to the tour bus that we had planned for the next day. They had a lot of places to eat, we even found a Nando’s which we went to that evening we arrived into Dublin.
it was getting closer to Christmas so Grafton street set up their Christmas lights to get people into the festive mood. Grafton street is a famous street, its like like Bond Street equivalent (it did have a Disney Store)
Date-13th November 2018
The next morning we grabbed some breakfast and made out way to get the tour bus to take us around the city. I think we was massively early (that’s a very Hurley thing to do). Once we got onto the bus we made our way around the city and learned about it’s history, culture and politics throughout the years. I was using my phone for photos. I completely forgot to bring my camera with me. We visited some famous places as you will now see…
We was the only ones on the top of the bus. We are true tourists.
Date-14th November 2018
The famous Guinness Storehouse. Which will be a place we will be visiting over the few days we were there.
Date-14th November 2018
Nope it’s not the White House but it is the residents of the president of Ireland.
Date 14th November 2018
Yep as you see it, this is the structure in the middle of one of the streets in the city. This is the landmark of Dublin. It’s just a massive spire which you cannot miss.
Date-14th November 2018
I won’t give too much away but all I will say is the following, this bar was awesome. It was definitely up mine and Dan’s ally. Let’s just say someone may have got very very drunk and was the funniest thing ever. I also love a bit of neon sign photos as well
Date-14th November 2018
In the evening after having a cheeky Nando's, we went for a walk at night. We made our way to the famous bridge in Dublin which is called the Ha'penny Bridge.
Date-14th November 2018
Portrait photos on the iPhone always will be one of my favourite features ever to be implemented.
Date-14th November 2018
After someone was recovering from there small hangover from the night before. We made out way to the Guinness Storehouse for a tour (which even if you don’t drink you should do). Learn about the history of the famous beer and how it is brewed. Instead of getting transport over we actually walked over which was a nice walk to the factory.
The quiet streets of the Guinness Store house. I loved the feel when I was here. I loved the factory setting as it always interests me.
Date-15th November 2018
They still had the track lines back in the day when they used hours and carriage that ran on the tracks.
Date-15th November 2018
Kinda funky hall way inside of the factory. I do love the lighting which make you are walking into some boujee club or something.
Date-15th November 2018
View of the Dublin from above. This was from the top of the Guinness factory where you could grab a free drink of Guinness or a soft drink if you don’t drink.
As our Dublin trip came to an end, this is a photo taken at 5:00am, I think our flight was at 8:30 or something. We wanted to get to the airport on time. I remember walking down Grafton street and it was very peaceful and very weird. That’s because there wasn’t anyone out of at that time of the morning.
Date 16th November 2018
We made it back to Dublin airport, got through security quite quickly. We actually had plenty of time to spare. Found a place to sit down which was in Burger King, had some food at like 07:00am. I don’t care I had chicken at that time, it woke me up very much. I looked outside the window and saw the sunrise over the airport.
Later on down the line we found out our gate and made our way there. We quickly boarded the plane, push back then commenced. The next few photos are ones I took from the window…
Just like that we touched back down at London Heathrow. Dublin will always go down as one of my favourite trips with Dan. It was very relaxing and very funny.
At this point we are getting close to the end of 2018. In December I didn’t take that many pictures as I found out both on my new camera and on my phone. I know there was a lot of selfies and some pictures from the Christmas party from work.
I did go to London a couple more times in December but some of those photos are actually shockingly blurry worst than other ones (so I will not share them). I also went to see the fireworks in London on New Years Eve for the first time. That was very good, a beautiful experience.
What does 2019 have in store for Adam and his photography?? stay tuned for the next part of the blog where things get more exciting.
Thank you for reading part 3 of this blog, I hope you have enjoyed reading it and looking at some of the photos. You will notice that some of the blogs will be longer due to the amount of photos on there and stories as well.
Any feedback would be great, feel free to email me, contact me on instagram as well which you’ll be able to find on the website.
Thank you very much!
