Masters of the Air Photoshoot
B-17 Flying Fortress 'Sally B' / 'Memphis Belle'
North Weald
August 27, 2022
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Billed as; 'The Greatest Shoot' Richard Cooper and Steven Comber of the Centre of Aviation Photography (COAP) presented a fantastic weekend of aviation photography, which definitely lived up to the hype, as the "the most comprehensive historic aviation photo shoot ever undertaken!." There were a number of air-to-air sorties flown over the weekend with the flying star of the show, Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress named 'Sally B', Europe's sole airworthy B-17 Flying Fortress. The B-17 was positioned in a corner of North Weald airfield on a dedicated taxiway for the six hour shoot on each of the two days.
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Photographers getting in close to the two WASP actors. |
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Not a scene just exhausted actors, otherise the two plastic bottles would need cloning. |
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The make-up artist touching up the 'Captain's oxygen mask lines. |
I only attended one of the two-day ground events. Each day was in the company some of the cast of the yet to be released TV film, 'Masters of the Air'. These included at least 16 professional actors all appropriately aged between 18 and 25. They were dressed in authentic clothing as for the Second World War with ten dressed as aircrew and four as ground crew. There were also two officers and two Women's Red Cross / Auxiliary Service Pilots (WASPs) all arriving on set in a World War Two vehicle.
The professional actors with an onsite hair and make-up artist performed in the created scenes making each looking so realistic. Some of the photo-scenes were re-created from 1943 archive photographs sourced by COAP, while other scenes must have been inspired by the 'Masters of the Air' film set. I say that because the actors were constantly performing without any instruction around the aircraft as though the scene was constantly ‘live’. Photography was consequently limitless with actors moving around the set in character, so there was constant action for the photographers. The World War Two inspired scenes were choreographed by Steven Comber who with his megaphone and a folder of old black and white images, directed the very willing actors to re-create an iconic image taken 80 years ago. I must say there was an audible gasp from the photographers during the scene of the aircrew returning to their home base after a raid over Nazi Germany and being ecstatically greeted by their ground crew. It brought a tear to my eyes I am not embarrassed to say, it looked so real!
Masters of the Air
The Apple TV mini-series produced by film director Steven Spielberg and actor Tom Hanks with an estimated $200 to $250 million budget was filmed in southern England. Starting in February this year, some of the filming took place at Dalton Barracks Abingdon. The TV show is a follow-up to the Emmy-award-winning World War Two mini-series 'Band of Brothers' and 'The Pacific'. 'Masters of the Air' will focus on the US Air Force ‘s 100th Bombardment Group who were based at Thorpe Abbotts in Suffolk. Dalton Barracks apparently had a £5 million World War Two make-over plus two replica B-17s.
The Photography
With so many actors in the scenes moving around and sometimes running, it was a challenge to get that perfect shot. When I say perfect, I mean where faces are not blocked by another actor, and their expressions and movement look natural. There were times when modern cars drove passed in the background, Steven was quick to move them on using his megaphone! The background was generally good but there were times when modern 'clutter' needed to be avoided by shooting from another angle. I took a modest 3,200 images so the odds of getting a fantastic shot were greatly increased.
Post-processing has been time consuming, weeding out the many images that fell short of sensational or needed too much cloning out of the clutter. I have processed for modern-day digital colour but have added a number of black and white adaptations with some even more aged sepia style effects to make my favourite images even more authentic. I used Lightroom predominantly with a number of black and white presets and additionally two plugins: Color Efex Pro 4 and Silver Efex Pro 2 (Vintage Sepia and Classic B/W). I also used Aurora by Skylum for the HDR images. Photoshop was used for some additional cloning.
I was overwhelmed to receive these comments from a researcher with a World War Two aviation history museum in the United States; "What an absolute pleasure it was to come across your portfolio of images you created from the Masters of the Air shooting location! I have found no better source of rich detail and color of WW2 combat flight dress! The subjects in your work showed the before and after comradery of a combat crew like none I have ever seen both in original photos of the period or after. It is such a treat to go over each of your images and marvel at the detail and staging of each shot!" |
| Above: A priest leading the prayers before they take to the air. A scene recreated from archive images from 1944. |
| Above: Air crew gather before the flight making final preparations. |
| Above: Air crew flight preparations. |
| Above: The final line-up of the air crew. The crew of ten consists of a Pilot, Co-pilot, Navigator, Radio and Radar Operator, Bombardier and five Gunners, (Left and Right Waist Gunners, Top Turret Gunner/Flight Engineer, Ball Turret Gunner and Tail Gunner). |
| Above: The final briefing of the air crew of the mission plans. |
| Welcome back! The air crew make their way from the aircraft after the raid. |
| Above: These scenes depict the crews disembarking the aircraft at the end of a mission with obvious celebrations that they made it back after a long mission over NAZI Germany. |
| Dohnuts for the flying crew |
| Above: I assume the idea for giving out dohnuts to the crew was taken from actual archive photographs. |
| Above: Relaxing with an impromptu game of baseball. |
| Above: Throughout the shoot these guys were in character as the ground crew working on and around the aircraft. |
| Above: The two Women's Red Cross / Auxiliary Service Pilots (WASPs). |
| Above: Ground crew and air crew arrive at the aircraft. |
| The actors prime the four engines for real ready for engine start-up. |
| Above: The B-17 is powered by four 1,200 HP Wright R-1820-97 Cyclone nine cylinder radial air cooled engines. If the engines have stood for over two hours then the pilot selects, "Ignition switch to off", and the ground crew will then prime or turn the propellers by hand three complete revolutions ready to start the engines. The actors were actually shown how to do this by the actual B-17 crew. This would have been a task they did not get to do during the making of the film. |
| Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress (44-85784 '124485 DF-A' registered G-BEDF) 'Sally B' owned by Elly Sallingboe and operated by the B-17 Preservation based at Duxford. Peter Kuypers, Training Captain and B-17 Liaison heads the actual flying crew. Peter joined the team in 2009. He introuced the crew and briefed the photographers at the start of the shoot. |
| Above: Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress (44-85784 '124485 DF-A' registered G-BEDF) is painted as 'Memphis Belle' on the starboard side, 'Sally B' on the port side. |
| Above: B-17G Flying Fortress (44-85784 '124485 DF-A' registered G-BEDF) start-up and taxi out. |
