Singapore Airshow 2014 static displays

We walked around the static display section of the Singapore Airshow 2014 under the scorching sun. We stayed indoors for as long as we could, but there was only that much to see in the indoor section. We inevitably had to venture out into the static display section, since those were the attractions of the show aside from the air displays.

There were long queues for people who want a chance to sit in the cockpits of the various aircrafts. There were two queues to get into the planes. You had to queue to get a token for the plane you wish to board, and then queue again when you are at the displays. This was apparently to prevent

We chose to skip the queues. It was more worth my time strolling around and snapping photos instead of standing in line for so long just to get the brief moment in the cockpit. Besides, we had enough of queuing for the day. We went there by taxi and there was a long queue of taxis and cars waiting to get in. Then, there was a queue for the security check at the entrance. After the show, we had to queue for the shuttle bus to bring us to the nearest MRT station.

If you are new to this site you might be wondering why I am posting this series so long after the event. I have a habit of letting my photos sit for a while after I have taken them. By allowing the photos to marinate, I lose my emotional attachment to them and end up being able to edit more objectively. I did not believe this initially. I decided to experiment by selecting my favourite photos right after a shoot and then doing so again after a few weeks. To my surprise, my selections from both sittings turn out pretty differently.

In fact, going back to look at the series that I edited right after the photo shoots, I noticed that the way I process the same photos was different too. If you haven’t tried this before, I urge you to give it a try. The easiest way to notice this is to go back and edit an old series. You would probably edit it differently compared to the previous edit.

My dad is always editing his paintings. Sometimes he does a complete overhaul. I didn’t understand why he did that, but now I have grasped the reason. To me, it is a sign that you have refined your tastes and made progress towards your definitive style.

The Spirit of Kamehameha refers to the Kamehameha Dynasty of Hawaii, though the first thought that popped in my head was Dragon Ball. Any otaku would probably think along that line. Imua means forward in Hawaiian.

The Boeing C-17 Globemaster III was already packing up and getting ready to leave. I managed to get some shots before the aircraft was towed away.

It was sapping to queue under the relentless sun and we could see people hiding in the shades of the wings or the tails of the aircrafts.

Look at that queue.

We got hungry as by lunch time. The food catering at the event was atrocious to say the least. There were two stalls selling food but one was sold out. The Italian stall was working at its limits, with a long snaking queue waiting to order and a huddle of customers waiting to collect their order. We had to queue for half an hour before we got to place our order, and it was another half an hour wait for our pizzas to be ready.

The food was overpriced and tasted average. We didn’t have any alternatives and we had our stomachs to appease. If you plan to go for future airshows, bring your own food and spare yourself the ordeal. Look at that happy family enjoying their delicious home cooked meal while the rest of us waited for an hour for our disappointing food. They actually brought a whole pot of curry and had the rice packed in tupperwares. Ingenious.

It was a frustrating wait to place the order and a man made it worse. When we almost reached the counter, a young man tried to jump the queue by cutting in front of the Japanese guy before us. I think the Japanese man was too polite to call him out. My brother and I spoke up for him and told the man to queue up. The man had the cheek to say, “Oh, I already in the queue, I just let people go first because I waiting for my friend.”

Now, if he sheepishly apologised and joined the queue, we would have let it rest. But, no, he took us for fools. We pointed out that we have been in the queue for a good half an hour and we were pretty sure he had not been giving way as he claimed. He did not know how to respond to that and just stood around. And then he tried to cut in behind us instead.

He seemed to think that the guy behind us would be oblivious to what happened and buy his story. But we were having none of it. We made it clear that he was jumping the queue and I whipped out my phone to start snapping photos of him. Now that I was taking photos coupled with the many pairs of eyes in the queue staring at him, he became uncomfortable. Then, he conveniently got a call from his friends, who were at the end of the queue. His situation suddenly became that of him mistaking where his friends were in the queue. “How come you all are there? I thought you all at the front already.”

With that he beat a hasty retreat.

This series was shot on the Leica M8 with the Voigtlander 21 mm Color-Skopar f/4.0 P lens and the Nikon D700 with the AF Fisheye 16 mm f/2.8D lens. Can you differentiate between those shot on Voigtlander and the fisheye? The wide angle and fisheye distortions look similar, but the latter is more pronounced. The giveaway is probably the obvious vignetting on the M8.