Early morning at the Düsseldorf airport. Many planes are getting ready for the first flight of the day. For now, our airport doesn’t have any long-haul departures so it is almost safe to say that most of the planes will fly at least one more time today after departing rainy Düsseldorf. At least our regional Bombardier for sure will.
After a somewhat bumpy takeoff and passing rainy clouds, it was finally time for a calm sail under this morning grey sky. It is quick and somehow during those quick journeys between cities, I feel how fast planes are the most. Because on the train the same journey would take around 7 hours. If everything goes well. But here, I just spend almost an hour to appear in the same city. Progress is beautiful. As those machines.
Stretched my legs, had a coffee, and read a chapter from the book. That’s it, I already can feel pilots making turns for the approach scheme to Copenhagen airport. After a quick minutes – landing and then it’s time to stare at planes again. before disembarking.
This time I took my new lens to try and get used to. It is a pretty recent updated Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM lens which still works pretty well with my almost 30-year-old Canon 500n. So different paces of obsolescence. Comparing to modern phones for example.
As for the film, for this journey, I took Kodak Gold200 – an affordable yet pretty good and warm film I liked from the trip to Malaysia, Thailand and Dubai last December. This photo contains a spoiler about the film I’ve also tried. Soon I’ll share this story too.
Aircraft’s surfaces are so shiny and the weather in Copenhagen was so warm and mild compared to Düsseldorf so the photos look more like from some warm destination with the smell of sea and a beach close by. But no, this is one of the Scandinavian capitals. Anyway, it was time to go for a walk before checking in to the hotel. And take some shots of Copenhagen.
I think, I finally found a type of photography that I particularly like. Transport street photography. Maybe the name isn’t the most accurate, I purposely didn’t research and try to find it naturally, but I think I like to see and take photos of the emotions those machines carry. Airplanes and trains are of course my favorite. They don’t just move our bodies from one place to another, they carry our dreams and wishes, bringing people close to be together and taking someone important from them for very different kinds of goals. Everyone boarding a train or aircraft has a goal and has their own destination. And something or someone important at that destination.
The conference
The goal of this trip for me was to meet with my team and attend a KotlinConf. Who doesn’t know what it is – trust me, this is a great event if you are in the IT industry and Kotlin or Java or Android-related technologies. Talks, execution, party, and almost everything about this event can be just called “good” and “great”.
Two random photos at the end of this part. I love how great this lens makes bokeh. Macro photos are just as good as they should be. The last one is a view from my room. Early morning of the next day after the flight.
Ilford HP5 Plus
The latest version of the famous Ilford HP series film. Its origin goes into 1931 when Ilford started production of their Hypersensitive Panchromatic plates (HP). Later they developed films with the same name and then improved them generation after generation. And now, the HP5 plus is the latest version of this black and white film.
Many famous documentary photographers used Ilford HP and even in the recent movie “Civil War” about documentary photographers I think I saw a character who used film cameras exclusively using an HP5.
Having this in the background the journey with this film becomes more inspiring. Just thinking of how many important or just great photos were made using the same instrument you can just get in most of the camera shops.
Funny enough, I bought a roll with 24 exposures, not 36 like usual. And I saw it only right before inserting the spool into the camera. At first, I thought “Okay nice, this should be more than enough since our trip is already ends and just one day and that’s it”. But no. How could I forget that this is not the last day. The next day is a day of returning home. I.e. airport, flight, planes. So, in the end, 24 exposures was almost a stretch. But not super bad though.
Back to CPH
When I was a kid I was super excited about planes. Okay, maybe still. But back then my journey was just starting and I thought I wanted to be a pilot. Okay, maybe still. At some point. So, I was spending quite some time in Microsoft Flight Simulator trying to learn how to handle those machines. Boeing 737 NG and Tupolev Tu-154m were my favorites. So, in-flight systems airports are called by 4-letter ICAO codes. Now I spend more time on booking websites and planning travels. And those systems use 3-letter IATA codes.
Copenhagen Airport’s ICAO code is EKCH and the IATA code is CPH. We flew back to Düsseldorf or UDDL or simply DUS. So, our flight was Copenhagen – Düsseldorf or EKCH-EDDL or CPH-DUS.
Knowing those codes it is easier to avoid confusion especially when there is more than 1 airport in the city like in Beijing: PEK for Beijing Capital and PKX for the new Beijing Daxing airport. 85 km distance. Better to know in advance.
As always, the flight was great. Many planes around, many excited or a bit sad or worrying people. Or just a person wearing a suit, tired after a business trip, sending a couple of messages before arriving home. How different the same flight can be for different people. Just 1 hour. Better with pizza by the way. Food on flights always has a touch of special taste. Even though in reality it is just a slight smell of defrosting.
Echo 