Capture Chester: The Story Behind The Image

We’ve had such an amazing response to our Capture Chester Photography Competition that we wanted to showcase some of the talented photographers who have entered so far.

Many of the images made us curious to know more (the sign of a good image!) so we caught up with each photographer to find out a little more info!

Alex Foster: Chester General Station

‘The image was taken using my DJI Air 2 S Drone. It has a 1" sensor and handles low light pretty well, especially for something that's airborne! For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a commercial pilot but, for eyesight reasons, I can't fulfil this dream.

‘In my early teens I logged some light aircraft hours with my father, who had his private pilot's license. As an adult, a PPL is sadly prohibitively expensive to me, however flying a drone gives me some of the buzz I get when being in an aircraft and is significantly more affordable!

‘The image of Chester Station was taken shortly after 10pm on the 7th July this year, about 30 minutes after sunset. Shutter speed was 1/8 sec, ISO 100. The drone has a fixed aperture of f2.8 and the lens equivalent to 22.4mm.  I'd tried a couple of different angles of the station but felt that the portrait crop worked best in conjunction with the platforms and tracks.

‘I'm colour-blind (hence the lack of commercial pilot career!), so I tend to prefer shooting when colours are most vivid to me. Given that I'm not a morning person, this tends to be evening and night-time. This also has some effect on my editing in as much as I tend to probably slightly over saturate to compensate for the way my eyes see things. Colours have to really pop in order for me to see them - autumn, for example, is actually quite dull and under saturated with my vision.

‘With regards to editing, I initially do my best to correctly expose in camera (drone) using the built-in histogram. Then, in Lightroom, I try and keep things simple; tweak the histogram to remove any clipping warnings and then use the 'basic' adjustments until I'm happy. I always try to get a nice level horizon too. Sometimes, I'll quickly edit a jpeg from the drone using Snapseed on my mobile and then use this as a rough starting guide for the RAW edit. Personally, I prefer not to use Lightroom presets 99% of the time.

‘With regards to photography in general, I'm firmly in the camp that it's ok to use whatever equipment you have available. I enjoy the composition and the subject as much as I do the equipment and the setup. I'm currently in between ground-based cameras and use my iPhone 12 pro for most imagery (I use the Moment app to provide more flexibilty). I occasionally borrow my other half's Canon M50 if I want to go and do some low light work.

‘I fly drones as part of my day job too; photography, videography and more recently survey work. I have an A2CofC qualification that enables me to fly in places that the people without the certificate cannot, and I have almost completed my GVC qualification that further enhances my safety knowledge around flying, flight planning and commercial operations.

‘I would strongly advise anyone getting into drone flying to consider completing the A2CofC. It's inexpensive and provides a significant bump in knowledge over the basic CAA aptitude test we are all required to take when registering our device.’

Shot on:

• DJI Air 2S Drone
• 1/8 Sec
• ISO 100
• 22.4mm
• f2.8

To see more of Alex’s photography, hop on over to his Instagram account: @al3xfoster