Story By: Basant Essam, Sub-Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash
An amateur photographer who works at an airport got the best Christmas present when he finally managed to take a picture of a plane landing just as it appears to touch the rising sun after trying every day for a year.
Mostafa Atef, 38, who works at Sharm El-Sheikh International Airport in Egypt, is a keen amateur photographer who likes the effect of a plane landing just as the sun is rising, so he decided to try and capture the scene.
However, it proved to be more difficult than planned and he had to constantly revise his location and strategy to try and capture the perfect moment.
In an interview with Newsflash, he said: “I got the idea year ago, I was up early in the morning because I wanted to go training on my bike, and saw plane arriving during sunrise and it was a really beautiful scene, so I became determined to capture it on my camera.
“But it was not as easy as I planned, and for a whole year I tried, following the morning airport operating schedule to know the arrival dates at sunrise, but even when I found a plane that seems to match the sunrise, often it would not arrive and it was supposed to, or the weather was not quite right and so it didn’t work.
He said that there were many problems, for example, there was only a limited amount of time when the plane and the sun were in the frame together, and then he needed to make sure that he was in the right place so that the lineup between his camera, the sun and the plane was perfect.
He said there were other factors like making sure he modified the camera settings to suit the lighting for the perfect silhouette and also days where everything else was perfect but the weather or the sunrise were not right.
He added: “The first attempt was in December 2019, and I carried on trying until 11th December this year when everything finally came together.
“It was about 10 minutes before sunrise and there was a plane arriving, and the plane was late, and that was my lucky day.
“I panned very carefully to make sure the camera focused on the plane all the time. I shot about 50 photos in order to choose the best shot and then I had it.”
Finally, with the winter sunrises more reliable than the summer, he got the perfect picture which he shared online and which was widely praised.
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