Tim Lashbrook, The Last Flight (B&W 2022)

The final public display of the RAAF F/A-18A Hornet at Wings Over Illawarra in 2021. After 40 odd years of service, it was important for me to capture this amazing aircraft one last time. It holds an important place in Australian Military aviation history and its retirement was a pretty big deal. It rained all day, so I set myself a goal of using the weather to my advantage with the heavy cloud creating some soft light. My intent was to capture the aircraft in various states and the resulting portfolio of images presented here captures a scale from calmness to exhilaration to overall joy, reflective of many of the emotions on display by those in attendance on the day.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.