READY FOR DEPARTURE

By Eberhard Potempa

READY FOR DEPARTURE “FLYING AND PHOTOGRAPHING”

As a small boy, Eberhard Potempa dreamed of flying small aircraft and discovering the world from a bird’s perspective. What started with building kites and later stunt kites should become his passion for life when he finally held his pilot licences. As a second-most passion, Eberhard picked photography and combining both resulted in capturing images of outstanding beauty. So discover what Eberhard tells us about his feelings while flying and photographing simultaneously.

Longing to fly

As a small boy, I was already making kites and later stunt kites. So the longing to be able to fly a small aircraft had been dormant in me for a very long time.

But I didn’t have the money to get a pilot’s licence. Moreover, after finishing my studies and starting my professional life, I didn’t have enough time, so although I still wanted to fly, it was a long way off.

Two of my friends were also interested in flying and acquired their pilot’s licence. The conversations with both of them kept touching on the subject of flying, and my longing increased again from time to time.

And then the time came: I said to myself, “Now you are in your mid-forties - if not now when?” No sooner said than done.

I enrolled in the flying school of an air sports club near my home. Nine months later, I held my pilot’s licence in my hands and was overjoyed.

Passion for flying and photography

Even after the first few flights, I was thrilled by the view from the cockpit. The landscape below me changed its colours and shapes depending on the time of year and day. I was thrilled and took my camera with me on every flight to take pictures from the air. The first photos didn’t convince me, as the scratched plastic windows of the cockpit, which were quickly covered with insect residue, led me to rework all the images very intensively. But more and more, the different landscape structures captivated me, and I developed an eye for particular/interesting ground formations.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I flew abroad with one of my two friends, who motivated me to fly. A few more flights followed this in the European area. Then, inspired by the books of the famous French writer and pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the idea of a flight from Toulouse to Casablanca developed. This is a piece of the postal route that Saint-Exupéry flew and was a flying challenge for me. I took many photos of this flight, which took place in 2003, but unfortunately, they were not of convincing quality, which I regretted very much.

Community of destiny

In 2007, four pilot friends joined my air sports club, united by their enthusiasm for flying. Since then, the four of us have flown together yearly in two aircraft (Cessna 172) for 4-6 days in Europe (our first destination was Venice).

As an enthusiastic amateur photographer, I was “qualified” to document these European flights photographically. I have enjoyed doing this for the past 16 years and have learned a lot.

Flying these joint flights has made me strong, meaning “with good flight planning, we can get anywhere”. The four of us have always described ourselves as a community of destiny, each dependent on the other.

This has also been shown in reaching our destinations in Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltic States, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Portugal.

And we also flew to Casablanca again at my request. I took thousands of photos during this time. Most of them - together with a travelogue - was immortalised in a photo book.

Ready for departure

Taking photos from the cockpit is - as already mentioned - not so easy because of the plastic window. In addition, the movements of the aircraft make photography difficult or even impossible, depending on wind conditions and gusts of wind. Due to the difficulties described above, many of the photos shown here are not technically perfect, but they are essential mementoes of almost 25 years of “flying and photographing”.

And now let's take off. "Ready for departure?"