Das Boot is a German television series produced for Sky One which follows the fictional experiences of U-Boat submarine crews in World War II. I watched it a couple of years ago & I loved it. It’s not a typical war drama - it focusses more on the relationships between crew members in the claustrophobic, highly stressed environment that constitutes the daily life of a submariner.
Throughout the series there’s some tremendous underwater footage of U-Boats in action which, of course, has to be model boats. I thought the scenes were excellent & I wondered if I could create my own composite U-Boat image. After all I have lots of underwater seascapes already in my archives, all I needed was the U-Boat… and that was my inspiration to seek out a model submarine club & set up a shoot.
I contacted Ron Perrott of R&R Model Engineering and he has been brilliant in contacting enthusiasts and setting up the shoot, which we completed yesterday. We had a few technical problems with some of the models but I still got plenty of good shots. I’ve worked one up so far but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to composite a few more. The shoot video is below too.
We are going to do it again in June - this time in a boating lake and concentrate on model ships on the surface. Don’t you just love photography!
U2502
U2502 - owned & expertly controlled by Rob Fowler
Our submariners - look at the length of the boat at the back!
We set up a blue background but in reality it didn’t really get used much - the subs were just too large to manoeuvre in tight corners
Alex was shooting video in the water with me (he’s a diver too)
This was a very reliable model.
I’m looking forward to creating more composites with U2502