Both Hands Free

The open rear seat of an early biplane of pale doped canvas, wooden struts and taut bracing wires, high above green fields, hedges and white chalk tracks in southern England on a bright windy September morning, two hands in brown leather gauntlets holding a rectangular cine camera out over the edge of the cockpit, its box of orange-golden strongly flamed maple glowing in the sun, the side door shut and plain, a brass lens in a black ring at the front left, a brown leather handle on top, a folding wire-frame viewfinder and a small brass valve stub, the sleeves of a dark leather flying coat, the pale lower wing below.