i like to tell stories

i had just moved to NYC, greenpoint. the only working camera i had was a bastard version of an olympus stylus. i always had that thing loaded with bad, cheap fuji 100 i could get for $2 a roll. all that film went years without getting processed and to this day, has only been half heartedly thumbed through or used for journal fodder. being that LGA is right there, whenever you looked up, there was almost always some man made flying wonder to look at. it reminded me of texas and florida, living near bases and the sound of war planes practicing that always made me get to a window or crane my neck to see that flying steal magic that i still don’t understand not falling like a rock to the earth.

maryland, april 2006.

the same wonder, 11 years later, nothing is different in a way, to me, in making the images. well, actually it is, but it’s an unfortunate connection that got in the way of my wonder of all these metal birds. 9/11 changed how a plane is looked at forever. no longer just the awesome images from the news of mechanical, weather and human error failure imagery. the horror of this technology as a weapon will forever change the very definition of the object itself. before 9/11, one of the most remarkable things i remember ever seeing was after the crash in DC, a plane that hit one of the bridges in a blizzard, the potomac frozen solid slowed the debris. i can remember the woman on the ice, blinded by jet fuel in her eyes, deaf from a rescue helicopter just feet above her, flailing in an attempt to swim from the wreckage but trapped in ice and too week from exhaustion to hold onto the helicopters skid the pilot actually dipped below the water in attempts to save her. i was only 8, but i watched the television as a man jumped into the icy water to save her as another man jumped in from the shore after seeing her lose her grip for what was surely the last attempt. they saved her. to this day, i believe watching the helicopter pilot dip the skids of that chopper into the water trying so hard to save her is why i wanted to be a helicopter pilot all the way into high school.

i went to maryland with L. her parents basically live on the grounds of BWI, it is wonderful, there is always something to watch cross that sky, her mom even works for an airline, perfect.

at nationals, for some reason, other then the once or twice a day flyover of paired fighter jets, there was a C-5 almost always around somewhere up there and almost every time i could i wasn’t actually shooting, i had to snap it. even when i couldn’t hear it, i’d think i hadn’t seen one in awhile, so i would look, sure enough, here one would come, making shadows on clouds, disappearing in them and around them or simply sitting there against that blue sky, daring you to understand how something so fucking big can actually get off the ground.

the plane is getting much attention. robert is up to something up in brooklyn and finding others all over that are too. i must confess, i haven’t read much that is being said, bits and pieces here and there, i just want to look at the pictures. i took this one sunday, i always snap the beasts in the sky leaving/landing at EWR from the turnpike, i don’t know how anyone with a camera can’t. robert, i didn’t want or intend to put the pole there, but not looking through the camera and delay issues can only be anticipated so much….. not that i am unhappy with result in the slightest.