This “quick grab” of a picture happened the other day, when walking around one of Seattle’s neighborhoods, Georgetown. I was with my friend DavidF, who, many times over the past 15 years or so, we’ve wandered the streets at all hours, in search of image making opportunities. We turned down a narrow street with industrial buildings on one side, and a freeway ramp on the other, when kapow!, the rumble and vibration of a huge machine approached! All of the sudden, and to our amazement, this jet plane, at first shielded from view by the building, appeared, low overhead, and almost as if in slow motion. Within this very narrow space and time frame, I instinctively threw my lens upward and took a couple of frames. The noise and appearance took us both by surprise, totally unexpected, and yet we were immediately envigorated.
From an early age, i was always facinated by airplanes, sketching, drawing, making models. I lived in a neighborhood that was under the flight pattern, so we were accustomed to the daily noise disturbance.
Even though this jet and my photograph reawakened memories of growing up under the flight pattern, I’m also extremely aware of how untold numbers of people are now affected by jet planes over urban neighborhoods.
In the moment it took to capture this full-frame image of its graceful approach, the rumble, roar, and noise was drowned out, when it disappeared out of sight, over the freeway ramp, and in a mere 1/350th of a second, into my camera.
Amazing sense of stillness in all that mammoth motion.