Who Spots the Spotters?

Started: 2006-08-26 22:05:09

Submitted: 2006-08-26 22:14:52

Visibility: World-readable

Last Tuesday evening (22 August 2006), I left the customer's office in El Segundo, California at 1915, after an exciting day of trying (and failing) to reproduce a problem. I headed west along Imperial Highway to a low bluff overlooking LAX where the city of El Segundo was kind enough to build a parklet for professional and amateur plane spotters alike. I brought my shiny D50 for the occasion.

It was dusk as I pulled up to the parklet. Mere seconds after stepping out of my rental car, I spotted a giant Lufthansa 747 taking off from the nearest runway. My camera was ready.

The parklet was crowded with families, couples, and two plane spotters with cameras and lenses far more expensive than mine. As the light faded, I photographed planes taking off and taxiing. I talked to Tim, one of the plane spotters, who seemed to be able to take photos of planes professionally. We compared notes about planes, spotting, airports, and the price of housing around Denver.

The photos I took that evening are available here. (You'll notice a sexy new feature available on the photos I take with my new camera: They're much higher resolution than my old camera, so they're available at higher resolutions. At the moment, each smaller size is generated and cached as needed, so if you're the first person to view a specific photo at a specific resolution, it may take a bit longer to load.)