Comments on: ♪ "So kiss me and smile for me. Tell me that you'll wait for me. Hold me like you'll never let me go..." ♫

♪ "So kiss me and smile for me. Tell me that you'll wait for me. Hold me like you'll never let me go..." ♫

zarq — Mon, 09 May 2011 07:17:13 -0800

Inspired by Andrew Sullivan's recent post on views outside airplane windows, BuzzFeed compiled a collection of "100 incredible airplane window views" from Flickr. (bandwidth-heavy single page version.) Click through slideshow at Business Insider.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Mon, 09 May 2011 07:22:40 -0800

buzzfeed is the new cracked.com.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 09 May 2011 07:30:48 -0800

If they could put a puppy or kitten in each one, this would be just about perfect.

By: chavenet

chavenet — Mon, 09 May 2011 07:33:07 -0800

I eagerly await a Hipstamatic filter that inserts an airplane wing into your every photo.

By: like_neon

like_neon — Mon, 09 May 2011 07:33:45 -0800

Beautiful! I grew up in San Francisco and I have never seen those multi-colored lake looking things before, weird! And who knew Nebraska and Wisconsin were so interesting looking to the birds? And some of them are giving me a good case of trypophobia.

By: Glinn

Glinn — Mon, 09 May 2011 07:34:56 -0800

Wow, Cairo is depressingly monochromatic. Would expect to see more pollution in the air, but maybe it just settles on the buildings?

By: Nelson

Nelson — Mon, 09 May 2011 07:39:41 -0800

100 photos on a single page! Yay! I take a lot of photos while flying small airplanes. It's remarkably hard to get a good shot. The most interesting one I snagged is this potash pond near Moab. I must have gotten lucky, the colour wasn't nearly as dramatic on Google's overhead photos.

By: achmorrison

achmorrison — Mon, 09 May 2011 07:39:59 -0800

I'm amused by the ones labeled "The Midwest" or "Great Plains, USA". Not that I'd expect the photographer to know exactly which state they are over, necessarily. But, it does reconfirm the Midwest as fly-over region.

By: The Bellman

The Bellman — Mon, 09 May 2011 07:41:21 -0800

Or, if you prefer, you can look the other way. See John Schabel's incredible "Passengers" series: photos of people inside planes waiting to take off, taken with a very long lens usually from an overpass near the runway. Schabel has called them psychological portraits of people at moments when they are awaiting something over which they have no control.

By: Terminal Verbosity

Terminal Verbosity — Mon, 09 May 2011 07:54:02 -0800

This one looks like one of those little puzzle things where you have to slide the tiles around to form a picture.

By: MuffinMan

MuffinMan — Mon, 09 May 2011 07:55:02 -0800

#75 - Hong Kong is great. I am surprised that there isn't one of the Bungle Bungles in there, although I guess the subtext for this collection is photos from a scheduled flight. Also: LA from the air looks like Chicago after a nuclear bomb has gone off, IMHO.

By: chococat

chococat — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:01:07 -0800

I'm amused by the ones labeled "The Midwest" or "Great Plains, USA" I thought the same thing about "Bavarian Countryside, Germany."

By: tzikeh

tzikeh — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:03:07 -0800

I like your musical title, but looking at all of these photos puts me in mind of another tune-- Boom De Ah Dah, Boom De Ah Dah, Boom De Ah Dah, Boom De Ah Dah...

By: DU

DU — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:03:15 -0800

I like how they all have place names except "Midwest, USA" and "Great Plains, USA". Sure, it looks like that all over, but....you can't see rolling green hills anywhere but San Luis Obispo County?

By: zarq

zarq — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:06:15 -0800

tzikeh: "I like your musical title, but looking at all of these photos puts me in mind of another tune--" Check the tags. :D

By: Mike D

Mike D — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:09:51 -0800

# 18 was what? Found in a camera that was picked out of the wreckage?

By: i_cola

i_cola — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:16:39 -0800

I love, love, love gawking out of aeroplane windows. I still vividly remember the first time I flew to NY from London & spent the last few hours of the flight marvelling at the landscapes of Greenland & NE Canada and then on over Long Island realising that I was flying over baseball diamonds & parking lots full of little yellow school buses – something you rarely see from the air in Europe. Best flight? Probably Bangkok to London. Despite being deathly tired I stayed glued to the window as we went over the Bay of Bengal, across India and watched in amazement as the landscape folded & rose in Pakistan, saw an F-something fighter jet in the distance as we skirted the border of Afghanistan and then marvelled at the stunning mountains in Iran, the Caspian Sea and then worked out that the peak I saw in the distance as the light was finally fading was Mount Ararat. It's always good to fly over somewhere you've been so seeing the Grand Canyon from the air a few weeks after I'd been in for the first time was fun. Seeing the Sky Bar on top of the State Tower in Bangkok as we circled out of the airport the day after I'd found out that I did suffer from vertigo when I'm standing on the roof of a 60-something storey building was a kick.

By: tzikeh

tzikeh — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:18:42 -0800

zarq: Check the tags. :D Ah, but can the tags embed video? I don't THINK so! I have not yet had caffeine

By: Mike D

Mike D — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:28:30 -0800

Dear Eagles... Apparently, there are no corners in Winslow Arizona. (#99). "Shit, get me re-write!" (Glenn Frey, Jackson Browne)

By: crapmatic

crapmatic — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:28:58 -0800

Look at all those open windowshades back in the 1970s. Maybe my memory is selective, but it seems that flights these days are turning into sensory deprivation chambers. I really don't get the idea of the cabin being dark at lunchtime on a 3 hour flight.

By: empath

empath — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:37:05 -0800

I don't mind that Cairo is monochromatic -- it's a desert, what do you want? What's depressing about it is the uniformity of the building designs.

By: zarq

zarq — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:37:10 -0800

Ah, but can the tags embed video? I don't THINK so! And thus, an awesome pony request was born! ;) Jokes aside, I love that commercial and the song. Really am glad you linked to it. Thanks!

By: rtha

rtha — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:37:33 -0800

The SF Bay salt ponds one is spectacular, although I wonder if a little color tweaking was done; I've flown over them a lot and don't recall them looking quite that colorful (though they do definitely stand out from the rest of the bay. I took this one on the way home from Seattle, and was surprised when Shasta stood out as well as it does.

By: empath

empath — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:38:34 -0800

Compare to the equally mono-chromatic Fez in Morocco

By: Postroad

Postroad — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:38:45 -0800

Wife had recently to book flight. Lady working for airline said most people prefer aisle seats because you can stretch legs out and get out to bathroom and off place faster. I have always been afraid that if I looked out the window I would see a wing beginning to fall off.

By: edgeways

edgeways — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:39:14 -0800

achmorrison, I realize you are not trying to be, but that term...? "Fly over country", has a kind of sneering pejorative tone to it for many people who actually live and work here.

By: zarq

zarq — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:41:23 -0800

Postroad: "I have always been afraid that if I looked out the window I would see a wing beginning to fall off." There are worse things....

By: empath

empath — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:45:07 -0800

There are worse things than that.

By: hydrophonic

hydrophonic — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:51:58 -0800

AAGH! PULL UP! PULL UP!

By: Ahab

Ahab — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:57:27 -0800

I guess the subtext for this collection is photos from a scheduled flight. No. Photo 25 of the Horizontal Falls at Talbot Bay was taken a long way from scheduled flight paths. I'd guess it was taken from a chartered sea plane out of Broome or Derby.

By: maryr

maryr — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:59:44 -0800

Window seats, ATW. I think half the reason I am unable to sleep on planes is that I am too interested in looking out the window and seeing where I am, what is below me, trying to pick out cities and freeways and county roads in the darkness. The one time I did manage some sleep on a fly was an overnight trans-atlantic. Nothing to seem between Boston and Ireland in the dark. By the time I could see the Isle of Wight out the window in the early morning light, I was wide awake again. (Totally crashed when I landed at my final destination though. Oops.)

By: Nelson

Nelson — Mon, 09 May 2011 09:00:56 -0800

# 18 was what? Found in a camera that was picked out of the wreckage? Pish, formation flight is safe if the pilots know what they're doing. You don't hit the thing you can see. I was gonna say something about how the massive zoom lens meant the planes weren't that close anyway, but that photo was taken at 70mm, not that much zoom. There's a whole world of air-to-air photography with some really beautiful shots of neat airplanes. This one makes me a bit nervous; those Tiger Moths are awfully close to each other.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Mon, 09 May 2011 09:04:01 -0800

I like how they all have place names except "Midwest, USA" and "Great Plains, USA". Sure, it looks like that all over, but....you can't see rolling green hills anywhere but San Luis Obispo County? Clearly you didn't get down near the end with, "Somewhere between Salt Lake and Paris."

By: Jehan

Jehan — Mon, 09 May 2011 09:07:20 -0800

London: looks better when you can't see it.

By: backseatpilot

backseatpilot — Mon, 09 May 2011 09:10:27 -0800

Pish, formation flight is safe if the pilots know what they're doing Yes, but definitely the scariest thing I've ever done in an airplane. Flying as a passenger in the wingman position, the pilot was not looking anywhere except the tail of the lead plane - we were maybe four or five feet away from each other. Watching that was frightening, because even though I rationally know it's the correct way to do it, I went into it with the mentality of "eyes on the road" and it felt like we were trying to drive down the highway by staring at the sidewalk. I've been pilot in command for a formation flight and we stayed a few hundred feet apart. So maybe not so much of a formation as "flying kind of close to each other". I have photos somewhere... meanwhile, here's Philadelphia.

By: MuffinMan

MuffinMan — Mon, 09 May 2011 09:21:17 -0800

No. Photo 25 of the Horizontal Falls at Talbot Bay was taken a long way from scheduled flight paths. I'd guess it was taken from a chartered sea plane out of Broome or Derby. So I was in Broome on September 13th, 2001. I was camping, and the entire campground, which mainly consisted of pensioners from New South Wales and Victoria escaping the winter, was abuzz discussing the impact of the terrorist attacks and the new reach and scale of global terrorism. I was talking to the lady in the caravan next to me. She was planning on taking a scenic flight out to the Horizontal Falls with her husband the following day. And she asked me whether I thought it would be safe from terrorists.

By: notsnot

notsnot — Mon, 09 May 2011 09:33:32 -0800

If I'm flying from Vegas back to St. Louis, I always get a flight an hour before sunset, and get the right-side window seat (even if it's the back row). Watching the shadows fall over Monument Valley is fantastic. Just for kicks here is a shot I took of, well, somewhere in northern AZ - never been able to figure out exactly where.

By: Quasimike

Quasimike — Mon, 09 May 2011 09:54:34 -0800

Just had to say that this is an awesome post!

By: achmorrison

achmorrison — Mon, 09 May 2011 10:02:11 -0800

achmorrison, I realize you are not trying to be, but that term...? "Fly over country", has a kind of sneering pejorative tone to it for many people who actually live and work here. edgewise, that was exactly my point. I've lived most of my life in Iowa and Illinois, and I'm well aware of the tone that "fly over country" has. I was trying to say that having generic labels like "Midwest" don't really do a whole lot to counteract that idea. On the other hand, a few of the photos identified regions of Nebraska and Wisconsin, so it's not all bad.

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Mon, 09 May 2011 11:08:14 -0800

These are so amazing. I have some questions: How do the Japanese keep their farmland so perfectly symmetrical and aligned while everyone else seems to have more of a crazy patchwork effect? What are the yellow fields in Bavaria and France? How interesting to see how various different lands arrange their houses and farmlands differently - Shanghai, where large dwellings seem to be spread out in rows into the fields, and France, where small tightly-knit villages are surrounded by a sea of agriculture. What am I looking at in Alberta and Nebraska? How can San Francisco have one part that is so densely built up and another that seems untouched? What is the lovely green area in the foreground? And in that other picture, what's with the colors in the salt ponds? What are the red parts of the Great Salt Lake? The juxtaposition of Cairo and Greenland is stunning. LA looks so much nicer at street level. I assume Oahu does too. They both look so crowded from the air. Madison looks so cozy. I had never heard of Talbot Bay. I found this. Now I'm dying to go see it! Can you go into the crater at Winslow, Az?

By: rtha

rtha — Mon, 09 May 2011 11:19:18 -0800

How can San Francisco have one part that is so densely built up and another that seems untouched? What is the lovely green area in the foreground? And in that other picture, what's with the colors in the salt ponds? The green area in the foreground is actually Marin county, north of San Francisco; most of what you see is the Marin Headlands, which is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area - it's a national park, basically. The densely built part is SF proper; the green bit you can see just south of the GG bridge is the Presidio. I don't know why exactly the salt ponds are those colors - I assume it's a reaction based on the minerals involved, temperature, and chemistry.

By: zarq

zarq — Mon, 09 May 2011 11:19:25 -0800

And in that other picture, what's with the colors in the salt ponds? Micro-algae and brine shrimp :) Can you go into the crater at Winslow, Az? I've been there. Am not sure. But you can tour the rim.

By: brokkr

brokkr — Mon, 09 May 2011 11:26:58 -0800

What are the yellow fields in Bavaria and France?

Rape.

By: edgeways

edgeways — Mon, 09 May 2011 11:49:52 -0800

What are the yellow fields in Bavaria and France? Rape. Well, rapeseed to be precise. Also known as canola

By: edgeways

edgeways — Mon, 09 May 2011 11:51:10 -0800

(although canola is a pretty recent term, somewhere about 1977, and stands for "Canadian oil, low acid"

By: fraula

fraula — Mon, 09 May 2011 12:04:19 -0800

Beautiful! I once took nearly a dozen shots of the French Alps while on a flight from Nice to Geneva. It was a beautiful, clear day and the mountains were gorgeous. Also, between clouds at sunrise while landing. That was such a neat sensation.

By: cristinacristinacristina

cristinacristinacristina — Mon, 09 May 2011 12:18:57 -0800

love this. i always pick the window seat.

By: iamkimiam

iamkimiam — Mon, 09 May 2011 12:24:16 -0800

I love airplane window photos and these were all absolutely stunning! Thanks for this post. If I may share...years ago I started my own Flickr set - aptly named "Airplane Windows" – of self-snapped airplane photos. 33 shots from the sky.

By: pupdog

pupdog — Mon, 09 May 2011 12:33:12 -0800

I haven't been able to go through them all (damn work!), but I ended up on an evening flight from Atlanta to Long Island on July 4th - imagine looking out and seeing (what seemed like) all up and down the coast - fireworks interspersed with thunderstorms - I only wish I'd had a good camera with me...

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Mon, 09 May 2011 12:37:35 -0800

Yeah I did that too - also without a camera - an evening flight from NY to Boston one July 4. It was amazing to see all the fireworks in all the little seaside towns and cities. Highly recommended.

By: antifuse

antifuse — Mon, 09 May 2011 12:53:59 -0800

This is so f'ing awesome. I rarely have window seats when I fly (being 6'2, it really *really* helps to be able to get up more frequently during the flight), but now I'm tempted to try to get one on my next flight. Wow.

By: antifuse

antifuse — Mon, 09 May 2011 13:13:25 -0800

Just looking at this shot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarunas_b/5572901670/ It breaks my brain. Every time I look at it, it's like somebody put together a jigsaw puzzle wrong. Why don't the patterns match up??

By: stormpooper

stormpooper — Mon, 09 May 2011 13:33:14 -0800

*looks out window8 Aggghhh!

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Mon, 09 May 2011 14:13:49 -0800

God, it would have been so cool if they had put that as number 100.

By: brokkr

brokkr — Mon, 09 May 2011 14:44:03 -0800

Well, rapeseed to be precise. Also known as canola

To be precise, rapeseed is the seed of the rape plant, which is pressed to obtain rapeseed oil.

By: two or three cars parked under the stars

two or three cars parked under the stars — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:38:26 -0800

That was amazing. Btw I think Cairo looks GORGEOUS. It's like a whole city made out of antique luggage.

By: dapperkoala

dapperkoala — Mon, 09 May 2011 19:13:12 -0800

The Chicago photo is absolutely beautiful. Gotta love Chi-Town.