I love to have a window seat when I fly so I can look out and take photographs of the world from that perspective. I have pictures of farmland looking like a tidy patchwork quilt in greens and browns and yellows. I have photographed the peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains cloaked in snow. I have a catalogue of cloud formations. On my most recent trip I was able to photograph the distant Statue of Liberty and the skylines of both lower and midtown Manhattan. I had clear views of the Brooklyn and Queensborough Bridges. Once I changed planes at LaGuardia, I took off on another flight and was able to capture images of the bridges of my childhood connecting Long Island to Westchester County and serving as the gateway to New England, a favorite family vacation destination.
I wish I had taken to pulling out my camera much earlier in my flying days. I would love to be able to look back at the tops of the Alps, the outline of Greece, the North Central coast of Africa, where blue water meets the vast shoreline that curves just as it appears on a map. Then onto the Sahara for hundreds and hundreds of miles, finally catching up with the Nile and the swath of green on either side of the river: a stripe amidst the khaki color of the surrounding desert. Oh, how I wish I had taken pictures of the vast frozen north as I returned from Amsterdam by way of Minneapolis, or the view of Hawaii from miles above the Earth while traveling to Australia. All of these represent spectacular scenery on a grand scale.
Once, when I was flying at night, I sat next to a man who worked for Phillips Electric Company. As we crossed the country and saw pockets of light scattered throughout the darkness, he made the comment that seeing all those lights down below made him feel so good about his work. Sometimes one has to take a big step back, or in this case, up to appreciate one’s role in the world.
I wish I had taken to pulling out my camera much earlier in my flying days. I would love to be able to look back at the tops of the Alps, the outline of Greece, the North Central coast of Africa, where blue water meets the vast shoreline that curves just as it appears on a map. Then onto the Sahara for hundreds and hundreds of miles, finally catching up with the Nile and the swath of green on either side of the river: a stripe amidst the khaki color of the surrounding desert. Oh, how I wish I had taken pictures of the vast frozen north as I returned from Amsterdam by way of Minneapolis, or the view of Hawaii from miles above the Earth while traveling to Australia. All of these represent spectacular scenery on a grand scale.
Once, when I was flying at night, I sat next to a man who worked for Phillips Electric Company. As we crossed the country and saw pockets of light scattered throughout the darkness, he made the comment that seeing all those lights down below made him feel so good about his work. Sometimes one has to take a big step back, or in this case, up to appreciate one’s role in the world.
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