Airshot
One frame from a weekend with a borrowed lens, shot through the fence at LaGuardia. The livery in it was ordinary at the time. It isn't anymore.
East Elmhurst
In 2005 I was living in East Elmhurst, in Queens, right next to Jackson Heights and a short walk from LaGuardia. You can stand outside the airport fence there and watch aircraft climb out over your head.
A borrowed lens
It was the start of the DSLR era and I had just bought my first one, an Olympus E-300. A friend who also shot Olympus lent me a 240mm telephoto for a weekend. On that camera a 240 frames like a 480, so from outside the fence you can fill the frame with an aircraft that is already well off the ground.
One frame
I spent the day at the fence shooting departures and arrivals. This is the only frame I still have. I kept it for the aircraft: polished bare metal, the red, white and blue stripe down the side, the double-A on the tail. It already looked like something from an earlier time.
It aged into being rare
I assumed a plane in that paint was no longer carrying passengers, because American’s aircraft didn’t look like that anymore. They did. The polished bare-metal livery was American’s everyday fleet paint until the rebrand in 2013, so this was an ordinary departure on an ordinary afternoon.
The photograph didn’t capture something rare. It became rare later, on its own.
I fell in love with the image and I felt that it needed a place, and it needed a home. And right where it is is where it should be.