Planespotter Portraits

We come in all shapes and sizes, colours and creeds. You can find us waiting, patiently, just outside the airport fence. Parked near airport runways in our normal looking cars. We're by the side of the road or on the roofs of a parking lot with a strategic view of approaching planes, binoculars and cameras at hand. The police have their eye on us. CCTV cameras are trained on us. Sometimes an un-marked truck will pull up to us and ask us "what's your interest here?". We're often alone. Occasionally we bring a like-minded friend. And sometimes we even bring our families. Many of us, like birdwatchers, have notebooks at hand and are highly competitive about our sightings. And when a plane finally streaks and shrieks overhead, we forget the scrutiny, the paranoia and the competition. We forget who we are. We look at our neighbours in wonderment. "Did you SEE that!?" we ask. For a simple moment, we come alive as a community. We are planespotters.