It’s been awhile, but I’m finally back for another Travel Photo Thursday. Continuing on a previous theme, this week I present a picture that I took out of the window of an Alaska Airlines 737. We were flying home from Los Angeles and this was taken around 8pm somewhere over Seattle. I really liked the contrast of the cool moonlit wing and the constant blinking red light coming from under the plane. When I saw the city lights peeking through the clouds I had to reach for my trusty Canon S90 point and shoot.
To take the shot I set the camera into shutter speed mode (Tv) and set a long exposure of 8 seconds at ISO 200. I wanted a long enough exposure to catch all of the moonlight off of the engine and wing as well as to get some nice streaks from the city lights. It took me a few tries to get the shot because I had no tripod and had to hold the camera steady by jamming it into the corner of the window frame. The guy in the seat in front of me seemed a little annoyed, but I think it was worth it for the shot.
This picture is my contribution to Travel Photo Thursday, a weekly compilation of travel photos from bloggers around the world and hosted by Budget Travelers Sandbox [budgettravelerssandbox.com]. Check it out to see some great pictures!
Welcome back!
Love this shot. I can feel the motion.
Really nice shot in any case because it really gives you the sense of being in the air at night. An extraordinary shot hand-held at 8 seconds. I might have seen the shot, but I don’t think – ok, I’m sure I would NOT have – figured out how to capture it. Great catch.
Thanks! I know that feeling – once you get the photo bug you start seeing great shots but can’t always catch them. Just before we took off there was an amazing shot of 5 Soutwest planes in front of some light posts at LAX with the start of a sunset behind it – all blues and orange. I quickly dug my camera out of my carry-on (the bag at my feet of course) but the plane started moving and I couldn’t use a slow exposure. They all came out dark or a blurry mess. At least I’ll always have that shot in my head….
This is surreal- great shot!
Interesting photo 🙂
What an interesting angle.
Fabulous shot! Love it and love the play of light and dark and movement.
I had planned to show some photos I’ve taken from planes today but changed my mind.
Don’t let me stop you! I love looking at all kinds of airplane photos.
Cool and unusual shot! Don’t think I could do that with my Canon point and shoot! 🙂
Thanks! The S90 is nice because all of the SLR’ish controls are right at your fingertips. My wife is the master of camera menus and she’s confident it can be done with anything. Keep playing!
You definitely can feel the motion! it is an interesting and unique shot.
Love the shot and the info on how you took it.
Gorgeous. So gorgeous.
Cool shot. Thanks for sharing !