An airplane viewed from the gate at the Istanbul airport, presumably the plane we flew on. The first odd thing about this trip: not this plane, which is profoundly ordinary, one I could not distinguish from any other if I didn’t know where this photo came from; but the distinct memory that almost everyone on that plane outside of our group was male.
But I did not know that when I took this picture; nor did I take a picture of that, which might have come off as confrontational or strange behavior from someone who had no obvious business being on that plane. That memory can’t be substantiated by a photograph; it only comes to mind when I try to think of something to say about this plane. This image by itself seems designed to serve as some kind of overture: the plane at the gate, ready for takeoff. I don’t remember how soon after this picture was taken that the plane took off: a plane at the gate is not, in and of itself, momentous.
This isn’t a good photo, but it does capture something: the overcast sky of Turkey in January almost tonally identical with the pavement below, the harsh lighting of the airport reflected in the window. I don’t know if the time stamp on the photo is to be trusted – who knows what time zone my phone thought it was in – but this seems like it might be the early evening.
I wish the lights were lined up a bit better against the plane; this feels staged, but poorly done.