I’ve always loved planes; I’m not really sure why—maybe because my dad has worked on the F22 my entire life. To me, planes are exciting adventures waiting to happen. Whether it’s exploring the cockpit or enjoying the incredible views, I always look forward to flying.
When I have a window seat, I usually end up taking pictures. Most of them look the same, yet are also very different. Depending on the altitude at which the plane is flying when I take a picture, I can end up with very different images. Last month I flew back to Fort Worth from New Orleans. I took these two pictures from the plane within about ten minutes of each other. When scrolling back through my phone this week, I was amazed at how different the two images are. They both depict basically the same thing, but from different altitudes, which affects the detail and some of the subject matter in the images.
To me the biggest difference between the two was the overall color tone. The first image, captured shortly after take-off, shows that it was an overcast, gray day in New Orleans. But just ten minutes later, while still in Louisiana air space, we’ve made it above the clouds and now the sky is blue and you can see a hint of sunshine.
I couldn’t appreciate any of this when I was on the plane, because I was moving with it through the clouds. There wasn’t a moment where the sky suddenly went from gray to blue, as the images make it appear. I think sometimes it really is impossible to stop and appreciate your surroundings, but pictures (whether taken by you or someone else) can help us do just that—maybe not exactly in the moment, but later on.
~Claire Gegenheimer
HNRS 20213 - Visual Culture From Icons to Iphone 
I love your observation that sometimes we actually cannot stop and take in our surroundings. People (our generation in particular) are constantly scolded because we are either seen using technology and ignoring our environment or using technology to capture it for the purposes of a nice picture to post (as opposed to wanting to look back on it later). Though I have never been on a plane, I imagine one could be captivated by the view but not consciously be aware of the transition like what your pictures show. Using your phone shows that, at least in some cases, technology might just be what allows us to take in the beauty.
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