Imagine enjoying a quiet and peaceful day at the beach. The waves are crashing, the breeze is blowing, the sun is shining brightly–when suddenly a massive roar overtakes you and a Boeing 747 flies directly overhead as it takes off into the sky. This is the type of action that Austrian photographer Josef Hoflehner experiences on the beaches of St. Martin in the Caribbean.
The runways of the Princess Juliana International Airport are so close to the beaches that Hoflehner captures the incredibly close arriving and departing planes in this photo project of live, wide-angle shots entitled Jet Airliners. The short runways require pilots to approach the airport at just 10-20 meters above the beach!
In the high contrast black and white photographs, viewers can almost hear that deafening commotion of each plane overhead combined with the squeals of surprise from the sunbathers along the shore. You can view some of these spectacular images at the AD-Galerie in Switzerland until April 6, 2012.
Josef Hoflehner's website
AD-Galerie website
via [Whudat], [The World of Photographers]
