I live pretty close to the Oakland airport. In general, the planes that land there come in from the South. Take off into the North. Either curving out to sea or rounding the end of the Bay before heading inland. I rarely see much air traffic from here. Today, the approach changed and I can see planes from my studio coming in from the north. This means there’s weather on the way. And it will be coming out of the south, with northerly gusting winds. Its pretty cool to see the planes drop out of the clouds, landing gear down, lights on, bank to the left on approach. When a plane flies into the wind it doesn’t need as much speed to give it lift. Its relative speed is greater with the force of the oncoming wind. At least that’s my educated guess, my limited understanding.

I’ve kind of always noticed small things that many/most people don’t. I think its been integral to my chosen vocation. Maybe its partly why I took to photography early on. Little things matter. A couple degrees of temperature, a fraction of a stop of light on either side of correct. Makes a big impact. Noticing pays dividends. Since I moved to this industrial area of Oakland, more distanced from any kind of natural world, I notice more signs like this. The angle of the Sun throughout the seasons. Frost in the shade. The number of fires in the homeless camps of people trying to stay warm. The signals have changed but the rhythm of the Universe is constant.

Early on in my photographic education, in a Lighting Theory class, my instructor, David Litschel told us in all seriousness, with a little ennui, “After this class, you’ll never be able to watch a movie in the same way again.” He was right. We look for all the technical details. How the scene was lit, how it was shot, what lens was used. I can approximate the aperture used based on the shape of the blur circles of streetlights in the distance of a shot. How much are they pushing the limits of the film or sensor? How much noise or grain is in the shadows? Sometimes I get so wrapped up in breaking down the technical aspects that I lose the plot. I’m not mad at it. I take pride in seeing things nobody else sees. And if a filmmaker’s technique pulls me in, it’s probably a pretty beautiful film.

Learning to notice pays off.