Dave Wilson Photography » Architecture

ABIA: Check-In Entrance

Dave Wilson — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:16:59 +0000

Airline banners hanging outside the terminal's main entrance at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

ABIA: Outside Artwork

Dave Wilson — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:21:29 +0000

Outside the main entrance to the check-in area, if you look down to the lower level you will see various large sculptures like this one. The folks at ABIA take great pride in the art they show in the airport. There are many permanently exhibited works from local artists and there are usually a couple of temporary exhibitions hanging somewhere in the terminal.

ABIA: Control Tower

Dave Wilson — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:48:07 +0000

I spent a couple of mornings at the top of the control tower at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in the company of Sandy Stevens, the airport's photographer. The view up there is fabulous and our plan was to shoot panoramas just after sunrise and, hopefully, get spectacular light and an airport with all the gates occupied. On our first attempt, the light was horrid (hazy and flat) but things improved the next time and the shots looked great. I'll likely post one over on Flickr once I've finished processing one and maybe post a section of it here.

In case anyone is interested, we shot from the walkway immediately below the dark windows in this photo (not the ledge with the security cameras but above this where the tower narrows). This allowed us to walk all round the tower and shoot in any direction. The view made up for the fact that I had to get to the airport by 5am both mornings so that we could be set up by sunrise!

ABIA: Austin Java Guitar

Dave Wilson — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:20:35 +0000

Here's another of the shots taken from the scissor lift inside the main terminal at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. This image shows the neon guitar sign above the main coffee shop in the terminal. The nice folks in the cafe turned off the sign's motor so I could get a complete bracket without the guitar rotating between (or during) exposures.

ABIA: Terminal Windows

Dave Wilson — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:14:33 +0000

The curving wall of windows along the front of the Barbara Jordan Terminal building at ABIA makes for a great photographic subject if you love pattern and geometry pictures. If you’ve been to the airport, however, you’ll know that this is a picture that is impossible for pretty much anyone to take. I strongly suspect there is only one other person who has this shot, or one like it, on their hard disk.

One of the biggest perks of shooting for the airport rather than merely at the airport is that you get access to areas and facilities that would not otherwise be available. In this case, that involved a scissor-lift from the airport maintenance department that allowed me to spend an hour 20 feet in the air shooting the inside of the terminal building from above the tops of the passengers, gates and concession stands that would usually get in the way.

As an interesting side note, you can see two large banner images in this shot. The nearest one, on the left, is a picture of mine while the farthest is by Carol Watson. These are used to fill two large advertising spots in cases where there airport hasn’t managed to sell the space. Unfortunately, for the last 8 months or so, they have been doing their job well and the banners have been in storage!

ABIA: Green Power

Dave Wilson — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:09:44 +0000

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport is rather proud of its fleet of propane-powered shuttle buses. To fuel them up, they have a shiny new gas station on site so we called in a bus and took some shots there while it was fueling.

This particular shot falls squarely into one of my favourite composition categories - images taken from a low angle with an ultra-wide lens and including major triangular components.

ABIA: Delta 757

Dave Wilson — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:36:51 +0000

A Delta Airlines Boeing 757 sits on the ramp at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

On an unrelated note, I've just launched my latest photography venture in collaboration with the fine people at Canvas Press Pro. A couple of dozen of my favourite images are available in the form of limited edition canvas prints through a new site, Altered Perspectives. I would love to hear what you think and would appreciate feedback on the site and also on the images. Are there any of my shots that you think should be added to the collection?

ABIA: Start of the Day

Dave Wilson — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:51:25 +0000

If you want a picture of an airport terminal with planes on every gate, there's only one time to get there - the crack of dawn! Flights start leaving ABIA at 6am and by 7:30 or thereabouts the majority of the gates are empty. Thankfully, this time coincides with sunrise during the summer here so that meant good light and lots of aircraft for the two early morning shoots I did out there.

This image was taken from the apron after walking far enough away from the truck that was driving me around that the yellow rotating light on its roof didn't impinge on the long exposures. After getting this, we high-tailed it over to the control tower to get up to the top before real sunrise so that we could capture some panoramics of the whole complex with good light.

ABIA: Barbara Jordan Terminal

Dave Wilson — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:46:35 +0000

A view of the interior of the east wing of the Barbara Jordan Terminal at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS).

ABIA: View from the Tower

Dave Wilson — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:24:13 +0000

Last summer, I was offered an exciting commission when the nice folks at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport hired me to shoot the whole facility in HDR for a planned report that was originally to be published in September. The shoot took place over 4 days in July and I had access to pretty much anywhere I wanted to go. The place is so huge that I barely scratched the surface (I never saw the baggage handling systems under the terminal, for example) but I managed to shoot somewhere in the region of 3000 exposures nonetheless.

The report that the photos were destined for was, unfortunately, cancelled towards the end of the year and the pictures have not yet been seen by anyone outside ABIA but I've been given permission to publish a few here on the blog and am starting a series of my favourites today.

This image was shot early one morning from the roof of the control tower. You can see the main terminal on the right and the Austin city skyline immediately to its left. Getting up there was rather fun - I needed FAA approval and had to bring my passport as ID before being allowed in. I spent two mornings on the roof (above this) shooting panoramas of the complex and grabbed this image with the fisheye lens during a short visit into the main work area at the top of the tower.