Doc Diaries: Tunnel Vision (part 3)

Clouds

The miracle of flight is, in many ways, actually a miracle of fluid dynamics. And even though you can't see the wind through an airplane window, I feel like clouds can give you a little bit of a glimpse into that world. They help to expose the otherwise-invisible workings of the world around us.

So, for instance, a running turbofan creates a region of low-pressure air ahead of it, which can cause interesting flow phenomena when interacting with nearby surfaces. Those streamlines are usually invisible, but in the right conditions on a damp taxiway, a vortex appears (as in the bottom-right of the picture). That vortex is always there, of course. But it's the cloud of condensation that makes it visible, and that reinforces the wonder of modern aircraft.

Doc Diaries: Tunnel Vision (part 2)

I mentioned before that I love the experience of just sitting on an airplane, and watching the world through a window. Regardless of which plane I'm on, or where I sit, my view out of the window always has the same basic framework: there's a wing that's always there. And everything else changes.

I also mentioned that one purpose of photography, for me, is to find ways to express my curiosity about the world, and to share some of the details that delight me when I look around.

Out of an airplane window, I'm often surprised at how quickly the view can change, even as the framework stays the same. But just as often, what's surprising is how the details of the view can be so consistent, even as we move through the environment at hundreds of miles per hour.

Dear Taiwan (Wolwold — People Making Cool Stuff)

"…whenever I see the pictures in Taiwan, it just reminds me of home. I'm just immediately drawn to that. Immediately I feel comfortable. So, I want to recreate that kind of image… I want to remind myself that that's where my heart is."

Almost three years after spelunking around Christina and Nate's kitchen for the last episode of "People Making Cool Stuff," I found myself in my friend Wolwold's home. She is (among other things) a watercolor artist, and in the moment, she was focused on sketching a moment from her imagination.

Well… not completely. Inspired by the architecture of her original home, she told me that the pieces combine her own memories, with more recent pictures of the place, as well as a little bit of fantasy. "There's a mix of imagination. It's not 100% true / doesn't 100% exist. But it's based in Taiwan a little bit."

Doc Diaries: Tunnel Vision (part 1)

I love to travel. But not like most people do.

One of my favorite things about traveling, and especially by airplane, is the actual experience of being on the plane. Watching the world through a window. Trying to notice how even familiar places and things look somewhat distant and alien through an airplane window. I try to look out the window and take pictures that will somehow explain the thoughts and feelings and curiosities and perspectives that are hiding within myself.

The sequence of images from a flight is as much a record of the changing environment around the plane, as it is a memorial to the way that my attention sometimes flutters from one subject to another, noticing commonalities and differences this time around that I had somehow missed before.