I have never before taken photographs from Tampa International Airport, but several times it has occurred to me that it might have an excellent vantage point from which to capture the ever-changing sky over our city. Our airport is one of the very best in the nation. 18 airlines serve over 18 million passengers a year. Amazingly to me, there are roughly 260 daily departures with over 30,000 passengers.This airport opened in 1971 and has six beautiful, very modern airsides - all connected by Disney-like shuttles - and 3 runways; the longest is 11,000 feet in length. Of all the airports I have flown through in the world, it is #1. Because today is SkyWatch FRIDAY and, from glancing up at mid-day I couldn't tell if it would stay 90-degrees and blue sky or turn black and pour thunderous rain, I decided to go out and take a look. With that said I drove to the airport and circled up to the top of the main terminal in Short term parking. (The first hour's free.) Tampa is a very large city of just over 100 square miles in size. Our county, Hillsborough, is over a thousand square miles. Pretty big. When I looked through the camera from the top of the airport the city is flat, FLAT, and everything that's interesting to see looks as though it's about 100 miles away. Tiny. But the sky was doing its daily dance of building and changing and moving between black, gray and puffy white. The rooftop also provided several fun elements that came in bright shades of reds, oranges and blues. Plus huge white arrows and directional signs - and WARNINGS - for the directionally challenged. Warning: Do NOT drive off building. (Only kidding about that one.) I had a lot of fun shooting and found enough inanimate subjects to almost convince me to camp out on the parking garage roof and run through my camera's battery life.
Do visit Skywatch Friday to see the beauty and wonders of the world's most magnificent skies. It's an amazing show.
11 comments:
What a fantastic sky! Well-captured.
You are right - it is a perfect unobstructive view.
...but, the WV was "splat" - not very encouraging.
Looks like a great place to capture those cool cloud formations :-)
Nice shot !!
Beautiful sky.
That looks like a fun place to take pictures. For some reason it reminds me of being on the top deck of the ship I was on in the navy.
Great sky picture.
Very cool sky watch shot. I think the signs work very well with this backdrop.
Hey Bob, who's that guy hangin' around on the roof snappin' photos? He looks kinda shifty. Hmmmmm. ;-}
All kidding aside, I really do like this shot Frank. Cool row of signs, great sky.
Looks like you weren't the only one enjoying that view up there Frank! That is a great SkyWatch picture.
As to running and driving all over the huge roof-top parking level, it did occur to me that someone must be watching me from the control tower nearby. I might have looked a bit suspicious or just plain crazy.
like this shot and colors so much!
I like the graphics of this photo
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