It was the first un-humid, un-sweltering day in weeks when P. and I decided to knock an adventure off our “Top 10 Things To Do This Summer” list: kayaking on the Potomac River. Oh, the gorgeous views we saw! Georgetown, the Lincoln Memorial and Roosevelt Island, a rainbow, ducks – I saw them all in a way I’d never seen them before. Still, I was disappointed to find trash floating all over the river. At first, it was just a bottle here and there. I actually picked up an empty Pepsi bottle, vowing to myself I would pick up any more trash we found. But then it became clear this task would be overwhelming. Ugh.

What I love about an airport is knowing I could end up anywhere in the world from there. Sometimes, on my way to my gate, I stop and read the departure monitors. I like imagining where I would travel if I weren’t heading to my current destination: “Buenos Aires would be fun; I’ve never been there. Cleveland would be like another world. Plus I could visit the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. Oooooh – Singapore! I could visit Sooz and Barry. Well, maybe next year. I should go to my gate now.”

The second thing I love about an airport is watching the people. Before 9/11 kept non-passengers from going to airline gates, I used to hang out at National Airport in Washington DC and watch people walk out of those tubular disembarking hallways and into their loved ones’ arms. Or not. Sometimes people came out, looked around for someone who wasn’t there and walked out to the main terminal halls. Budding writer that I was, I wrote down descriptions of these reunions (or non-reunions) and built short story scenes around what I saw.

In the past couple months I’ve spent a lot of time in airports. Which means I’ve also taken a lot of pictures in airports: the people, the buildings, the atmosphere. Some airports are like art museums, with sculptures and paintings and light displays (I’m thinking Detroit.) Some airports are like shopping malls, with people milling about the duty-free stores, picking out chocolates and perfumes and trinkets they don’t really need (I’m thinking Seoul-Incheon and London Heathrow.) It’s all incredibly fascinating. And so I’ve decided to start a photo essay on airports. Looking at the photographs I’ve posted, it seems that right now I’m interested in the architecture and the color in airports but I don’t really have a theme or an idea where this will lead me. We’ll see.

Detroit, USA

Detroit, USA

Seoul-Incheon, South Korea

Washington DC, USA