When I first got my hands on a brand-new Nikon D70, I couldn’t resist snapping photos everywhere—even shameless self-portraits as I pretended to be a high-profile journalist.
During a flight from Salt Lake City to Jackson, Wyoming, I leaned toward the window and snapped a few shots as we climbed higher. If you’ve ever tried photographing through an airplane window, you know the struggle: modern jets like the Boeing 767 have double-paned glass—a thick outer layer and a thin, often scratched-up inner Plexiglas panel with a small gap in between. The interior pane is usually marred by scratches, oily smears, or even cracks. But just like shooting through a chain-link fence, if you focus far enough into the distance, the imperfections blur into a soft haze.
Three years later, I landed an assignment for American Angler about using Google Earth to find hidden fishing spots. The editor and I agreed that a striking opener—a real aerial photo overlaid with Google Earth-style graphics—would grab readers’ attention. The catch? A convincing fake satellite image requires serious perspective. Scrolling through my archives, I rediscovered that old airplane window shot over Salt Lake City.
The original was a six-megapixel vertical shot. Magazine spreads are typically printed at 300dpi and span about 17 inches, meaning my photo could fill one page—but not two. Determined to make it work, I mirrored the image and carved out generous white space.
The result looked like a Rorschach test or an apocalyptic continental split. But with some cloning and edge-touching, I transformed it into a believable (if surreal) landscape. Next, I adjusted the colors to neutralize the blue tint from the window, turning it into a halfway-decent mountain vista.
Then came the Google Earth interface. Thankfully, Google’s placemark icons are stored as PNG files, so I could extract and resize them without losing quality. The navigation controls, however, had to be recreated from scratch. They weren’t perfect, but as my dad used to say, “Good enough for government work.”
To mask my cloning flaws and reclaim white space, I added a Mac-style cursor arrow—a small but effective touch.
The magazine’s photo editor wasn’t thrilled with my first draft—I’d misjudged the margins and page dimensions (those folks measure down to a sixteenth of an inch). Luckily, I’d built everything in Macromedia Fireworks (yes, the now-obsolete web design tool I stubbornly clung to), so scaling it was just a quick math problem away.
Since then, I’ve used this airplane window technique for photos published everywhere from the Bahamas to Brazil. While they’ll never rival shots from a dedicated aerial photographer, these images are rare enough to stand out—and sell. Next time you’re on a flight, remember: always grab the window seat.