Fort Lauderdale airport a top spot for aviation photographers

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-airplane-spotters-20130117,0,6159355.story

They try to capture the most exotic big birds, and South Florida is one of their favorite haunts.
Hunters? No. These are aviation photographers, who call themselves "spotters," because they take pains to identify and shoot interesting and colorful airliners, corporate jets and military planes.

"It's a passion," said Eddy Gual, 70, of Miami, a retired freelance photographer, who has taken more than 200,000 photos of planes, and organized the shutterbugs under the Florida Aviation Photography Society about 23 years ago.

Coming from around the globe, including Japan, Australia and Germany, dozens of the spotters congregated on the roof of a parking garage at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International on Thursday and shot everything from small commuter planes to Airbus airliners.

"It's like bird watching, but instead we're looking for airplanes," said Manfred Turek, of Munich, Germany, who noted Fort Lauderdale airport is primo for the spotters because of its good vantage points and diverse operations.

Read More: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-airplane-spotters-20130117,0,6159355.story

 

The parking garage may be great to watch landings to the west, but down at the west end of the runway, there's an observation parking lot. Granted, it's at ground level, but I've sat there just watching the landings (to the east) and the view is great.