Extreme vacation near the airport of the island of San Martin
A day at the beach usually seems fun and carefree, but a visit to the famous Maho Beach is something quite extraordinary. The beach, located on the Dutch side of the Caribbean island of San Martin, is right next to the runway of Princess Juliana International Airport. While vacationers are bathing and swimming, planes fly with incredible noise almost over their heads, and the smell of kerosene fills the air. Photographer Joseph Hoflener and his son Jacob spent over two months on this unique beach to create an illustrated book.
(Total 10 photos)
1. “This is an incredible place,” says Joseph. — There is no other airport of the same kind in the world. Given all the high modern security standards, today you will not be able to get so close to a plane anywhere without a ticket.”
2. Father and son visited the island four times between 2009 and 2011. For about three weeks, they photographed and documented information about each airport flight daily.
3. “On average, there were only 5-6 planes per day, and the break between them was about an hour or more,” says Joseph. “But we couldn’t relax on the beach like other vacationers.”
4. “We had cameras in our hands and we were almost always standing because you never know when the next steel bird will fly by. Often the plane would show up as soon as we went to the bathroom or to buy something to drink.”
5. The Hofleners filmed with two Hasselblad SWC 6x6 cameras. They had only one attempt to film the landing of the plane. “It's quite difficult, because. most of the people on the beach are constantly on the move, and you have to constantly run with them if you want to take a good photo.”
6. “And the plane is approaching at over 160 km/h, and you never know how high or low it will fly, whether it will be on the left or on the right. You only have a fraction of a second to take a picture, and now the plane is gone.”
7. None of the photos in this series were staged, although on several occasions father and son saw people posing for them with their friends.
8. "A lot of people didn't even realize we were photographing them as most of the other photographers at that time were solely focused on the aircraft."
9. “They used zoom, which is pretty funny, because the plane is huge and flies just a few meters overhead.”
10. The Hofleners' photographs will be on display at Shater Gallery in Colorado from June 20th and at the Joseph Belous Gallery in California from June 7th.
Keywords: Airport | Caribbean | Recreation | B/w | Extreme