Photos: Courtesy of ClampArt, New York City
I'll admit it: when airline service is bad, I notice, but when it's fine, I don't usually bat an eye. Brian Finke, however, has spent the last five or so years noticing it all. Not the ups and downs of peanut-availability, but the flight attendants themselves.
Finke's portraits are irrepressibly fun, catching the lives of attendants with just enough candor and honesty for you to identify with them.
In this photographer's hands, their endless cycles of salted snacks, mimed emergency procedures, and airport architecture take on a hint of glamour, the wanderlusting fantasy of travel that urges attendants and passengers alike into the air.
If you happen to be around New York Cityin the next month or so, head over to the ClampArt Gallery in Chelsea, where Finke's portraits of our mile-high companions will be exhibited until March 22nd.
Or check out the monograph from PowerHouse Books, Brian Finke: Flight Attendants, which is also publishing a tasty collection of lifeguard portraits by Matt Albiani, who photographed The Out Traveler's Winter issue cover.
From top to bottom, left to right:
“Sara,” 2006, C-print.
“Wenyi and Kate, Tiger Airways,,” 2006, C-print.
“Lily and Azriza, Air Asia,” 2006, C-print.
“Icelandair,” 2006, C-print.
“Thai Airways,” 2004, C-print.
“Candace and Susan, Hawaiian Airlines,” 2005, C-print.
