{"id":7799,"date":"2013-03-18T18:44:45","date_gmt":"2013-03-18T18:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=7799"},"modified":"2013-03-18T22:49:06","modified_gmt":"2013-03-18T22:49:06","slug":"official-start-of-toppix-2013-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=7799","title":{"rendered":"Official Start of Toppix 2013 Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Robby Cijntje, in the yellow shirt, welcomes the first group (about 40 folks behind me), to the briefing for Toppix 2013. \u00a0Toppix 2013 is the first of what will surely become a big annual event sponsored by the St. Maarten Tourist Bureau, and the SXM Airport. \u00a0St. Maarten is known as one of the most beautiful Caribbean Islands, but maybe is best known a a haven for airplane spotters (people that love to catch airplanes up close!) \u00a0They surely get the chance here as the approach for the runway has planes touching down mere feet from the beach. \u00a0the runway is long enough for safe landings, but the large commercial jets must touch down immediately and that means for very, very low approaches! \u00a0So with a camera in hand, spectacular airplane photographs are possible. \u00a0Toppix is an annual contest to pick some of the best of those images.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The photographers attending this event are mostly serious amatuer and pro shooters with the gear to make such stunning images. \u00a0All brands are represented buy the vas majority of the shooters are Nikon or Canon, according the event organizers it is about 2:1 in favor of \u00a0Nikon. \u00a0Representatives of Nikon, Canon, Pentax, and Olympus are stationed at prime shooting locations and, by appointment, spend time with individual photographers. \u00a0My Gazebo location is the prime spot for mid to late afternoon light on landing planes. \u00a0Mornings are spent on the other side of the Island and the Sunset Bar and Grill which has a perfect view in morning light.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A common, but very dangerous practice is hanging on the fence right behind jets taking off!! \u00a0The sign below is not an exaggeration, I’ve seen lost of people blown back into the water on the beach! I can’t imagine the fascination with getting sand blasted!!!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The contest runs Sunday thru Tuesday and then Thursday thru Saturday. \u00a0The Tourist Bureau suggests taking Wednesday to explore this lovely Island and I will be doing so with a new friend, Bryan Rymer, an avid aviation\/travel photographer, and a very good one by-the-way, and man well acquainted with this Island. \u00a0We will hopefully go big game hunting Wednesday and bring back some trophy images. \u00a0Everything is beautiful in the Islands, as in even a table setting!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

O.K. got to close, it’s time for my 3:00 to 6:00 shift at the Gazebo…..<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Blessings,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the pilgrim<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robby Cijntje, in the yellow shirt, welcomes the first group (about 40 folks behind me), to the briefing for Toppix 2013. \u00a0Toppix 2013 is the first of what will surely become a big annual event sponsored by the St. Maarten Tourist Bureau, and the SXM Airport. \u00a0St. Maarten is known as one of the most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronicles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7799"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7806,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7799\/revisions\/7806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}