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I have found (actually Flightradar24 did this for me) a beautiful photo of an Etihad Airways A340 banking right to land at Sydney Airport:

enter image description here

Basing on building in the background, is it possible to tell, from where this photo was taken? It is extremely interesting to me, because you don't get landing plane caught in this position too often.

One of my early suspicions was a drone, but it is quite hard for me to believe, that a drone could fly that close to a manoeuvring plane (especially, that photo's author is well known and could be forced to penalty for doing so).

Finally, I settled up, that this must be some quite tall building in Sydney, from where this photo was taken using quite good long-range lens. But, is there any of such building in Sydney, high enough, close enough to Sydney Airport's approach routes to be able to catch this plane in such a beauty?

Side note: I understand, that this is a quite hard task, that I'm asking for (and that this question may eventually be closed). However, you have proven so far, that you're able to make things virtually impossible, so I dared to ask again.

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    It's Bondi Beach in the background. There's definitely no building you could take this picture from, so it must have been arranged with another aircraft (plane, helicopter, drone...), probably from a distance. Also, this seems quite a low altitude given the distance from Kingsford Smith (and the presence of low relief in between), so I would venture that this was a promo shot arranged on purpose?
    – jcaron
    Feb 24, 2016 at 9:51
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    Yup, it was a promo shoot done on request, with the photographer shooting from another aircraft.
    – user29788
    Feb 24, 2016 at 10:14
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    Note that there is another picture taken the same day: jetphotos.net/photo/7709517 which is right over the Sydney CBD (the buildings at the bottom are those on the western edge of Hyde Park). Definitely not regular operations!
    – jcaron
    Feb 24, 2016 at 10:15
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it doesn't seem to be about travel
    – blackbird
    Feb 24, 2016 at 13:51
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    @blackbird57 If take a look at my other question, linked in last sentence, then you'll find this comment by JoErNanO, which says "This is a prototypical identify-this question and IMHO belongs on Travel. Voting to leave open". Before saying, that something is off-topic because not about travel, consider reading about identify-this questions and how do they work here.
    – trejder
    Feb 24, 2016 at 20:30

1 Answer 1

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It's taken from a helicopter. Here's how I've confirmed this:

The photographer's name is Seth Jaworski, as mentioned on the Jetphotos.net page. Googling his name yields a video showing how Seth flies out on a helicopter to take photos around Sydney airport.

seth jaworski video airport

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    Ooooohhh arranging permits for overflying the airport at low altitude must be quite a challenge!
    – jcaron
    Feb 24, 2016 at 11:47
  • @jcaron Its my understanding that these pictures are often taken with telescopic lenses, allowing the helicopter to be quite far away from and above the plane being photographed.
    – ThunderGuppy
    Feb 24, 2016 at 21:14
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    I was referring to the linked video, which shows the inside of the helicopter, and many shots taken from very very close to the airport. You can very clearly see it over airport runways/taxiways between 0:48 and 1:07 and more.
    – jcaron
    Feb 24, 2016 at 22:08

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