As Real As It Gets (2025)
As Real As It Gets is a photography project by Thomas Nolf in which he explores the human need for escape through the lens of aviation culture. During the COVID-19 lockdown, Nolf rediscovered his childhood dream of becoming a pilot. At a time when travel was prohibited, he installed the latest version of Microsoft Flight Simulator on his computer and embarked on his virtual journey. The memory of the slogan “As Real As It Gets”, which was on the box of Flight Simulator 1998, inspired him to seek out plane spotters around various international airports and meet flight simulator pilots at their homes. Through their fascination with aviation, they have found a way to keep their dream alive or to temporarily escape from reality.
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Flight simulator pilots are passionate about building their own cockpit at home. Some install multiple screens on their desks, while others use old aircraft parts to create a cocoon around themselves. This allows them to escape from their daily lives, in which they may find it harder to navigate. With its complex switches and procedures, the cockpit offers a sense of structure, autonomy and control.
The plane spotters do not move in a virtual world but observe, document and photograph the planes in the real world with great precision. They usually stand at a safe distance along runways, but on Maho Beach in Saint Martin (Caribbean), adventurous tourists gather in the jet stream of the planes. Against the breathtaking backdrop of turquoise water and an azure sky, they experience the thrill of planes skimming low over the beach before landing a few hundred metres away. This spectacular scene has made Maho Beach an iconic holiday destination.The project also highlights aircraft spotters who document planes with precision. At places like Maho Beach in Sint-Maarten, spotters and tourists gather to experience low-flying planes against stunning tropical backdrops, merging thrill and beauty.
Nolf combines photography with simulated images, texts, and childhood snapshots to explore the romantic and dreamlike appeal of aviation. His refined compositions and colour corrections are reminiscent of the stylised, almost surreal aesthetics of video games, film and advertising. In capturing his compositions, Nolf frames the images—whether it’s the touristic Maho Beach or the runway in Miniatur Wunderland—in such a way as to emphasise the artificial, fictional nature of the environment. The figures we see in the images are thus situated in a still, strange and stylised version of reality. With this approach, he balances on the border between fiction and reality, emphasising the idealised dream of escape and the artificial nature of photography.
The texts he wrote are based on the various encounters that took place throughout the project (2020 - 2024), but here too, Nolf pushes the boundary between reality and fiction. The people he engages in dialogue with seem to become fictional characters in an equally fictional universe. Moreover, he plays with the language registers of the film and advertising world and employs a highly evocative language.
(Lara Verlinde)
As Real As It Gets, book publication, published by Art Paper Editions (APE), 2025
