As Real As It Gets
As Real As It Gets is a photography project by Thomas Nolf exploring humanity’s need for escape through aviation culture.
In As Real As It Gets, Thomas Nolf explores the human desire for escape through the lens of aviation culture. Between 2020 and 2024, he traveled the world, visiting airports, meeting flight simulation enthusiasts, and photographing the world’s largest model airport in Hamburg. The exhibition weaves together photographs, simulated images, text fragments, and archives from his youth. What began during the lockdown as a rekindling of his childhood dream of becoming a pilot, evolved into a poetic exploration of freedom and longing. His images, influenced by the aesthetics of games and cinema, hover between fiction and reality, questioning the artificiality of photography and the idealised image of the escape. By reflecting his own journey through the dreams of others, Nolf captures a romantic yet elusive search for liberation from daily life.
