About Us

Welcome to MSP Spotters.net, a site dedicated to providing up to date information about the Minneapolis / St.Paul International Airport.

Ben Graden and Cyrus Cambata have a long history with the MSP airport. They both grew up in the MSP area and have been spotting at the airport since the two can remember. Ben and Cyrus began taking pictures and videos back in the early 90s, using film cameras and an old camcorder. Eventually they invented CBPhoto®: a photography company as a way to identify themselves around the Minneapolis area. Ben and Cyrus began their work back when it was possible for anyone to enter the Lindbergh Terminal. The two used to spend hours in the observation deck taking photos. Eventually the digital camera era evolved and a whole new passion for aviation photography came about. Their passion for photography at the Minneapolis / St. Paul International Airport was strong, but eventually the desire to spot at other locations became even stronger. Ben and Cyrus eventually started their own web site, which was first hosted on Angelfire.com on a shared web server. This site was called Airplane Photo Shop. After a few years of experimenting with that project, they decided to officially launch a web site on its own server. In early 2003 work began building Airplane Photo Zone. In the fall of 2003, Airplane Photo Zone (APZ for short) was officially launched on its own server. After a few years of having great success with APZ, reaching over 50,000 photos from all over the world, it was time to switch gears and focus on a project at more of a local level.

Timothy Hannan had the original idea for a MSP Airport informational website. He called this site MSP Update. MSP Update was officially launched in October 2003. Beforehand it was on geocities, geared towards a much smaller audience. The website was originally evolved because of a lack of information available to the public. MSP Update evolved into a fantastic website featuring information about construction, terminals, airline service, and a section dedicated to aviation enthusiasm. MSP Update was removed in the spring of 2007.

In April of 2009, Ben, Tim and Cyrus decided to team together. The idea was to combine both sites into a similar vision at a local level. Today, MSP Spotters.net is a site to do just that! MSP Spotters.net features the latest info about the MSP airport, the airlines that serve it, information on spotting and photography, and much more!

We are proud and honored to bring this site to the public and we truly hope you enjoy it. If there is anything you would like to see added to the website, please do not hesitate to contact us and let us know!

Ben Graden

Cyrus Cambata