Ron Shoots

I’m in Chicago for a 2 days. A helicopter pilot/friend on the East Coast was in the area filming a sporting event so the helicopter was already here. We shot last night and then again this morning to capture both sunset and sunrise. (By the way, the sun comes up early in Chicago in the summer- like 5:24am today!) We met at the airfield in the dark and were in the air headed towards the city at 140 mph by 5am. We lucked into just enough cloud cover for a nice sunrise and a narrow band of blue sky before the clouds overtook the entire horizon. Weather is just one of those factors where you never know! A few clouds always helps make a better sunrise or sunset.

The sunset shot above was taken with the Hasselblad H3D-39 and 35mm lens. Shutter speed was only about a 30th of a second, however with the gyro-stabilizer (KS-6 from Kenyon Labs), the camera can be hand-held at much lower shutter speeds.

Sydney is even more amazing from the air. There’s dozens of bays, beaches and small harbors. With the third day in a row of beautiful weather, I set-up a quick 2 hour helicopter shoot to photograph the city from a different perspective.

Good pilots are key!

The pilot I worked with today was excellent. He was extremely knowledgeable of all the local sites as well as the permissions we would need to get from Air Traffic Control to accomplish the shots I wanted. For example, the scene above is shot from “restricted” air space and needs to be cleared by the tower before entering- this space is set aside for approaching jets to the Sydney International Airport. We were allowed to “pop-up” for a few minutes before having to clear the airspace.

When shooting aerials, a good pre-production meeting with the pilot is essential. We made a basic route plan and he showed me, in advance, areas where we would need clearance. Working our the details on the ground is far better than trying to figure out things in the air when time is money.

Always looking for a different angle!

I’m always looking for a different perspective on the classic shots. While the classic may have more staying power for most audiences, having an alternate angle is not only fun to shoot, but gives the client more choice.

In this case, the 1,000 ft tall Sydney Tower dominates the skyline. The pilot was able to get us clearance to move through the business district. I then saw my opportunity for the different angle- why not shoot straight down on the tower! Most of the time, we spend our time looking up, so let’s have a look down. I had the pilot fly sideways so I would have plenty of time to set up the shot.

Thanks Pete, for helping make this shoot a success!

Had a ton of fun editing through the aerials this week. When you’re shooting aerials, your mind is totally occupied by things like keeping the horizon line straight and not letting stuff fall out of the helicopter! So editing afterwards is the joy of discovering all the cool images that were captured along the way.

This image comes with a contest: “Best Headline Wins a $20 Starbucks Card.”  Post your headlines in the comment box. Go for it!

Wrapped up the aerial shoot today! We left Los Angeles mid-morning hoping for the marine layer of clouds to pull back so we could shoot scenes along the beach on the way down to San Diego. Unfortunately, the clouds and fog hung around for most of the trip but we managed a few shots of Huntington pier, Laguna Beach, San Clemente and La Jolla.

Can’t plan the weather!

That’s the tough part of location work- you never can plan the weather! Originally, we were scheduled to shoot San Francisco, but a winter storm prevented us from going much further north than LA before the clouds & rain took over. If you look at the map above, the only section we were able to work was the Southwestern quadrant of the USA. The beauty of shooting stock is the flexibility. While I need to deliver marketable images, the best strategy is to continually adjust production plans to maximize available opportunities.

Trip Stats

The pictures are what count- these stats are just pure fun! Over the last 5 days: 2600 miles, 165mph top speed, from 27 - 87 degrees, 14186 highest altitude, 224Gb of image files and 631 gallons of Jet A fuel. Only 5 states. Oh yeah… 13 power bars.

One of the image styles I’m testing is to use the motion of the helicopter and a slow shutter speed to make the ground look like its zooming past the viewer. Tough effect to achieve! We need a flat space of 1 to 2 miles without any obstructions for safety. The best effect is also during early morning or late afternoon when its easier to achieve a slower shutter speed due to diminishing light. I’m using a gyro-stabilizer attached to the Hasselblad to help keep the camera movement to a minimum.

On this shot, we found a train headed west outside of Flagstaff, Arizona in a wide open area. The train was rocking along about 70mph. The pilot matched his speed to that of the train at 20-30ft off the ground while I leaned out the window to shoot.

Pretty cool effect!

We left Sedona at 7:30am for Phoenix, about a 45 minute flight. We shot around Scottsdale on the way to downtown Phoenix. Don’t think I’ve ever seen so many golf courses- there must be a golf hole for every person in the town!

Loving a tailwind!

After Phoenix, we headed west towards Los Angeles. Since there’s nothing but miles of desert and not a ton to shoot, we were cooking along at 165mph- about 30mph faster than normal. (With the price of Jet A fuel at 3.89/gal and a helicopter that sucks 28 gallons/hr, a tailwind is much appreciated…)

Eye-to-eye with the FAA

Once we arrived LA, we refueled and plotted our photo spots. The highlights would be freeways & traffic, Long Beach Harbor and the Los Angeles airport. Flying in the LA airspace is intense- lots of other airborne traffic. Just about every sector is controlled by an airport tower that needs to know where you are, how high, where you’re going and what you’re doing! Fortunately, the pilot I’m working with has flown in the area for years.

Absolutely amazing to me is that you can fly a helicopter right into the middle of LAX. The tower needs to give approval to cross the runways and then you’re in. We hovered at 1500ft right over the tower, then landed at the helipad for a few minutes before taking off again.

Anyone who knows me reasonably well knows that I have never met a dessert tray that I didn’t like! Today, we started out at sunrise in Monument Valley and then flew north toward the canyon lands in Utah. Unbelievable! Everywhere we turned was another incredible scene. Whether 1000ft tall cliffs or 1000ft deep canyons, we were surrounded by amazing photo opportunities… hard to choose… so I shot them all! (78Gb today)

High Point of the Day (literally)

After Utah, we headed east towards the western edge of the Colorado Rockies to shoot a few snow-capped mountains. There’s been an early snowfall or two, but there wasn’t massive amounts quite yet- but still a cool (I mean cold, really cold) shot. We climbed to 14,000ft but found the winds at the upper elevations were kicking at almost 60mph so we couldn’t safely do a lot of maneuvering. Temperature dropped to 27 degrees, and remember, there’s no door on my side. The Hasselblad, MacBook and Canon all worked great despite the extreme conditions… and I’m beginning to get feeling back into my fingertips!

Tonight, we’re in Sedona, Arizona.

(click the video screenshot to play.)
Here’s a quick video taken with the MacBook laptop built-in camera.
Shooting over Death Valley at about 5,000ft. Cold.

Lake Powell is absolutely beautiful and today was a super clear day. I’ve been shooting overall editorial scenics and way cool artistic images where I try to look straight down at Mother Earth’s patterns of nature.

So we’re minding our business over the lake at about 2,100 ft (low in aviation terms- commercial jets fly at 37,000 ft.) when I catch just a gray blur out of the corner of my eye. I had been shooting out my door on the right side. The pilot had just uttered a few choice expressions- that gray blur was a military jet that just missed us on the right side by 100 feet at 600mph…

Here’s a snapshot from this morning in Lone Pine, and the laptop set-up. Being able to see the images full screen as soon as they are shot is perfect. I can check the histograms for exposure and keep on shooting!

We piled on the layers today. I had on long underwear (black), jeans and ski pants… plus sweatshirts and a heavy down jacket. At times today, we were as high as 9,200 ft to navigate across the mountains.

I’m sorry sir, we don’t have an airport…

Tonight, we’re in Kayenta, a small (very small) town outside of Monument Valley. You gotta wonder when you make the hotel reservation and we mention that we’ll be arriving at the “airport” and the clerk says… “I’m sorry sir, we don’t have an airport. Well… we do have a landing strip…” They offered a ride since the airport was 1 1/2 miles away. Did I mention that Kayenta doesn’t have cellular service… we’re talking small town. The scene of us trekking down the highway with our luggage was right out of a really bad reality show!