Chesapeake Aerial Book – Final Design meeting and layout
Cover layout
Thank you page with an image of Steve Bussman preflighting his Hughes 500 before an early morning winter shoot in Southern Maryland.
Rough layout of a few of the pilots I have flown with for this book.
A spread in the Upper Bay chapter showing the Susquehanna near its confluence with the western Branch.
Ace designer Alex Diaz.
Yesterday Alex Diaz, Greg Glaviano and I met to finalize the layout and image selection for the book. I nixed eight spreads and added six new ones from recent shoots. We have an incredible design with a elegant type treatment and a mix of double truck, full page and mixed sized images. The book covers the complete Chesapeake Bay Watershed starting at the headwaters of the Susquehanna and continuing to the mouth of the bay. I shot every major river system in the bay plus the islands, marshes and cities of the watershed. There are quite a few abstract aerials that will hopefully delight the viewer plus images with great impact. The earliest image was shot on Kodachrome and the most recent was shot two weeks ago on a D3x in Pennsylvania.
Goal is for shipment to the printer in early April with delivery of final copies in May. A pre-order site is being set-up and the first one-hundred copies of the book will include a signed and numbered print.
The Sandpit – incredible little short film of New York City
http://aerofilm.blogspot.com/2010/02/sandpit-short-film-by-aero-director-sam.html
Read the story about how he did the shooting and post. Well worth it. Time lapse with a Nikon D3 and two lenses. Tilt/Shift effect added in post. Over 30K in frames shot.
The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.
AerialStock collection of Port au Prince destruction
Aerials of Port au Prince destruction
This evening I uploaded two new galleries to my portfolio site – Port au Prince Aerials and Rural Medical. The aerial images of destruction in Port Au Prince will be available through Corbis within the next few days.
National Cemetery
Cité Soleil
Tent City in the middle of Port au Prince
The Presidential Palace
Destroyed Homes in Port au Prince
The Seguin Plateau
Monday I dove into a environmental clash story and and spent the day in Central Virginia photographing one side of a complex issue. It was windy, cold and I was fighting to not show the snow in the photographs. Low angles worked along with overpowering the available light with strobe. It is a good story and I enjoyed the challenge of shooting a piece for a summer issue while winter is still on the horizon.
Less then thirty-six hours earlier, I was savoring the last remnants of Haitian heat and humidity as I waited for the flight home. American upgraded me to Business Class which was unexpected and a nice way to close out the week of photographing the poorest of the poor in southeastern mountains of Haiti. Last week I spent three days photographing a team of medical professionals from the Community Coalition for Haiti as they traveled to remote villages in the Sequin Plateau. The second day we set up a clinic in a small church with no windows and three small doors. The light was amazing and I shot what I feel is my strongest work to date in Haiti.
Here are a few of my favorites. Two new galleries will go up on my portfolio site tomorrow. These are the teasers.
Tomorrow I’ll show more aerials of Port Au Prince and the destruction of the city. A set of these images will go to Corbis and to aerialstock.com.
Intense week in Haiti – Aerials and Medical
A huge shoot. One week of travel. Remote medical teams in the Seguin Plateau plus aerials in Port Au Prince. Will edit on Tuesday. Here is a quick look from aerials shot yesterday morning.
The National Palace
Collapsed homes along the ridge line near downtown
Tent City in Port au Prince
Frozen Susquehanna River and West Virginia Fields
Susquehanna South of Harrisburg.
Frozen Vineyard in West Virginia
Paddocks in Virginia
Chesapeake Bay – The last flight for the book
Last Friday morning I caught a break in the weather and flew up the Potomac River from Northern Virginia to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
Brunswick, Maryland (updated)
Dickerson, Maryland power plant along the Potomac river.
In the early afternoon, I drove to York, Pennsylvania and flew with a former U.S. Army pilot who now flies a Hughes 500 for power line patrols. We flew the Susquehanna river from west of Harrisburg to the downstream dams near the Maryland border.
Ice moving on the river.
Snowmobile tracks.
Along the river.
A wee blast of winter
Blizzard number two started last evening. Last weekend the snow was 24″ inches deep in my front yard. (60.96 centimeters) Todays blast is expected to add at least another ten inches snow. (25.4 centimeters) Wind gusts are expected in the thirty to fifty knot range.
This morning I startled a Coopers Hawk clutching a European Starling underneath one of my bird feeders. The Starling was screaming for dear life and the Coopers spooked as I trundled through the snow to my front door. This Coopers has taken quite a few birds at my feeders along with a neighbors. Usually it is a slow moving Mourning Dove. Last fall I shot video of the unfortunate demise of a Grackle by this Coopers.
Out my office door looking toward the deck.
Looking down my street.
The holly trees that flank my front door are zealously guarded by a male Mockingbird who chases off flocks of American Robins who attempt to eat “his” holly berries. I watched him chase off close to twenty robins yesterday. As soon as they would alight, he would swoop in to defend his property.
Alien Skin twenty-percent sale for Haiti Relief
The good folks at Alien Skin software (the makers of the incredible Exposure 2 plug-in for photoshop) are donating ten-percent of their sales through the end of the month to the Red Cross and the Community Coalition for Haiti – the NGO that I shoot for and am a member of their board of directors. In addition to donating ten-percent of their sale, they are also offering twenty-percent off through the end of the month. Which is pretty cool!
