Shot for Vanity Fair in Los Angeles last month. A mix of landscapes, aerials and a portrait. Easy going shoot with a fantastic subject, ace assistant, incredible 14,000 hour pilot and luckily: drop-dead severe clear weather in Los Angeles. Several people told me how the weather had been fairly nasty with fog hovering over the city for the past several weeks. The aerial and portrait shoots days were perfect: low humidity and clear skies.

http://www.asmpdc.org/education/event/info?id=265

Three years ago I was sworn to secrecy about a new stamp series. EARTHSCAPES will be released next year and an aerial I shot of Blackwater Refuge on Maryland’s Eastern shore is featured in the preview. It is the image on the far right of the five preview stamps. The postal service decided to give a sneak peak of the stamps via Twitter and Facebook.

Howard Paine, the former Art Director of National Geographic phoned me several years ago and asked if I was interested in being a part of the project. I was and am honored and excited to be a small part of this new stamp series.

My friend Grant Symon sent this article to me. If you own Hassies and are interested in aerials or just the history of photography, check out this article.

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Extremely well-written behind the scenes article detailing the raid on Osama Bin Laden, from the New Yorker. Incredible:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/08/110808fa_fact_schmidle#ixzz1Tq5niGs7

Excerpt detailing the helicopter crash:

“When the helicopter began getting away from the pilot, he pulled back on the cyclic, which controls the pitch of the rotor blades, only to find the aircraft unresponsive. The high walls of the compound and the warm temperatures had caused the Black Hawk to descend inside its own rotor wash—a hazardous aerodynamic situation known as “settling with power.” In North Carolina, this potential problem had not become apparent, because the chain-link fencing used in rehearsals had allowed air to flow freely. A former helicopter pilot with extensive special-operations experience said of the pilot’s situation, “It’s pretty spooky—I’ve been in it myself. The only way to get out of it is to push the cyclic forward and fly out of this vertical silo you’re dropping through. That solution requires altitude. If you’re settling with power at two thousand feet, you’ve got plenty of time to recover. If you’re settling with power at fifty feet, you’re going to hit the ground.”

The pilot scrapped the plan to fast-rope and focussed on getting the aircraft down. He aimed for an animal pen in the western section of the compound. The SEALs on board braced themselves as the tail rotor swung around, scraping the security wall. The pilot jammed the nose forward to drive it into the dirt and prevent his aircraft from rolling onto its side. Cows, chickens, and rabbits scurried.”

http://www.azpm.org/science/story/2011/5/26/1830-the-view-from-above/

Award from Graphis for my aerial of The Destruction of Port au Prince, Haiti after the January 2011 earthquake.

See the series here.

If you have an iPad – here is the link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aerial-new-york-city/id395699743?mt=8

I hope you enjoy the flight. If you like the app, please pass the word and link on.

Thank you.

Cameron

The shoot started out in Oakland where we hand to wend our way between two TFR’s – one over San Francisco for a Blue Angels exhibition and the second one centered on a Berkeley football game. Our location in Oakland sat between the TFR’s (Temporary Flight Restrictions) and the controllers in Sacramento were incredibly helpful and as always professional.

After finishing up in Oakland we flew over the mountains to photograph an engineering project north of Sacramento. California’s Capital City via the car is a couple of hours from Oakland: by helicopter it was around forty minutes. I shot targets of opportunity as we clipped along at 100 knots. We crossed new housing developments, a huge wind farm plus thousands of acres of rice fields. Most of the fields are dry now and are filled with grazing cattle. Sometimes I will fill card after card of images shot just for the joy of it as we move between locations. Saturday’s flight was one of those perfect days with severe clear weather, crisp fall light and temperatures in the mid-seventies.

I took along a potential piece of new kit on this flight, the Nikkor 28-300 VRII. Pretty sweet lens, not as wonderful as the 70-200 VR II on the long end or as incredible as the 24-70, but it is sure is nice for aerials to be able to go out to 300mm if needed. Combined with my KS-6 gyro and B+W PL filter, it is a pretty sweet combo.

Hope you enjoy these.