Category Archives: Flying

Thinking about flying again

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Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to fly an R44 for twenty-plus minutes. It has been a few years since I’ve been an active pilot and regained my medical last summer in anticipation of flying again. I’ve considered going for a rotorcraft rating but then thought to myself: what am I going to do with it? It’s not like I can fly and shoot at the same time. Flying to a restaurant to eat the three-hundred dollar hamburger to stay current becomes the thousand dollar helicopter joy ride and that is just in an R44. But it felt good to be behind a cyclic again. I have a single-engine land rating and have hours towards the glider add-on. Total helicopter time in the front seat with a cyclic in my hands is about twelve hours. Two in a Jet Ranger flying across North Carolina, six in a MD 500 flying to and from a shoot in Philadelphia and another four in a Jet Ranger flying along the Potomac river on several trips.

So Jonathan, my pilot for a shoot in Southern Virginia asks me when was the last time I had flown and I could not answer him with certainty. After my shoot, we landed at the field and I stuck a Hero HD camera up front to record in time-lapse my flight at the controls of an R44.

The Hero HD is a fantastic little HD video camera that is housed in a waterproof case. It is a wonderful tool for unique viewpoints and places where it does not matter if it gets smashed. I’ve seen them used on car shoots underneath bumpers, on the front end of surf boards and attached to helmets of bikers. It is not a camera for self-portraits as seen here. Just a wee bit wide and a bit too intense.

Here are a couple of my favorites from the an earlier flight that day.

How Kodachrome influenced my life

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My first photographic heros were Jay Maisel, Pete Turner and Eric Meola.

When I started shooting in high school, I lived in a small town in central Michigan. My two choices for color film in those days were Agfachrome CT-18 and Kodachrome II. Both needed to be sent to the lab by U.S. Mail. I’d scour the back pages of Modern Photography to find the best deal for Agfachrome or Kodachrome mailers or the film/combo package that some dealers offered. As a high school student with little funds, I usually would go for a three-pack or ten-pack and try to make every image count. I’d spend my evenings studying the yearly photo annuals of U.S. Camera and Popular Photography. The people whose photographs touched me were Hiro, Arnold Newman, Bruce Davidson, Pete Turner and Jay Maisel. I wrote Hiro about interning at his New York Studio and he sent me a gracious note asking me to stop by the studio when I came to New York.

I choked about going to New York on my own with no financial support. Instead I headed to DC and the Corcoran School of Art and started working at Charlie Scheer’s National Camera near the White House where I met my next set of influences. Frank Johnston of the Washington Post and Fred Ward of the Geographic were mentors of sorts to me along with the wonderful Fred Maroon. All of them influenced my approach and style. Frank shot B&W for the Post, but Fred Maroon and Fred Ward were masters of Kodachrome. My heros shot Kodachrome, the Geographic used Kodachrome with a special messenger run for their film at the Gaithersburg, Maryland processing facility. Kodachrome was the film to use. I remember “RUSH” processing of Kodachrome. You would drive your film to the Gaithersburg lab, hand it over with a store film envelope to someone who reluctantly met you at the side door and then you could pick it up the next morning or have it delivered to your camera store. I also remember shooting 120 Kodachrome for an editorial feature, waiting a week for the processed film and then shipping by FedEx the selects to the photo editor in New York. I can not imagine doing that these days.

Copyright Jay Maisel

Copyright Jay Maisel

How can a film influence a style or approach? The beauty and simplicity of Kodachrome was, you knew what to expect. If you shot under fluorescent lighting you added a 30 or 40 magenta filter and nine times out of ten, you were good to go. If you needed a little pop for color at sunset or in the afterglow, you added a bit more magenta. Usually a twenty would do it. In the early morning pre-sunrise mist, Kodachrome would give you soft colors. In crisp sunlight with bright colors you were good. Add a polarizing filter and underexpose by a half-stop and you were golden.

When I look at my pictures from High School, I see the beginnings of my style. The use of empty space with graphic patterns and always influenced by color or form. Kodachrome helped me achieve my early style by allowing me to trust its consistency and bold colors. Now that Kodak has announced the retirement of Kodachrome, you hear of people buying up as much of it as possible at often prices that seem foolish. Yes, I have a stash of Kodachrome 64 and I plan to shoot it this fall in Haiti. I’ll send it off to Dwayne’s in Kansas and wait patiently to open that box of mounted slides for the last time. When Kodachrome 25 was announced, I recall professionals in DC coming into National Camera and buying up as much of the Kodachrome II as they afford. Seems like history is repeating itself.

Copyright Eric Meola

Copyright Eric Meola

Alex Webb, Bill Allard, David Alan Harvey and Medford Taylor were all Kodachrome users. Their photography showed me how to use Kodachrome in low-light and to push past the cliche colors into a softer palette.
In the past I’ve written small posts about scanning Kodachrome transparencies and on the amazing collection of 4×5 Kodachromes from shot during the forties that can be seen at the Shorpy’s web site. Take a look at the collection of images at Shorpy’s. Kodachrome on 4×5 is amazing: clean rich blacks, intense skies and a smoothness that you can only come from large format.

Kodak has decided to retire Kodachrome and Dwayne’s will continue to process the film through December of next year.

Three to One – Vanity Fair – Anatomy of a Miracle

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Chris Mueller Photo Illustration from three images - Chad Slattery - Interior, Ismael Jorda/Ait Team Images pilot and my aerial of the Hudson.

Chris Mueller Photo Illustration from three images - Chad Slattery - Interior, Ismael Jorda/Ait Team Images pilot and my aerial of the Hudson

Anatomy of a Miracle – US Airways 1549

In late March, Vanity Fair called and asked me to shoot aerials of the Hudson river for a piece on Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the US Airways pilot who landed an Airbus 320 in the Hudson river after ingesting geese into the engines and the behind the scenes look at how this miracle happened..

The story is much richer than a one-person profile; William Langewiesche wove in the reality of Canadian Geese flocks near airports , the turbo fans, the glide ratio of the 320, the engineers who designed the engines and aircraft and most of all, the incredible textbook landing of Flight 1549 on the Hudson.

The idea behind the shoot was to follow his exact flight path and shoot aerials from the same angle of descent and altitude. The helicopter pilot and I did a pre-brief by phone and I sent him the GPS and altitude coordinates for the flight. He worked out the details with Laquardia and two other air spaces we needed to cross for our flight. Since I was shooting two months after the event, I needed to match my light with the light the day of the landing. I matched the angle of the light as close as possible by using sun plotting software. The goal was to recreate the view from the cockpit as the aircraft descended toward the river.

My friend Chad Slattery flew to Arizona to photograph the flight deck of an Airbus 320 so Chris Mueller could put the images together as an photo illustration. Ismael Jorda/Ait Team Images created the photograph of the pilots that completed the image.

What I liked about this assignment was working with Ian Bacsetta, an Associate Photo Editor at Vanity Fair and my friend Chad. Ian had a very clear idea of what he wanted me to shoot and how it would all come together. Ian and I talked about weather, light, helicopter altitudes and my ideas on how to create the image. Chad and I spoke about my images and how he would approach the interior views to create a sense of being there for the reader.

The pilot I worked with flies primarily in New York and New Jersey and only for aerial photography. He knows the airspace and he enjoyed the challenge of making this shoot happen. I started shooting near Columbia University a little above 2000 feet and finished up at five feet off the deck near the piers where the aircraft landed. The river was full of water taxis and cargo vessels. Not only did Captain Sully and his crew have to land a unpowered aircraft in the middle of a tidal river he needed to set his glide path to make sure he did not swamp or hit the boats crossing from New Jersey or Manhattan.

Thanks to Ian for the trust to make this shoot happen, to Chad for his connections within the aviation industry and Chris Mueller for bringing it all together and making it believable.

GPS with Canon EOS Digital and Nikon D series

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OK – here is what I have come up with . This is not too expensive and it works.

This is the Garmin hand-held unit I chose and ordered. I will output the track files and combine with Photo Mechanic to enter the GPS data into the EXIF Canon Files.

garmin

I also ordered a small unit that fits on top of the camera that outputs a log. I am going to test them against each other.

The Garmin eTrax Vista HCx unit I chose has an excellent reputation and the reviews are positive. It includes altitude in the track logs. (which could be positive or negative)

http://tinyurl.com/qrc7xo

If you are a Nikon shooter – Nikon makes a GPS add-on for your cameras. Nikon has a plug that GPS units can connect to the camera and the data is written to the files. Canon makes you jump through an extra hoop plus expense of adding the wireless transmitter for the 1Ds III or 5D II.

This is the GEOPIC. Rated very well for Fuji and Nikon cameras.

geopichttp://tinyurl.com/q5to39

Plug from GPS Units to Nikon Camera

http://tinyurl.com/q9z2w9

ARTICLE on the BH Photo web site about GEOTAGGING

http://tinyurl.com/pqjyvq

NIKON branded GPS

http://tinyurl.com/ql37jk

JOBO Unit that will fire from any camera. (reviews are good and bad)

http://tinyurl.com/qb4w6h

HASSELBLAD GPS UNIT for H cameras.

http://tinyurl.com/qrodfn

Gisteq Photo Tracker is less expensive than the JOBO and the reviews of the new unit are very favorable. I ordered this unit from Amazon.

gisteq
http://tinyurl.com/pmcqzp

If you are a Nikon user, you are pretty much good to go with plug-in-play units. For Canon users, you need to use Photo Mechanic to bring the data from an outside file into your RAW files or purchase the wireless transmitters in order to plug in a GPS unit that will write to the camera files as when shot. Roughly $700 for the 1Ds III and $900 for the 5D II.

Photo Mechanic 4.6 will write combine the data so it is readable in Photo Mechanic and can be placed in your caption info or any field you choose. Version 4.6.1 will write it so it can be read by any software program that can display EXIF data.

http://www.camerabits.com/site/index.html

To Live and Fly in L.A.

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This past week has been a blur. Three days in Palm Springs at the Photo Festival with a bunch of friends plus two aerial projects in the City of Angels.

More to tell/post later in the week.

To Live and Die in L.A. – a movie in my collection. William L. Petersen, Willem Dafoe and John Turturro are the primary actors. Intense flick. Amazing scenes of car chases and the inner working of Secret Service. Quote from Richard Chance character ( William Petersen) Let me tell you something, amigo. I’m gonna bag Masters, and I don’t give a shit how I do it.

Everytime I shoot in Los Angeles, I see scenes from this movie.

 

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Aerial Photography in New York City

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Choosing the right pilot for aerials is much more than finding the service that fits your budget. I work with pilots who know how to fly the camera and who specialize in film and still photography.

Last week, when shooting in New York City I watched my pilot work with three separate controllers, fly through four air spaces plus keep us on our GPS track. Our flight started in New Jersey where we overflew Teterboro with permission of the Teterboro Air Traffic Controller. Next up as we crossed the Hudson we entered into the La Guardia Class B airspace. Within a minute or so, our flight took us back into VFR flight with no immediate need to speak with ATC. On the south end of Manhattan, we flew through VFR, Newark and La Guardia airspace in less then a minute. If we had chosen to fly out toward Coney Island, then we would have contacted Kennedy.

The demands of aerial shooting are tough on a pilot. Not only are you watching for other aircraft plus constant contact with ATC, you are also responding to the photographers needs for the shoot.

I choose to only work with pilots who understand photography and who know how to fly the camera. Safety comes first. It is the most important element of the mission.

When researching pilots for aerial assignments, my first priority is how much experience do they have in type and with aerial photographers who fly low and slow.

I tend to fly in turbine aircraft such as the Bell Jet Ranger, A-Star or Hughes 500. When I need to fly in a piston aircraft, I ask many questions about the ship and the pilots experience with aerial photography. I have a checklist and as a pilot, I feel it is my responsibility to myself and my client to insure a safe flight and a successful assignment. I brief my client before the flight on what to expect: safety precautions, emergency egress procedures and how helicopters work. My experience has been that clients are interested and excited to be in the air, often for the first time and it is reassuring to know that I know what to do if we have to make and emergency landing. The pilot also conducts a preflight briefing and even though I’ve heard it hundreds of times before, it is important to stay with the checklist and not skip over anything because it is familiar.

Chesapeake Bay Aerial Images uploaded to Alamy

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The North Fork of the Shenandoah

The North Fork of the Shenandoah

I recently uploaded over two-hundred aerials from my Chesapeake Bay Watershed project to Alamy. (the book is in design now)  The link above will show you the first one-hundred.

Nanticoke River of Maryland

Nanticoke River of Maryland

Personal Work Updated

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http://camerondavidson.com/personal2.html

Updated the section on Mountain Top Removal in my personal work section.  Removed the Black and White versions of these images.

New images and pairings of images uploaded.  

These images were shot as a personal project and a story for Preservation Magazine.  The personal images were published in Audubon Magazine in the April 2007 issue as Scarface, a six-page essay.