After a one hour flight in this:

where I was harnessed and tethered, I headed back to the motel in mid day heat to work the files, of which there were 437.

Here are a few from today's shoot in the Palouse in eastern Washington:

The yellow is Canola.

Chalking those up to being nice but a little insignificant? Think they don't hold up that well on your iPhone screen? Well, this is a crop of the barn in the lower right from a print size of 30 inches (at 245 pixels per inch):

meaning that these will be amazing. Can't wait to see them as prints.  One of the all time best aerial shoots ever for me. Calm air, wonderful clarity, temp in the mid 60's, doors off the plane, no wing strut in the way. The 206 Cessna I used cost a little more but was really worth it. 

Part of what's so wonderful about being a photographer is the opportunity it affords you to do things that are different than what most people do. You know I am all about the pictures, the results I get, but there is also the ability to have such wonderful experiences too. 

This as I took a break from pointing down at 1000 feet above the Palouse:

When I get home and begin to work the files I will post Wheat 2014 on the site.

Want to know more about photographing aerially?

Go here:

Luminous Landscape 1

and

Luminous Landscape 2

Thanks for reading this blog! I hope you enjoy it.

This post will continue and finish a description of the aerial pictures I made in California in February, 2014.

The first ones are: here

As we flew back from the foothills on the wastern side of the Sacramento River Valley we were flying with the sun in front of us. This meant whatever I photographed would be more reflective and more back lit:

I really liked the way the farmers would leave the natural path of the streams and ponds and plant right around them.

This being February, there wasn't much growth yet. This gave me a palette of browns, yellows and pale light greens to work with.

As a kid I used to make drawings with a ruler and a straight edge on white mat board my mom would get me. These above two reminded me of those.

According to Les, the pilot, the farmers flood the rice fields in the winter, not so much to protect the crops but to attract migrating ducks for hunters to shoot.

And finally, we flew through some more tree farms, with the trees almost bare limbed but with pink and blue buds blooming and dropping their petals on the ground below:

If you're looking at these on a smart phone, shame on you. They are bad enough on the 13 inch laptop screen I use when I travel. What you and I need to see is these as prints because that is a treat no man or woman should miss in their lifetime (LOL).

Seriously, the aerials in particular come to life when printed. How can you see that? Well, first I have to print them when I get home, which I will do, then I have to work to get them shown, which I usually do, or invite you to my studio to see them, which I sometimes do. Tell you what, you respond with an email telling me you want to see them and if I get enough responses I will pull together another open studio night and invite you. Not local, live in China or Australia? What a great excuse to plan a trip.

After being in Santa Rosa for about a week, I took a chance and pushed east over a couple of mountain ranges down into the very flat Sacramento River Valley. This is where the majority of agriculture is in California and it is an extensively managed engine of capitalism and a large part of the state's economy.

I ended up in Yuba City for a night. Towns in the valley exist as support for farming, for the most part, and Yuba is no exception.  I decided to try flying over the valley  as there was potential for pictures in the grids of the fields that ran off to the horizon. At the first small airstrip I tried outside of Calusa the pilot was fine about taking me up but it was going to be in the front seat of a crop duster two winged plane. Having a wing below you when photographing is not so good, plus being out in the open meant there would be buffeting of the camera and the resulting images wouldn't be sharp. I thanked him but declined. In the Yuba airport I found a pilot with his own Cessna 182 who was happy to take me up.

The 182 is about perfect for photography. It is larger than what I am most used to, the Cessna 172. It can fly faster, has more room inside and is very stable. My pilot, Les Sander, was experienced, careful and thorough.  We took off at 10 the following morning and it was clear and calm. Les had asked what I was up to, why I wanted to go up to photograph, and I said that I was an artist and was doing this on my own nickel. He looked surprised but said nothing. Right away we were in some wonderful stuff:

This is a region where they grow a lot of rice and also fruit for dried fruit. The cherry trees were in bloom and a faint pink color:

Just west of where we took off, there lies a low range of hills called Sutter Butte, sticking up out of the flat valley floor like a raisin on a breadboard, an eroded butte from eons ago and the only thing higher than a two story building for miles around:

(Thank you Google Earth)

On the way across the valley headed west we circled it on the northern edge:

Leaving Sutter Butte behind us we flew across the valley floor at about 1500 feet at 135 mph.

Then headed for the foothills along the western edge of the valley.

Les had to fly the plane higher to be able to get over these hills and so he took it up to about 3000 feet. Know how you get a single engined small plane higher? You fly it in circles with the stick pulled back a little until you're at the altitude you need. Takes a while.

Next up, in California Aerials 2, I will chronicle the flight back to Yuba City. It'll be good. 

Along the way Les asked on the intercom through our headsets as we flew along if I was  going to use the pictures I was making to paint from and what did my paintings look like. I had confused him by telling him I was an artist. I explained that no, I was a photographic artist and that I would make prints of the pictures I was making and show them in exhibitions in galleries and museums, maybe. He said, "Really?" 

I said yes, that was usually what happened. 

Next up: California Aerials 2

I am going to go out on a limb (or maybe a wing!) here and discuss a way of photographing that, while it may not relate directly to the way you work, may still have some relevance. Yes, I am referring to making pictures as art from about 900 feet up in the air sliding over the ground at 100 mph.

I find the challenges of photographing aerially endlessly fascinating and at the same   time I think that it is exceptionally difficult to do really well. I have written before about the logistics of shooting aerially and, all things considered, it is not hard to make picutures that are well exposed and sharp. I wrote a piece last year for the site Luminous Landscape that explains the nuts and  bolts of how to photograph from the air. But to make something that stands out, or that is really significant and beautiful is very hard.

What are the problems? Well, first of all, you are flying along over the terrain at about 100 mph, if you're in a Cessna 172, which is a very typical airplane for this kind of work. You can circle back around something if you need to but in reality this doesn't happen very often for me. There is always something else coming up that I don't want to miss. Sometimes too I am trying to cover a large area as effectively as possible. Remember, these flights cost from $175 to $250 an hour. If you've got a good day with good light, clear air so you're not shooting through too much haze, little turbulence so the plane isn't jumping around too much and wonderful things going on below you the real problem is that you have such a multitude of richness below you that it can be overwhelming.

This week I started a new project, photographing along Massachusetts Route 2, from East to West. Rt 2 roughly parallels the Mass Turnpike and cuts a path right across the state from Boston to the border in NY east of Albany.  It starts off four lanes wide but becomes two lanes a little west of Gardner. All went well and we had a very good shoot. In one hour I shot 464 frames and, after a first edit, I am down to 86. Here's a picture of the plane I flew in that day:

Cessna 172's have been made for many years. They are light, slow (good), and have one window that hinges up so you don't have to hold it up as you fly. On the other hand, they are cramped and have a 45 degree wing strut right where you'd like to be pointing with your camera when flying. Out of the 86 frames shot it's hard to figure out which ones are worth printing but this usually gets resolved as I live with the pictures over time, move them around, categorize them and/or put them in separate sections or headings and so on. Here are a few that seem to work for me now:

(remember you can double click on these to see them larger)

Cohesion? Not yet, it is still early days. Right now, I am trying to figure out if I have a real project yet. The plan is to continue along Route 2 until I get to the western edge of the state. So far I have shot about 1/3 of the road's length. 

Stay tuned.

This is one of the planes I fly in, piloted by Mike, who is part of an outfit called "Classic Aviators". They run a charter company on Martha's Vineyard that does big business on summer weekends giving rides in a red two seater biplane. This Cessna 172 is from the mid 70's and is in excellent condition. This one has the hinged window on this side, the left, so that's where I sit. Mike is a natural pilot as flying runs in the family.

Yesterday was perfect for flying with calm air and good clarity. The landing strip is close to the water so it was cool on the ground but as we got up to flying altitude you could feel the air get warmer, just the opposite of what you'd expect. It is still early in the season here and as the Vineyard is surrounded by cold water, everything happens slower in the spring.

On the way back to land we headed over towards Seven Gates, an area of the island developed almost 100 years ago with broad expanses of fields and large woods with few houses. I have only been in there a couple of times in all the years I've been coming to the island as it is private so it is great to be able to see it from the air.

As we approached the landing strip back in Katama. we flew over a couple of ponds:

Martha's Vineyard is a special place and fragile in many ways. Let's hope we don't screw it up so that it can be like this, so very beautiful, for future generations.

Just a gentle reminder: Viewing these pictures on an iPhone should be against the law and to see these larger click on an image and it will turn into a slide show.