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.
Now, over several shoots, I seem to be acquiring a great many aerial pictures of this one island: Martha's Vineyard. Why? Well, I suppose partly because I am already there but more importantly it is still surprising and I am still learning from it. Perhaps this is the way I can make pictures that are good and satisfy from the island. I know that shooting on the ground here is much more difficult for me.
Gyro battery charged? Check. Camera battery charged? Check. Camera set for shutter priority and 1/1600 of a second? Check. ISO set? Check. VR off on lens? Check. Card empty? Check.
This is part of the mental checklist I go through when getting ready to shoot aerials, which I did this morning at 8 am. On one of the hottest May thirty-firsts I can remember we took off from the Katama Airfield on a grass strip in a Cessna 172 on Martha's Vineyard. Sliding up the South Shore I shot from the inland looking out towards the ocean:
Then, as we flew farther up island, we turned inland near Herring Creek and I made some exposures with no ocean in the frame:
The ponds on the island are everywhere, mostly small but some quite large.
Then we turned and made two runs from the cliffs at Gay Head down the beach from Philbin on down to Squibnocket. This is where, as teenagers, we would have beach parties, sometimes sitting around camp fires to keep warm. In those days you could get a Jeep in there, if you knew where to turn off the paved road. This is the region we called Zack's Cliffs and it was where the biggest dunes on the island were and still are. Much of it is Kennedy/Onassis land now.
This is an area of such sublime beauty it is difficult to comprehend. It is where my job is hugely simple: to just keep it together, to point the camera as we slide by, to click the shutter at the right moment but not to intrude myself into the picture at all, just let what is there 800 feet below me get taken in by the lens, absorbed by the sensor and held as a still picture to look at later, to have, to hold, to keep and to use as a way to be brought back to this transcendent slice of time, hovering over these dunes, this water, this beach and this land. Perfect.
Next up? Once Again Part 2, of course.
Many years ago, Bruce Davidson and I had a conversation about making pictures on the island. Bruce and his family have been coming to the Vineyard for many years.We agreed that it is a very very hard thing to do. Hasn't stopped me from trying, though. I have photographed on the island, on and off, for over 40 years. A long time.
Yes, there have been shows on the island (one with my mom, who was a painter, in 1978), but in recent years only a print or two here and there. Imagine trying to make landscape pictures, good landscape pictures, in a place like Nantucket, Bermuda, the Bahamas or Jamaica. Something done to death everywhere you turn. Quaint little fishing village? Check. Beachside sunset? Check. Seagull on horizon? Check. Quaint gingerbread cottages? Check. So, yes I shoot a lot but only very rarely get something worthwhile. To be honest, the only time I think I've done anything innovative of the island is the new ones from the air (MV Aerials). The book we are working on now will be the new aerials of the island, out in early 2013.
At any rate, as the book will only be aerials, that makes anything shot while I was standing on the ground unusable. So, I am presenting some here that are made while being grounded, so to speak.
I've restricted what I am showing you to either 2011 or 2012 as a start but may go back farther in future posts.
Squibnocket Beach Parkng Lot, Chilmark
Middle Road, Chilmark*
Middle Road, Chilmark*
Vincent's Beach Parking Lot, Chilmark
Philbin Beach, Gay Head
Middle Road, Chilmark
Menemsha
Chilmark
Chilmark
Middle Road, Chilmark
I used to think of the pictures I made on Martha's Vineyard as a way of photographing that spoke to constancy in a changing world, with the premise being that by shooting on the island each year over a whole career my approach would change but the place would stay much the same. However, the island has changed so radically over the past twenty years or so that much of it is definitely not the same. The industry of fishing, for instance, has been devastated by decreasing yields and strict catch limits. Tourism is what drives the present day Vineyard economy and if you've ever been caught in a traffic jam in mid summer at Five Corners in Vineyard Haven you'll know exactly what I mean. I avoid the island during its high season July 4- Labor Day.
So, while I think of Martha's Vineyard as being home and it is very beautiful it is not a paradise nor a place without its complexities, problems and challenges. This is true for its residents as well as those that own summer houses there.
* Is that two photographs by Neal Rantoul that are blurry? Yes, it's rare but true. These were made with a Lensbaby. I am a big fan.
Many of you have seen a group of aerial pictures I made last spring of Martha's Vineyard (MV May 2012). This past Friday I made another flight as I wanted to see if I could extend the series. I also wanted to work with late fall colors.
Here are some of yesterday's photographs. The full set are now up on the site (Martha's Vineyard Fall 2012)
(Remember: if you click on an image it will open up a full size slideshow)
I haven't written anything yet about aerial photography. It is its own specialized category of making pictures and I feel like I am late to the party as I've just been shooting this way for a few years. It is surprisingly easy to do logisitally. Go to an airport, find the private aviation area, ask if there is anyone that can take you up for an hour or so, and make sure you are flying in a high-wing plane like a Cessna 172. Helicopters are great but far more expensive. Cessna's are good as they are light, maneuverable, slow and have windows with hinges on the top so that air pressure will hold the window open once you're in the air. It isn't good to photograph through the glass. I usually am charged about $250 for an hour's flight. Of course there are many levels of photographing from the air. If you begin to get serious about aerials a gyro stabilizer is next up the chain in the pursuit of higher quality. These are expensive but increase the ratio of successful pictures to failures considerably. I regard a shutter speed of 1/1000 of a second as a minimum and am always trying to get more depth of field (DOF). You'd think that DOF wouldn't be so important but if you photograph at an oblique angle with a long lens like I do you do need DOF. I used a Nikon D3x for a few years and am now using the Nikon D800E. The primary lens I use is the f2.8 70-200mm VR Nikon lens.
Yesterday's flight was in flatter light than usual for me and was something of an experiment. Having no shadows and less quantity of light is challenging but the pictures are the reward. Don't eliminate flat light as a way to shoot aerials but just make sure the ceiling is above the altitude you will fly at. Most of the aerial work I do is between 700 or 800 feet on up to about 1500 feet.
Finally, work with the pilot. Besides being tethered to the gyro stabilizer I am also wired into the pilot with headphones and a microphone as it is important to tell him what I am up to and where to go. Very often I will ask him to fly a circle around something or to tilt the wing down so that I can shoot straight down. I've been flying now on the east coast with George Reithof for several years. He is an excellent pilot and is a photographer as well so he gets what I am trying to do. George lives on Nantucket but is willing to fly over to New Bedford or Hyannis to pick me up. He can be reached at: 508-325-8655 or through his site at: Over Nantucket Website. I recommend him without reservation.
When flying in a Cessna you should try to avoid this:
That's the wing support strut which I've made many more pictures of than I wanted to.
Got a comment or a question about this post or any others? Until we get a comment section set up on the site you can always email me at: Neal Rantoul's email.
We are starting work on a new on demand book and I thought it might be informative to write about the process. This will be the seventh we have done. Andrea Star Greitzer is the designer, Patrick Philips is the writer of the intro and I am using pictures made either on or above Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts for the book's content. Andrea was a colleague of mine at Northeastern and has designed all of these books. Patrick is the editor and publisher of the magazine, Arts and Ideas.
All of these books, printed by My Publisher, are organic projects that involve quite a bit of back and forth between Andrea and myself. I would describe the books we've done as being collaborative projects. We will discuss, debate and negotiate back and forth for several weeks, trying different versions of ordering the photographs, eliminating pictures or replacing pictures with other pictures, until the book begins to fall together.
The Vineyard is a difficult place to make pictures that avoid cliché, redundancy or are just too pretty. So far we are working on defining the story I will try to say with my pictures and we are thinking of trying to speak to the struggle entailed in doing a book from such a beautiful and over photographed place.
Of course, having no editor, no real publisher and no large financial restrictions helps things along quite a bit. This means we are free to make a book just as we please. Also, you can print just a few and then go back and print them as you need to.
Progress update from a couple of weeks ago when I first posted this. I have now made another flight over the island and we will incorporate some of the new pictures in the book. I also have a far better idea of the story we will tell. It is far too easy to lose sight of just what the island is, to assume it is the same as any other seaside community. But from the air, the place's sheer beauty is inescapable.
Once published we will post the book for sale on the site. I will be showing some of this work next summer at Featherstone Gallery on the island next summer.
