Author Archives: Maria Langer

The Challenges of Aerial Photography

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It ain’t easy.

A lot of people think that aerial photography is easy. Go up in an aircraft and snap a photo. What can be easier than that?

Truth of the matter is, it’s not as easy at it seems. Mike and I learned this a while back, when we attempted to provide aerial photography services when I owned an R22 helicopter. And as a business person, photographer, and pilot, I have a unique perspective on the topic.

The way I see it, problems fall into three areas.

Client’s ability to accurately communicate what he wants a photo of.

Some clients — those are the folks who want the photos — simply can’t communicate what they want a photograph of. Couple that with their unreasonable expectations of what the photographer can do and the photographer’s failure to communicate his limitations and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Take, for example, one of our early photo shoots. A guy owned 10 acres of land southwest of Wickenburg. He hired us to photograph it from the air so he could use the photograph as a selling tool. What he failed to explain is that he expected a straight-down image, almost like a super zoomed in satellite view. The aircraft that take those kinds of photos are airplanes with belly cameras flying at 10,000 feet or higher. We can’t shoot straight down with our setup. The client said he wanted a photo of his land from the air. When we provided a very usable image from 1,500 feet up, slightly to the south, the client was very disappointed.

If you’re reading this as someone who needs aerial photos of a specific place, take the time to talk to the photographer and tell him exactly what you need. Draw pictures if you have to. Make sure he understands and can deliver what you need.

Photographer’s ability to communicate what he wants the pilot to do so he can get the shot.

This is the one that I, as a pilot, run into all the time. This problem appears to break down into three separate causes.

  • The photographer thinks I’m a mind-reader and that I know what he wants to shoot, so he doesn’t provide instructions. When I don’t get the aircraft in the right position, it’s my fault because I couldn’t read his mind.
  • Horseshoe Bend with Plane
    My helicopter was part of the equipment for this shot by Mike Reyfman. We were in an OGE hover 2,000 feet above the canyon when this plane came into view 1,000 feet below us.

    The photographer doesn’t understand exactly what a helicopter can do. Yes, if it isn’t too windy or we’re not too heavy or high, I can hover on point so you can get the shot. Yes, I can make a sharp turn — left or right — around the target. Yes, I can climb almost straight up (or descend almost straight down) to change the angle of the shot. Yes, I can fly sideways, at slow speed, to keep the target in frame. Yes, I can chase the target at almost any altitude or speed needed, keeping the target in front, beside, or behind the aircraft. But if the photographer doesn’t ask for any of these things, I’m not going to volunteer them. After all, I’m just the pilot — not the photographer.

  • The photographer seems almost afraid to ask me to fly the way he needs me to. Maybe he’s flown with other pilots in the past who simply would not perform the maneuvers he needed. (I get a lot of my Phoenix-area photo business because one local helicopter operator refuses to fly below 300 feet or slower than 60 knots — not exactly flexible enough for aerial photography.) Some photographers may believe that all helicopter pilots set arbitrary limitations on how they’ll fly and don’t want to push. I don’t know about you, but if I’m paying a pilot $450/hour to fly me around to get the shots I need, I’m going to ask him to do exactly what I need him to do. If he says no, I won’t push. But if he says no to everything I ask, I’m not likely to call him again.

Pilot’s ability to put the aircraft where it needs to be to get the shot.

Sometimes the pilot just can’t do it. This could be because of lack of skill, lack of aircraft performance capability, or lack of space for maneuvering the aircraft:

  • Wheat Harvest
    My buddy, Jim Van Sky, was flying his helicopter in central Washington state last summer when he put me in position to get this shot. Jim is a highly skilled pilot with plenty of experience taking photographers around. It was a pleasure to shoot with him at the controls.

    Skill is pilot-specific. Either he has the skill or he doesn’t. He might not have it this year, but he might have it next year — that’s why it’s always a good idea to work with an experienced pilot. I know I can safely perform certain maneuvers now, at 2,100 hours flight experience, that I couldn’t even dream of performing when I was still building my first 1,000.

  • Aircraft performance is aircraft-specific. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard photographers choose an R22 instead of an R44 or an airplane instead of a helicopter just to save a few bucks. When will these people learn that the aircraft is part of the equipment? Would you do the shoot with a disposable camera if a professional level Nikon or Canon were available? Yeah, the pro camera will cost more, but it’ll do a much better job. The same goes for aircraft. Airplanes simply lack the flexibility of helicopters for serious aerial photography. Yes, you can often get the same shot from an airplane, but it’ll take the pilot twice as long to get into position and to get back into position for the next batch of shots. And while you’re getting into position, you can’t get all those other interesting shots you might see because the wing strut or prop or some other airplane component is in the way. (And yes, there are exceptions to this, but they’re mostly customized solutions, such as the aircraft flown by photographer Adriel Heisey.) As for R22 vs. R44 (or any other larger helicopter), unless both you and your pilot weigh under 150 pounds and you’re flying with half tanks of fuel at sea level on a cool, calm day, you’re asking for trouble flying a serious photo mission in such a small aircraft. It simply does not have the performance needed for challenging maneuvers or high density altitude operations. The photographer in this aircraft learned the hard way.
  • Rainbow Bridge
    My husband, Mike, took this shot of Rainbow Bridge a few years ago. It’s tough to get a shot better than this from the air.

    Location isn’t always accessible. Sometimes there just isn’t enough room in the air around the target to get into position. Here’s a good example. I take a lot of photographers over Lake Powell. Many of them want to shoot Rainbow Bridge, which is in a deep, narrow canyon off the lake. Because of the nature of the canyon and its surroundings and the weird wind patterns that sometimes set up in there and the general high density altitude conditions that prevail at Lake Powell, the closest I can get to Rainbow Bridge is about 500 to 1000 feet above it. I won’t hover there — if we get into a settling with power situation, there’s simply no way out. I always do it as a slow fly-by, circling as needed. That’s the best I can do. Part of it is skill and part of it is aircraft performance (or my understanding of it though 800 hours of stick time in that aircraft), but most of it is the sheer difficulty of the terrain around the target. I’m not willing to descend down into a canyon that I may or may not be able to safely climb out of. There are plenty of other places like this where, for one reason or another, the aircraft just can’t get into the perfect position for the photographer to get the shot.

And then there’s the photographer.

San Francisco
I was a passenger on my own helicopter when I shot this view of San Francisco with the marine layer moving in beneath us.

None of these points take into consideration the photographer’s skill, his choice of lenses and other equipment for the shoot, and the suitability of the subject matter for aerial photography.

Some photographers just don’t “get” aerial photography. That doesn’t mean they won’t. It just means they need to think it out beforehand, give it a few tries, analyze the results, and try again until they do.

Or maybe it just isn’t for them.

But when done right, aerial photos can be a truly amazing look at our world.

What’s Blooming in My Yard on May 7

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A few snapshots.

Yellow Prickly Pear Flowers

Here’s the yellow version…

This is the time of year when all those prickly cacti call out for attention that isn’t painful. They’re starting to flower.

My husband and I planted every single plant within the wall that surrounds our immediate yard. The rest of our 2-1/2 acres is mostly as nature intended.

We planted desert plants because we live in the desert and see no reason to pour precious water into the ground if we don’t have to. That doesn’t mean that we don’t irrigate at all. We do — a little. But not much. You see, most of the plants are cacti.

Salmon Prickly Pear Cactus Flowers

…and here’s the salmon version.

Right now, the prickly pear cacti are flowering in my back yard. Interestingly, they’re blooming in two slightly different colors: a yellow and a pale salmon. The plants came from the same source on the same day and were planted at the same time. Why they are two different colors is beyond me.

The flowers are amazing. They look almost like wax. Here’s a glimpse of them; you can click a larger photo to see it in my Photo Gallery.

What’s also interesting about these cacti is that last year they produced mostly new cactus pads. Think of the pads as branches or leaves. Each pad will produce either flowers or more pads. Last year we had lots of pads — so many that I cut some young ones off and grilled them up to have with dinner a few times. But this year it’s flowers. Don’t know how the plant decides.

Cholla Flowers

Cholla Flowers

The cholla (pronounced choy-ya) flowers — or at least one type of cholla — there are many — are also blooming. Cholla is a particularly nasty type of cactus. I can blame the poor quality of this photo on the simple fact that I refused to get close enough to this cactus for it to bite me. This type of cholla grows well in my yard; green and hardy. The flowers were a surprise; I guess I missed them last year.

More cactus flowers are on the way. I’ll try to snap photos of them as they bloom. I noticed that the new arms on our big saguaro have flower buds but the top doesn’t have any yet. I’m wondering about that.

The hedgehog cacti are just about finished blooming now. I got a great photo of one in Page, AZ last week; you can see it in this blog post. I haven’t had time to add the other photos of this cactus to my gallery; I hope to do it soon.

Not enough hours in a day.

Southwest Circle Track

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More of a squished oval, as you can see.

Southwest Circle TrackLast week, I flew about 8 hours, visiting several popular tourist destinations along the way: Sedona, Grand Canyon, Page, Monument Valley, and Flagstaff. For each leg of the flight, I had my Spot Messenger running, leaving a breadcrumb trail of my GPS location every 10 minutes. The result could be found on my Spot Public tracking page, http://tinyurl.com/FindMaria. (That page only shows my track points from the past 7 days, so it may be empty or showing something else when you view it.)

Yesterday, I viewed the results and captured them as a screenshot. Here it is. You can click the image to view a larger version that might be easier to read.

I guess I can say that this is the official track of Flying M Air’s Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure.

And no, I’ve done geekier things than this.

Alex the Bird at the Office

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Showing off.

I bought Alex the Bird a stand that he can hang out on in my office. The idea was really to take it down to Rear Window (our Phoenix condo) so he can hang out with me when I work there. He really hates it there and I know he’d like it better if he could spend more time with me. But since neither of us spend much time at Rear Window, the stand hasn’t made it down there yet.

Anyway, I realized that with him standing behind me, I could probably get some good photos of him with my computer’s built-in iSight camera. So I took a shot.

Then I realized that I could also make a movie with the camera. So I fired up iMovie and recorded directly from the iSight into an iMovie file. Here’s the result. Alex can talk up a storm when he’s in the mood, but he wasn’t at his best this evening. I’ll try again another time.

About Goulding’s Lodge

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The place to stay in Monument Valley.

I need to take a moment to talk about Goulding’s Lodge in Monument Valley, since so many of my Twitter friends commented on the photos I tweeted of the view from my room.

Goulding’s was founded by Harry and Leona (“Mike”) Goulding back in the 1920s or 30s. It was a trading post back then, where the Navajo would trade their rugs, blankets, jewelry, and other hand-made items for goods that the Gouldings stocked in their store, such as foodstuffs and items otherwise unavailable on the reservation. The trading post started as a tent and, after a while, moved into a stone building that still stands on the property, housing a museum.

First Light at Monument Valley
The view from my room at first light. I slept with my curtains open so this is the first thing I saw when I woke up on my most recent trip.

During the depression, many of the Goulding’s suppliers went out of business, making it difficult for them to get goods to trade. Harry Goulding got the idea of going to Hollywood to sell John Ford on the idea of using Monument Valley as a location for his western movies. He went out there with some photos of the place and, after some difficulty, got to show them off. Ford came east with film crews and John Wayne. The rest, as they say, is history. Many movies were filmed in Monument Valley, giving the local economy a real boost.

Goulding's Lodge
Goulding’s Lodge is built into the side of a hill overlooking the west side of Monument Valley.

Goulding’s Lodge is a pair of motel-like structures built on a hillside overlooking the western part of Monument Valley. Until recently, it was the only lodging in the valley — the Navajo have since built their own hotel inside the park. Just about every room at the lodge has a view of the valley from a private patio. There are also several houses that belong to the lodge that can accommodate larger parties — when I came to the valley with an Arizona Highways writer and video crew in October, we were lodged in a pair of homes that could have easily slept 10 people.

Gouldding's Trading Post Museum
The old trading post is now a museum.

Harry and Mike are long gone but Goulding’s remains privately owned. It’s staffed almost entirely by local Navajo workers. In addition to the lodge and trading post museum, there’s a newer “trading post” gift shop, a restaurant, and a small movie theater that shows slide shows, videos, and old John Wayne movies nightly. There’s a private landing strip across the street where pilots who stay at the lodge are welcome to land and park. Goulding’s also offers several different ground tours of Monument Valley; the passengers on my six-day Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure take a 3-1/2 hour tour while we’re there.

If you’re interested in staying at Goulding’s Lodge, reserve your room now. I book a year in advance to make sure I can get the rooms I need. I recommend two nights, if you can, so you can get into the park and enjoy both a sunrise and a sunset at your leisure. Although you can take your own vehicle into the park, you can go much deeper into the park if you go with a guide; you can arrange for one at Gouldings or inside the park.

No matter how you get there, I highly recommend a stay. You’ll never forget it.