Category Archives: About the Photos

Information about the photos that appear in the header.

Air-to-Air

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The best photos of an aircraft usually show it flying.

Sunday morning, I flew in formation with another aircraft for the purpose of air-to-air photography for the fourth time.

I’ll never forget my first time.

The first time I did this was back in 2002. Flying M Air had a 1999 Robinson R22 Beta II helicopter and I wanted some air-to-air photos for advertising material. A friend of mine had access to a Piper Cub and we made arrangements to do the flight early one morning on the east side of Vulture Peak here in Wickenburg.

The friend — who, unfortunately, is no longer a friend — is an accomplished airplane pilot. He can pretty much fly anything with wings bolted on, from sailplanes to Piper Cubs to Boeing 747s. He had a lot of formation flying experience and he insisted on a briefing. The briefing was, well, brief. It consisted of the following information, which was drilled into my head by repetition:

The lead plane leads. The wing plane watches the lead.

In other words, in every formation flight, there’s a lead plane. That’s the one that sets the flight path. The other planes are wing planes. Their job is to watch the lead plane and maintain the formation. In fact, the wing plane should look at only one thing: the lead plane. The lead is responsible for keeping an eye out for traffic, making radio calls, and doing everything else. The wing follows the lead.

“What does the wing do?” he asked me?

“Follow the lead,” I replied dutifully.

This was pretty simple stuff, but I could tell that it was very important to him. And although I felt that he was treating me like a child with all the drilling, I had a feeling that he’d flown with other people who hadn’t understood the simple instructions. He wanted to make sure I understood. I did.

imageWe flew out of Wickenburg Airport early one morning just after sunrise, when the air was still and cool. Mike flew as a passenger in the Cub with my old digital camera. We flew several passes on the east side of Vulture Peak. Sometimes the Cub lead, sometimes I lead. The best photo of the bunch, which you see here, was with me flying wing at the Cub’s 4 o’clock position.

Next, Two Helicopters

A few years later, I made arrangements with my friend Tristan to lease his 2000 R44 Raven I helicopter for a winter season. When Tristan delivered it, I figured I’d take the opportunity to get a few air-to-air shots. We did a little briefing at the airport and took off. Mike took the camera and sat beside me in my R22.

N45PGThe flight wasn’t as structured as the first flight, but it turned out okay. We got some good photos of Tristan around Vulture Peak. I trusted Tristan not to do anything crazy, but there was a certain level of stress as we flew around. I felt a constant need to see where he was because I wasn’t convinced that he understood the whole wing follows lead thing.

Then, A Real Scare

When I got my 2005 Robinson Raven II, I needed new photos. So I asked my friend Jim if he’d fly with me. Jim’s got a Hughes 500c.

I tried to do a briefing. I really did. Jim kept telling me that he understood. I thought he did.

But as we flew, I realized that Jim didn’t give a damn about the wing follows lead thing. He was just going to fly along with me so Mike could take photos.

imagePart of the problem was that Jim sits on the left side in his helicopter and I sit on the right. So when he was flying on my left side, he was mostly in my blind spot and he had difficulty seeing me. And since I thought he’d be watching me, I wasn’t watching him. Until I happened to glance over and see him a little too close for comfort on my left, right after Mike snapped this photo. To say this wigged me out is an understatement.

Sunday

On Sunday morning, I flew in formation with Dave so aviation Jon Davison could get air-to-air photos of my helicopter for his upcoming book about Robinson Helicopters. Dave is a responsible pilot — heck, he sells aviation insurance for a living! He also might just have as many hours flying helicopters as I do, since he flies his helicopter from Wickenburg to Scottsdale and back — a 30-minute flight each way — most days. So I felt pretty confident that he understood the importance of keeping a safe distance from each other and always knowing where the other one is.

A side note here: about a month or two ago, there was a horrific midair collision in Phoenix between two news helicopters. They went down in a fiery crash and all four on board died. Having something like this happen so close to home — especially when it involves people you know — really peaks your awareness for the dangers of flying with other aircraft. I think this was probably on Dave’s mind as well as mine.

Dave's Hughes 500cWe took off from Wickenburg and did a slow orbit around Vulture Peak with me in the lead. Jon sat behind Dave on the left side of the helicopter, dangling his feet out the door. They flew at my 5 o’clock position. At one point, Jon asked me to stop and hover on the east side of Vulture Peak while he and Dave moved slowly around me.

I should mention here that Zero-Mike-Lima performed flawlessly, allowing me to hold out of ground effect hovers at more than 3000 feet MSL. It wasn’t hot and it wasn’t windy and that made things a lot easier for me. But I did have full fuel and a passenger on board, putting me at about 2200 lbs (that’s 300 lbs below max gross weight).

After Vulture Peak, we broke off and started east across the desert to Lake Pleasant, with me flying in Dave’s 7 o’clock position. We decided to do some work over the Quintero Golf Course, which most people around here don’t even know exists because you can’t see it from the main road. Dave went in first to scout the area with Jon. Then they directed me into position over a pond in the middle of the golf course. It was 8 AM and there were a few golfers down there. I hovered about 300 feet AGL over the pond while Jon and Dave flew around me. We managed to get the shots we needed in only 3 minutes, then continued on to the lake.

At the lake, we flew slowly up the east shore at Dave’s 9 o’clock position. The sun was behind Dave’s helicopter, shining right on us and on the lake and mountains beyond it. We did a few shots near the marina, then broke off and headed off to the stone house.

The stone house, which I mention briefly in “Why I Don’t Share GPS Coordinates Online,” sits on a saddle overlooking Lake Pleasant. It’s a magnificent structure — or at least it would have been if it had been completed and if the vandals hadn’t destroyed much of what was there. It made a good backdrop for the photos Jon wanted to take. After hovering around in front of it — and scaring away a small herd of cattle that had been grazing on the hillside — we landed and got out for a visit. The place was in even worse condition than it had been on my last visit more than two years before.

At the Stone House

We climbed back into our helicopters, cranked them up, and took off to a mill site Dave knew of. It turned out to be Anderson Mill on the Santo Domingo wash. We did some more air-to-air work by the remains of the mill, then broke off and flew back to Wickenburg. Over town, Jon got a few more shots of me flying, this time with Wickenburg in the background.

It was a good photo flight.

More Photo Work Done

We spent yesterday on a whirlwind tour of northern Arizona that included Prescott, Jerome, Sycamore Canyon, Howard Mesa, the Little Colorado River Gorge, Roden Crater, the Grand Falls of the Little Colorado River (not so grand yesterday), Winslow and La Posada (I love breakfast there), Meteor Crater, and Sedona. We flew with Jon’s door off so he could get glare-free photos out the helicopter. But he also took some shots of me flying, using a wide angle lens so he could get the helicopter and views beyond in the shot. Great stuff.

Jon’s still finishing up his editing of the photos he took, but I’ve been watching him work and they look great. I hope to share a few of them here shortly. And I’m sure at least one of them will become Flying M Air‘s new postcard.

Stay tuned.

By the way, you can read more about the first three photos in this piece in “Retouched Photos?“

Butterfly Out My Window

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Finally captured in pixels.

For the past few days, I’ve been watching butterflies come and go in the Mexican Bird of Paradise bushes outside my office window. Today, I decided I needed to capture them with my camera.

ButterflyDigital cameras are incredible things. You can take 3 dozen photos of the same basic scene and at least one of them just has to be good.

This shot was taken with a Nikon DSLR with a 70-210 zoom lens. The tricky part was focusing — the darn butterflies wouldn’t stay still and there’s just enough breeze outside to move the flowers around. But with a quick shutter speed, several of the shots came out pretty good. I think this might be the best.

Photo Info:
Camera: Nikon D80
Shutter Speed: 1/800th
Aperture: f5.6
Focal Length: 210mm
ISO: 200

Wildlife from the Bus

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In Denali National Park.

While in Denali National Park in June 2007, we took one of the shuttle buses 20 or 30 miles into the park. The shuttle bus service is very unusual — at least as far as my experience goes. It’s a glorified school bus, painted an earthy color — oddly, I can’t remember if it was beige or green! — that traveled down the park’s single dirt road, making a few bathroom/view stops along the way. But that’s not all the stopping it did. It also stopped every time we say some wildlife, whether it was a raven’s nest or a bear family. At that point, everyone on the side of the bus where the wildlife could be seen would lower their windows so we could all get shots of the wildlife.

You can read more about our day in Denali here.

I have mixed feelings about the experience. First of all, it was great to see wildlife in such a convenient way. It was especially good for folks with limited mobility — like the many older folks in the park as part of a cruise ship package. The bus made it possible for them to get the “Denali Experience” which they’d otherwise miss.

But I have a problem with limited access tourism. I believe that it has made it acceptable for us to visit natural wonders and see them through the window of a vehicle rather than to get out and experience them close-up.

You want an example? When I flew helicopters at the Grand Canyon, a good percentage of our passengers only saw the Grand Canyon from the window of a helicopter. While that’s certainly an incredible way to see the canyon, it’s certain not the only way — or, dare I say it, the best. A walk along the rim of the park is easy enough and will expose you to wildlife, the sound of the wind in the trees, the smell of the pines, the feel of the heat or cold coming out of the canyon. In other words. you use more senses than just sight. A hike or mule ride into the canyon will bring the canyon around you and make you part of its immensity. A raft trip down the Colorado River will let you experience one of the powers that carved the canyon and is still carving it today.

But this entry isn’t about the Grand Canyon. It’s about Denali and the wildlife I captured with my camera from the bus. You’ll see these photos in the header for this blog.

Raven's NestThe raven’s nest was the first wildlife we saw. The nest was in a tree not far from the road. I was fortunate enough to snap this photo of one of the raven parents returning to the nest with food for its young.

Bear FamilyThe bear family — mom and the two cubs — was a big hit. They were right near the road and we stopped for a while to watch them. Later, on another bus, we stopped to watch them again. Lots of photo ops. Unfortunately, the driver of the second bus was extremely rude and admonished anyone who had the guts to whisper when we were in the area. Too much noise, he said. As if big buses driving up and down the road all day didn’t make too much noise.

CaribouWe saw some caribou along the way. At one stop, there were several of them and a bear in sight. I snapped this photo on the return trip.

I took more photos that appear in the header in Denali. I’ll discuss them in other entries.

Mt. McKinley

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From the train.

DenaliIn June 2007, we made our first-ever trip to Alaska. The first part of the trip was a short stay with friends in Anchorage, followed by a train ride to Denali National Park. The much-touted train ride was long with plenty of scenic bits. The highlight was this view of Mt. McKinley, which I snapped from our train car seat.

Mt. McKinley, which is also known as Denali, is the tallest mountain in North America. It stands over 20,000 feet (that’s nearly 6,200 meters for those of you in the rest of the world) and is perpetually snow-capped. It also is usually surrounded by clouds, as you see here. My shot is actually considered a relatively good photo, since the mountain is hidden more often than not. (The link at the beginning of this paragraph includes an excellent photo taken from within Denali National Park.)

I enjoyed the train ride to Denali but the return ride was overkill. I also wish that we’d stayed inside the park rather than in the horrible little tourist town the cruise ship companies have built just outside the park entrance. (You can read more about our trip to Denali here.) The park is full of wildlife but access is severely restricted. Although you can see plenty of animal life from the tour buses you have to take to to get more than 16 or so miles in (I can’t remember exactly), hiking is somewhat limited along the tour bus routes. The overall feeling in the park is that 99% of the visitors see everything through a bus window. That’s not how we normally experience National Parks.

Anyway, my recent trip to Alaska has made we want to visit again. Next time, I’ll spend more time in the park, away from the crowds and closer to the natural beauty that brings them there.

And maybe — just maybe — I’ll get a cloud-free glimpse of Denali.

Web Site Redesign: Fitting in My Photos

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With 90+ photos appearing randomly in my old site’s header, I wasn’t about to leave them behind.

CutlineOne of the reasons I chose the Cutline 3 Column Right theme for my site’s redesign is because I wanted a three column layout that was wider than my old site. Studies — including stats from all of the sites/blogs I operate — showed that the vast majority of Web site visitors have their screen resolutions set to 1024×768 or wider. I even use that setting on my little 12″ PowerBook. So the old site’s redesign was throwing away 200+ pixels of screen real estate that could be better used providing content or navigation features.

How Do I Use Those Images?

The problem I faced was the header image. Since I built my blog in WordPress nearly two years ago, I had been displaying images that I’d taken during my travels. The images had to be cropped and fit into pre-established format. I used the Random Header plugin to randomize the display. Over 18 months, I’d added nearly 100 images to the header image collection. I’d even begun writing about them in the About the Photos topic. They had become an integral part of my site and I didn’t want to lose them.

So while I continued working on my Leopard book during the day, this little problem was in the back of my mind. For days. One option was to rework the CSS and change the header image so it only took up a portion of the width and use the space beside it for a Web site description. Unfortunately, I don’t know enough CSS to do this successfully without spending hours on trial and error. With a deadline approaching, I couldn’t afford to waste time experimenting. I had to have an answer and be ready to implement it.

About the Photos Images

Then I remembered the smaller images I use in About the Photos to show the images I’m discussing. What if I put three of them side by side and displayed them with some sort of randomizer? Would they fit? What would they look like?

Example ImageThe images in question were 324 pixels wide. The space I had to work with was 970 pixels. 3 x 324 = 972. My luck, sometimes.

I reduced the size of three images to 322 wide and began some quick experiments to replace the existing header image (the street scene you see in the screenshot above) with the three images. I could get them to fit and they didn’t look bad. But I couldn’t get the spacing between them just righ. And I didn’t like the way they fit right up against each other.

A Short Film History Lesson

Then I came up with the film sprocket idea.

For those of you who began using a camera in the digital age and aren’t familiar with 35mm film, let me explain. Before everyone started using digital cameras, serious photographers used 35mm film. The film comes on rolls and has tiny holes along each side. A camera has gears that line up with the holes. You feed the film into the camera and it grabs the holes with its gears. A mechanical lever pulls the next blank piece of film from the film canister to the place in front of the shutter for the next photo. When the roll was finished, the photographer (or his camera) would roll the film back into the canister and the photographer would drop it off for processing. When he picked it up, he’d get prints and negatives. The negatives are the actual film, with inverse (or negative) images on them.

If a photographer had his own darkroom, he’d likely make a contact sheet. This was created by putting the negatives right against a sheet of photographic paper in the dark, then exposing the paper to light for a short time and developing it. The resulting images were tiny (at least they were from 35mm film) and clearly displayed rows of black boxes on either side of the image with black lines between them — like you see here in the header of my redesigned site.

So anyone who has worked with film should recognize these little holes. Of course, my images are considerably larger and wider, so they’re not exact representations of contact strip images. They’re just borrowing the idea.

When I modified the three images to include the borders and fake sprocket holes, I liked what I saw. I created a Photoshop action to modify the 89 remaining images so they were smaller and included the tiny black boxes and borders.

Randomizing

On my old site, the random header image was randomized with a WordPress plugin named Random Header. But since I had three images to show in my header, I needed a different solution. So I turned to the software I used on Flying M Air’s Web site to randomize some of the images there: Random File.

Random File enables you to display random files anywhere on a template. (If you use a plugin like Exec-PHP, you can even display them within posts.) What’s neat about it is that you can tell it how many random files — well, in my case, images — to display and it will display that quantity without repeating them.

After some fiddling around with the CSS used in header.php — remember, I’m no expert — I added the following code in place of the existing header image code:

< ?php $files = array(); for ($i=1;$i<=3;$i++) { $file = c2c_random_file('/wp-content/foldername/foldername/', 'jpg png gif', 'url', $files);
echo 'Random image #' . $i . '';
$files[] = $file;
}
?>

The result is what you see here.

The Hard Part Was Done

With the tough design decision done, I was ready to put the new theme into place. I did that on Saturday, taking most of the day to get it 90% functional. I’m pleased with the results.

Comments? Questions? Use the Comments link or form for this post.

January 3, 2009 Update: I’ve since updated my site’s Web design again and adopted a new theme that does not include photos in the header. So although this information may still be useful to WordPress users, there’s no live example for you to see what it looks like. Sorry.