Tag Archives: Lake Powell

On Aerial Photography

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A comment turned into a blog post.

I just read “The Shot” on Helicopter Pilot, Will Travel. (If you’re a helicopter pilot and you don’t read this blog, you’re really missing out on something valuable.) The post was about aerial photography and the difficulties in getting good shots.

Combine from Air
I was a passenger in a friend’s R44 when I snapped this photo.
It was the best image of about two dozen attempts.

I started to write a comment on the post, but soon had more words than a polite commenter should be leaving on someone else’s blog. So I figured I’d just turn my blather into my own blog post on the subject.

I do a lot of flying with photographers and video folks on board. A lot of it is “fine art” photography in places like Lake Powell and Canyonlands National Park. There’s also some commercial photography — bridges, highways, buildings, etc. And lots of “action” photography and video of racing boats and off-road trucks.

I absolutely love this kind of work — especially the high-speed chase stuff. It gives me an opportunity to get “in the zone” with the aircraft. I usually sit the photographer in the seat behind me so we get the same view. This makes it easy to stay on the target.

It gets challenging when slow flight is required — especially if it’s windy or if we’re in high density altitude. I’ve gotten to the point where I know when to expect a settling with power situation and can recover from it quickly, with the minimum loss of altitude. I’m also smart enough to avoid it any time I’m flying low-level.

The quality of the photographer’s work varies greatly. There’s a video guy I work with on off-road races that’s incredible. The four of us — me, my helicopter, the video guy, and an up-front observer — make an excellent team. I’m not sure if it’s my ability to fly close to the racing vehicles or his ability to manipulate the camera — probably a combination of both — but his footage is mind-boggling.

The fine art photographers’ work depends on lighting and where we’re taking the photos. The southwest U.S. landscape is amazing, but early in the morning, just after dawn, or late in the afternoon, just before sunset, I really think it’s impossible to take a bad photo.

You can tell the experienced aerial photographers from the newbies by the equipment they bring — mostly lenses. I’ve had people show up with zoom lenses that not only forced me to fly far from the subject matter to get it to “fit” in the lens, but let in so little light that shutter speed was an issue.

On the other side of the coin is a photographer that always mounts his camera on a hand-held gyro stabilizer to minimize the vibrations coming in from the helicopter. I’m actually thinking of investing in one of these devices, so I can rent it to the photographers that fly with me. Being more flexible with shutter speed would give them more flexibility in terms of composition.

Gunsight

Gunsight Butte on Lake Powell.

My husband was at the controls while I snapped photos.

Unfortunately, I seldom get to try my own hand at aerial photography. You see, both hands are usually busy with the controls in my single-pilot R44. I did get an opportunity to fly with a fellow pilot in his R44 in Washington State last summer (see combine photo above), but more recently, I’ve begun doing some doors-off flying with my husband, who is also a helicopter pilot. We take turns playing with the camera. The shot accompanying this post is one of mine from a recent flight to Lake Powell.

One thing Keith is certainly right about in his post — it can take an awful lot of tries to get just the right photo.

Submarine

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A shot from over Lake Powell.

My husband and I flew up to Lake Powell the other day to take care of some business. Among our chores was a photo flight up the lake as far as The Rincon (about 79 miles uplake from the dam at Page).

SubmarineMike took this shot as we began our flight uplake. It features Padres Butte, which is known by local tour pilots as “submarine” because it looks like a submarine conning tower. There was very little wind on the lake the reflections were outrageous. The lake is as blue as ever, but if we’d taken this shot later in the afternoon, the buttes and surrounding cliffs would have looked much redder. This shot was taken around 1:30 PM.

Mike was shooting still photos while I shot video. He’s a pilot now, so we had the dual controls in. When he shot, I’d fly. When I shot, he’d fly. It worked out pretty well. We had both our doors off, so there’s no glare. We were, however, pretty darn cold — it was only 50°F up there and when you’re cruising at 80 knots with the doors off, you can’t help but get cold.

I have more photos from this trip and I’ll be uploading them to my photo gallery as I share them here.

View from My New Hangar

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Whoa.

January 2013 Update
This hangar is now for sale. I’ve decided to relocate my business to Washington State and no longer need the hangar. Asking price $45K. I may finance 50% depending on terms. If you’re interested, contact me.

Mike and I flew up to Page, AZ yesterday. We had a few business-related things to do. Among them was to take measurements and photographs of my new hangar.

The hangar is at Page Municipal Airport and overlooks a huge, underused parking area. Beyond that is Lake Powell with Tower Butte and Navajo Mountain. See for yourself:

View from my Hangar

Not too shabby, huh?

I start flying photo flights out of there in March. I can’t wait.

Cataloging Video

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Didn’t I pay someone to do this?

A few months back, you may have read various blog posts and tweets from me regarding a video project I’m working on. October was the big film shoot and I the guys I hired and an enormous amount of money to do the project shot about 10 hours of raw video footage all over Arizona.

At the conclusion of each day of the shoot, I was assured that they shot “awesome” footage and that the final product would be “mind boggling.” I assumed (silly me — when will I learn?) that these guys knew what they were doing, so I didn’t micromanage, as I sometimes do. I then sat back and waited for the promised hard disk full of footage (my copy) and the shot log.

When You Want Something Done Right…

I waited a long time. Weeks. What I finally got was three sheets of paper with print so tiny I couldn’t read it — even with my cheaters on. There was virtually no usable information and the list of scenes didn’t cross reference to any video clips by name or any other identifying information. In other words, the catalog was useless.

So it looked as if I’d have to do it myself.

After all, I needed a catalog so I knew what video I had to work with. I needed to know what video was good and whether anything needed to be reshot. I needed a reference I could consult to write my script and make sure I had footage to illustrate everything I wanted to talk about.

I also got the raw video on a 500GB Seagate drive. I assumed (dumb, dumb, dumb) that it was neatly organized and that all the clips would be in some kind of order. But when I plugged it in, I discovered that there was no rhyme or reason to the organization on the disk. Files and folders were randomly named and there were backups of some files on the same hard disk — resulting in duplicates. Video was in multiple formats, some of which simply could not be read on my Mac with the tools I had. I spent two days hunting down conversion software that would enable me to open video files in formats that included MTS, M2T, M2TS, DV, WMV, AVI, and MXF.

This is what I had to catalog.

And that’s what I’ve spent a total of 3 work days doing so far. I’m about 1/4 done.

The Nitty Gritty

Sample MOV FileTo give you an idea of what I’m working with and how I’m dealing with it, consider the screen shots here. The first shot shows a frame of a movie I’m reviewing. I converted its original high definition format to QuickTime for easy viewing. The movie was shot from my helicopter while flying over Lake Powell. It shows a particular stretch of shoreline. I need to know — at least approximately — where on the 135-mile long lake this shoreline is.

Enter Google Maps. I displayed Lake Powell in a big browser window and, based on my knowledge of the lake, zoom in to an area I think the footage might correspond to. This is made slightly easier by the fact that most clips are in named with numbers corresponding to the order in which they were shot. So if a specific piece of shoreline falls between two easily identified canyons, I can usually find the shoreline on Google Maps.

Sample on Google MapsHere’s the same place on Google Maps. And yes, I’m sure it’s the same place.

Then I whip out my handy Stan Jones map of Lake Powell, find Google Maps location on the map, and use a FileMaker Pro database to enter the corresponding lake mile marker as part of the clip’s description. I add some other info about the clip, including its time, a rating on a scale of 1 to 5, and a screenshot of a representative scene.

I only have to do this about 1,000 times.

There are several problems with this technique:

  • The water level determines the appearance of the shoreline. Google Maps has the highest water level and Stan Jones has the lowest. Our video is right in between.
  • Google Maps uses satelite images. Those images point straight down. In most cases, our video is shot at an angle to the scene, at various altitudes.
  • On Gootle Maps, north is always up. On our video clips, north can be any direction.
  • The direction we’re flying and the videographer who took the shot determines which shore I’m looking at. I have to think back to those October days to remember what we did and when, including what time of day.

So matching things up isn’t as easy as you might think. And if you think it’s easy, come on over and give it a try. You can buy the drinks when you give up.

And no, I really didn’t expect the videographers to catalog clip locations right down to the mile marker. What I expected was something like “Bullfrog Area” or “Near Escalante” or “Downlake from Rainbow Bridge.” That would have been a starting point, something for me to work with.

Anyway, I spent all day today doing this and will likely spend all day tomorrow and most of Wednesday. I need to get through all the Lake Powell aerial clips by then. I make good use of my two 24 monitors for this job, putting the QuickTime, FileMaker Pro, and Finder windows on one display and Google Maps in a big browser window on the other display. The thought of doing this on a 15 inch laptop pumps up my blood pressure. The sooner I get it done, the sooner I can move onto other things.

Worst Western

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Or why I won’t stay in a Best Western again.

This past week, I spent three nights in a Best Western motel in Page, AZ.

There are two Best Westerns there. I stayed in the one that had no hot water for more than 24 hours during my stay.

I learned about the hot water problem when I returned to the hotel at about 8 PM on Friday night. At the time, I was told that it was unlikely that the hot water would be working before Monday. I was due to check out on Sunday.

I was paying for not just my room, but the rooms for three other guests. Since they were my guests, I felt it necessary to take action when the hot water system in the hotel broke down. Although I was on my way up to bed — I was going to be picked up at 6:00 AM the next morning by an aerial photography client — I asked the desk clerk to find alternative accommodations. I told her not to call me that night since I was going right to bed. I told her I’d check in at the desk in the morning to see what she’d found us and would talk to my guests about our options the next day.

At 5:00 AM the next morning (Saturday), I gathered up some clean clothes and prepared to walk down the block in the dark to the Travel Lodge, where the cold water Best Western had arranged for its guests to shower. (I can’t make this stuff up.) I stopped at the desk in my hotel, where I was shown a reservation for four rooms and two nights at the other Best Western in town, which I assumed still had hot water. I took the reservation sheet, put it in an envelope with a note, and slipped it under the door of one of my guests. I showered and dressed at the Travel Lodge, then walked back to the cold water Best Western. A little after 6 AM, my clients arrived and I went to work with them.

At around 11 AM, I finished with my clients and met with one of my guests. He told me that the hot water problem had been fixed. I called the other Best Western to cancel the reservations that had been made in my name.

And that’s when the shit started hitting the fan.

Apparently, the clerk at the cold water Best Western had used my credit card to reserve the rooms. The hotel has a 24-hour cancelation policy and refused to cancel the reservation.

In the meantime, we were all still checked in at the cold water Best Western (which now had hot water). My guests didn’t want to move. I didn’t either.

I need to make it clear to all that I never authorized any charges to my credit card for any hotel other than the one we were staying at.

I called several different parties at the Best Western hotel chain. After a lot of time on hold and call backs and excuses, I was told that my reservations would not be cancelled.

Today, I found four pending charges on my credit card statement for $157.73 each. There was also a $1 charge from Best Western.

Of course, I have no intention of paying these charges.

I’m absolutely appalled at the poor customer service of the Best Western chain. Specifically:

  • The failure of the Best Western Arizona Inn to promptly and professionally handle a failure in its hot water system.
  • The unauthorized use of my credit card by the clerk at the Best Western Arizona Inn to book hotel reservations that could not be cancelled.
  • The failure of the Best Western Lake Powell to cancel the hotel reservations made without authorization by another Best Western hotel employee.
  • The failure of the Best Western customer service department to cancel the hotel reservations made without authorization by a Best Western hotel employee.

Clearly, these people don’t care about their customers. Clearly, they have no understanding about customer service. Clearly, they have no problem fraudulently charging a customer’s credit card for reservations made without authorization.

I have called and written to the Best Western numerous times about this matter. They have not satisfactorily resolved it. Now I have to go through the bother of starting chargeback procedures with my credit card company. I may also need to press charges with the police against the Best Western employee who used my credit card without authorization, thus resulting in this nightmare of customer service failures.

Do you think I’ll stay at a Best Western again? Not likely. And I suggest that anyone reading this think about my customer service experience with this hotel chain before booking a room there.