Tag Archives: photography

Outdoor Photography: It’s All about Timing

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What a difference two days and one hour makes.

Although I was very pleased with the “Desert Still Life” life photo I shot the other day, I wasn’t 100% happy with it. It seemed to me that when viewed at 100%, the photo was grainy. I decided to head back out to the same spot at roughly the same time of day to shoot it again.

I couldn’t do it the next day, however, so it was two days later when I pointed the Jeep down that ATV road, pulled out onto the ridge, and followed the dirt road there to the same site. When I arrived, it was a full hour later in the day than the previous shoot.

This is an amazing example of how important timing is in photography. These two photos show roughly the same image, but with a mere 49 hours of time between them. The one on the left is my original image; the one on the right is the later image.

Good Shot Bad Shot

Now I know what you’re going to say. The exposure is off on the second shot. It is. I exposed for the cactus flowers, which were in the shade — remember, it’s one hour later. And although I probably could have fixed this shot up a bit in Photoshop, I didn’t bother. Frankly, when I saw the condition of the flowers, I didn’t try very hard to get a good shot. I just tried for the same angle. The only reason I made the photo on the right at all was to show it in this blog post as an example of how things change from day to day.

The biggest change was in the flowers themselves. Those bright magenta blooms had mostly closed up. I don’t think this had much to do with the time of day. I just think that they were 2 days past their peak. I’d just happened to arrive on point to make the first shot when they were at their peak.

The point of this post is to clearly demonstrate that outdoor photography is all about timing. You need to get there at the right time of day when your subject matter is at its peak. If this means multiple trips to the same spot, so be it. If you’re serious, you’ll do it. You’ll go out every single morning or afternoon during the wildflower season, toting your camera and your tripod along with you just for the possibility of making the one photo that will make all the work worthwhile.

Think photography is easy? Think again.

Autorotation is Not a Low Rotor RPM Emergency Procedure

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Especially when you’re two miles out at sea.

Picture this: An R22 helicopter without floats operating two miles off the coast of Miami, FL. On board is the CFI-rated pilot with 600 790 hours of total flight time and the private pilot rated “passenger” with 115 hours total flight time. They’re operating at about 40 knots 100 feet above the waves on an aerial photo mission, photographing boats. The wind in Miami, 13 miles away, is from 120 at 13 knots and it’s 26°C with a dew point of 21°C, resulting in a balmy 74% humidity.

The pilot had just completed a 180° turn to the south when the low rotor RPM horn sounds.

The pilot adjusts the throttle to compensate — in other words, we should assume that he adds throttle. The horn stops blaring, but 3 seconds later, it does it again.

So what does the pilot do? Despite the fact that the helicopter does not have floats, he enters an autorotation. The helicopter crash-lands in the ocean, the occupants escape, and the helicopter sinks. The pilots are rescued 10 minutes later by a privately owned boat. The helicopter is left unrecovered (so far) in 150-250 feet of seawater.

What We Don’t Know

There are a few things we don’t know that could explain the reason for the low rotor RPM horn:

  • How much did the pilots and their equipment weight? An R22 Beta (not Beta II) is a very small helicopter. Although they had burned off 45 minutes of fuel, there is a possibility that they were still heavy for the flight conditions.
  • Which direction did they turn? A turn that would have put them into a tailwind situation — especially at low speed — could rob them of airspeed. If airspeed dropped below ETL, the helicopter would have to work harder to stay in the air.

  • What speed were they operating at? Without the benefit of forward airspeed and effective translational lift, the helicopter would have to work harder to stay in the air. If the speed was close to zero, the aircraft might have gotten into a settling with power situation. The natural (but incorrect) reaction of increasing the collective to arrest the rate of descent could have triggered a low rotor RPM warning if available power was exceeded.

  • Were the engine and its components functioning properly? If the engine or magnetos were not performing to specifications, the resulting reduction of engine power could cause a low rotor RPM horn. We have to assume the engine was still running because the NTSB report didn’t mention an engine failure.

But regardless of the reason for the low rotor RPM horn, it’s the pilot’s decision to perform an autorotation to into the ocean that needs to be questioned.

The Robinson Low Rotor Horn

In a Robinson helicopter, the rotor RPM green arc is 101% to 104%. (Please don’t ask why; I don’t know. Yes, it is weird.) The low rotor RPM warning system is designed to alert the pilot at 97% RPM. (See it in action for yourself here.) This is a very early warning. The idea is that if rotor RPM is deteriorating, once it gets past a certain point, it could could become unrecoverable very quickly. The earlier the pilot is warned, the better off he is.

At the Robinson factory safety course — and, one might assume, at many flight schools that train in Robinsons — pilots are taught that a Robinson can generally fly at an RPM of 80% plus 1% per 1000 feet of density altitude. Given the temperature, dew point, altitude, and altimeter setting (30.01), the density altitude was 1,612 feet. That means that the helicopter should have been capable of flight when operating at only 82% RPM.

I need to stress here that this is a general rule of thumb. Do not attempt to fly around at low rotor RPM to test this. While it’s true that my flight instructor at the Robinson safety course had me fly for a few minutes in the Long Beach, CA area at 90% RPM with the horn blaring just to prove that flight was possible, RPM is not something we play with in non-training situations. The formula is simple: RPM = life.

Low Rotor RPM Emergency Procedures

The Robinson R22 Pilot’s Operating Handbook is quite specific on what to do in the event of a low rotor RPM warning. On page 3-10, in the red-tabbed “Emergency Procedures” section, it states:

A horn and an illuminated caution light indicates that rotor RPM may be below safe limits. To restore RPM, immediately roll throttle on, lower collective and, in forward flight, apply aft cyclic.

The NTSB report indicates that the pilot initially “adjusted the throttle to compensate for the [low rotor RPM warning] condition” and was immediately rewarded with recovery. But that was followed by the horn sounding again only 3 seconds later.

It had to be scary for the pilot. After all, he’s only 100 feet above the water and he’s supposed to react by lowering the collective. But the emergency procedure and repetitive training doesn’t tell us to enter an autorotation, which would be a full-down reduction of the collective. The reduction of the collective, coordinated with the rolling on of the throttle, should be slight — perhaps an inch or so. This reduces drag on the blades while the increased throttle provides power to increase their RPM.

What Was the RPM?

One of the things we don’t know is what the RPM was when the pilot decided to enter autorotation. If it had deteriorated to the point where autorotation and cyclic flare were the only tools to recover RPM, his decision was probably a good one. Better to hit the water relatively softly than from 100 feet up, falling like a brick.

If RPM had deteriorated to that point that quickly, however, it’s important to recover the aircraft to learn why. Other than a complete engine failure — which was not mentioned in the report — it’s hard to imagine what would cause RPM to drop enough to warrant such a drastic recovery action.

Who Was Flying?

There may be more to this than what meets the eye.

The helicopter was operated by Helicopter Academy, a flight school with locations across the U.S. The school’s Web site clearly advertises it as a low-cost training company:

$250 PER HOUR R22 HELICOPTER TRAINING TIME BARGAIN and we are the ONLY company in the world that can guarantee you a job.  We operate a fleet of helicopters and like other schools our insurance requires 300 hours helicopter time and an instructor’s rating to fly for us. We train you to work for us and offer a job to all graduates, including transfer student and instructors who can’t get jobs elsewhere.

Helicopter Academy’s other business is BoatPix, which uses helicopters to photograph boats and then sells the photos to the boat owners and others. It’s widely known that BoatPix pilots pay BoatPix (or Helicopter Academy) for the time they fly aerial photo missions. The company’s Web site alludes to this:

…you pay for the first 100 hours at $250/hr, the second 100 hours at $200/hr and the third 100 hours at $150/hr….It’s  $25,000 for the first 100 hours where you’ll do mostly training, $20,000 for hours 100  through 200 where we’ll introduce you to our photo contract which will subsidize your flying and $15,000 for hours 200 through 300 where you’ll do almost exclusively photo and will learn this skill that is valuable to our photo contract and making you a valuable pilot to us.

I added the emphasis in the above quote. It begs the question: who was actually flying this aircraft? The NTSB report suggests that it was the 600791-hour CFI. But was that really the case? Was the 115-hour private pilot paying $200/hour to be “introduced” to the photo contract — as a pilot — while the 600791-hour CFI took the photos?

High Risk Operations

In March 1999, Robinson Helicopter issued Safety Notice SN-34. The latest version of this Safety Notice is dated April 2009. Titled “Aerial Survey and Photo Flights – Very High Risk,” it starts out saying:

There is a misconception that aerial survey and photo flights can be flown safely by low time pilots. Not true. There have been numerous fatal accidents during aerial survey and photo flights, including several involving Robinson helicopters.

It goes on to list some of the possible dangers of low time pilots conducting aerial photo flights. It also makes some recommendations for minimum requirements for aerial photo/survey pilots, including a minimum of 500 hours pilot-in-command. BoatPix is one of the operations that has chosen to ignore this recommendation.

My question to helicopter pilot wannabes out there: Are you that desperate to become a pilot that you’re willing to trade your safety for flight time?

Pilot Experience and Decision-Making

What it all comes down to is whether the pilot made the correct decision for the situation he found himself in. I’m not convinced that entering autorotation over the ocean on hearing a low rotor RPM warning horn is the correct decision.

True, both pilots walked (or perhaps I should say, swam) away. But if the rotor RPM could have been brought back into the green while in flight — something a well-trained or experienced pilot could have accomplished if there wasn’t a mechanical problem — the watery autorotation and the resulting loss of the aircraft could have been avoided.

Hopefully, the Probable Cause report for this accident will shed some light on what really happened. Until then, it certainly gives pilots some food for thought.

November 1, 2011 Update: The Probable Cause report doesn’t add much to what’s reported here other than to clarify airspeed and PIC experience. The official Probable Cause is “A loss of main rotor rpm for undetermined reasons.”

Update, March 17, 2012: Just found another accident report with someone else using autorotation as a cure for low rotor RPM. He crashed, too.

PhotoJeeping: A Trip to Dragon Mine

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I’m almost surprised we found it.

The wildflowers in the Sonoran desert around Wickenburg have been amazing lately — too amazing to ignore. So yesterday afternoon, I decided to tack a little PhotoJeeping excursion onto the end of my errands. Along the way, I picked up my friend Janet, who is an artist and likes photographing the desert almost as much as I do. We also squeezed in Jack the Dog and Janet’s dog, Maggie; they sat on the back seat beside the recycling bins.

Backlit Lupines

Lupines, backlit with late afternoon sunlight. (Click for larger view.)

At first, I’d considered another trip up Constellation Road. The last two times I was up there, the flowers hadn’t been blooming yet. Surely they must be blooming now. But when my errands called for a stop at the Shell gas station just south of town (they stock AeroShell aviation oil, if you can believe that), I thought about the desert southeast of Wickenburg. Dragon Mine was an old mine site I’d visited by Jeep years before with some friends. I thought that perhaps the juxtaposition of mining ruins and wildflowers might make a good subject.

Trouble was, I didn’t remember how to get there and hadn’t brought along my GPS.

So after one wrong turn that dead-ended in a subdivision, we tried another left turn off Grand Avenue and headed eastbound. The road wound through a subdivision and, at its east end, we spotted a dirt road winding down the side of a shallow canyon wall into San Domingo Wash. I followed the road.

Although this particular road had tire tread prints on it, the tracks were very close together. It wasn’t a Jeep road, it was an ATV road. It was painfully narrow at places — so narrow that I almost turned back several times. But I squeezed the Jeep through one narrow place after another, trying not to be bothered by the sound of branches scraping up against the side. I was glad I’d left the doors on; we would have been beaten up by thorny branches if I had taken them off. The floor of the canyon was rocky and then sandy and then rocky again, with short, steep climbs and tight turns. The Jeep, in 4H, performed admirably, as usual. The wheels spun just enough in those turns to give the illusion of a 90° turning radius sometimes. It was fun.

We stopped a few times to photograph flowers here and there. At one place, I captured a so-so image of lupines backlit by the sun, along with a shot of owl clover. The whole time, however, I was really looking for a trail that would take us out of the narrow track we were in. Something that would be easier to drive and get us to our destination — if we could find it — quicker.

Janet scouted ahead a one photo stop and found where the ATV trail climbed up a short hill to intersect with a nice dirt road. This was probably the road we were supposed to be on. I pulled up onto its relatively smooth and definitely wide surface, glad to be out of the wash.

We continued mostly eastbound, heading toward the low mountains in line with San Domingo Peak. As we drove, we kept a sharp eye out for the wildflowers we wanted to photography. The light was behind us and relatively low; it was nearly 5 PM and the sun would set in less than two hours. That gave us a great view of the scenes on either side of the road as we traveled east.

Strawberry Hedgehog Cactus

This “Desert Still Life” features a strawberry hedgehog cactus, the “skeleton” of a cholla cactus, a blooming creosote bush, and an iconic saguaro cactus, all under a perfectly blue Arizona sky. (Click for a larger view.)

I caught sight of a blooming hedgehog cactus about 100 feet off the side of the road and pulled to a stop. We got out and explored the area on foot. I’ve been trying hard to do all my photos with a tripod these days and although it’s a bit of a pain in the butt, I admit that I am getting used to it. After doing a few ho-hum horizontal shots of the cactus and its flowers, I scrunched down on the ground and took a look though the lens, holding it vertically. I liked what I saw. I made several shots, with and without a polarizing filter and at different angles to get the photo you see here.

There’s a certain feeling I get when I know I’ve captured a good image. I’ve felt it before, several times. I can see the image in the tiny video screen at the back of the camera, but as I age, my close vision is deteriorating so I can never really see it to be sure. It’s only when I get back home to my computer and can view it on a 24″ monitor that I know whether it’s good. I’ve been disappointed many times, but not this one. I’m very pleased with this image and think it might just be the best I’ve ever captured.

I didn’t know that for sure yet, so the rest of the trip was a slow drive toward our intended destination with me wondering whether I’d be disappointed. We made several stops and took more photos along the way. For a while, it seemed to me that the road was getting too close to the mountains. But then it swung to the north and we passed a big flat area that I remembered being south of the mine. A while later, we rolled up to the mine site and climbed out.

Marigold Steps

Desert marigolds bloom alongside the ruins of a long-abandoned mine. (Click for larger view.)

The shots I took there weren’t anything special. There’s a lot of concrete shapes, such as the stairs you see here, and plenty of metal and wood. There are two mine shafts — a vertical one at the top of a small hill and a horizontal one that enters the area from the small wash on the north side. They might join somewhere under ground; I don’t know and don’t plan on every finding out. (Exploring mines is dangerous, folks.)

It was nearly 6 PM when we were ready to move on. I was hoping to take a different and better route back. So we continued along a road that headed west from the mine. I was pretty sure it was the road I’d taken back on our last visit years before. But it swung around to the north and then the northeast. This was wrong. We wanted to head west or northwest. My gut told me to follow it, but my brain reminded me we were headed in the wrong direction. Sunset was in less than an hour and the light wouldn’t last long afterward. I told Janet that she should never allow me to take her out in the desert again without my GPS.

We followed the road for another five minutes. It headed east and north and northeast. Just when I was getting ready to turn around, it intersected with a broad, sandy wash. The tire tracks of previous travelers headed up and down the wash. Down the wash was west, so we made the left turn. I threw the Jeep back into 4H and we sped down the wash.

Topo Map

This topo map offers an overview of the path we took. I was able to map it pretty well using the points plotted by my GPS data logger. (Click to see a larger view.)

It was a long drive — maybe as many as 5 miles. The wash twisted and turned, but always headed mostly west. The sun, now very low in the sky, cast long shadows that shielded our eyes from the glare when the canyon walls were high, then blinded us when the canyon walls dropped. It turns out that we were in Monarch Wash. We passed through a gate that had been left open — without a “Keep Gate Closed” sign, we left it that way — and eventually wound up on Grand Avenue, about a mile north of where we’d turned off nearly three hours before.

It was a good little trip that might have been made better by having my GPS along. (Frankly, I still can’t figure out why so many people depend on them when traveling on paved roads with signs. But that’s another blog post.) Best of all, I managed to capture one of the best images I’ve made so far. That’s plenty of reward for the dust in my hair and clothes.

How a Tripod Can Make You a Better Photographer

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My take.

Last month, my husband Mike and I went to a photography lecture at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix. (If you’re in the Phoenix area and have never been to the DBG, treat yourself; you won’t be disappointed.) The lecture was given by Arizona Highways magazine photo editor Jeff Kida and covered photographing wildflowers. (Jeff took the excellent portrait of me that you’ll find on this Web site and elsewhere; I wrote more about him and this photo in February.) We’d had a very wet winter and although the desert was greening up at the time, no one was sure whether we’d have a good wildflower season. So far, it’s turned out to be spectacular in certain parts of the Phoenix area, including Wickenburg, where I live.

Poppies and Desert Chicory

Desert chicory’s white flowers among golden poppies. (Click for a larger image.)

The lecture included a discussion of equipment and that equipment list included a tripod. I have a tripod — in fact, I’m ashamed to say that I have numerous tripods, far more than any one person should have. (I was always looking for the right tripod and have finally zeroed in on a good combination with a Manfrotto tripod and ball head.) And I agree that everyone serious photographer should have a tripod.

But then Jeff said something I’d never thought about. I wish I could remember his exact words. The gist was that using a tripod would automatically improve your photographs.

Whoa. This was something that interested me. Although I have all these darn tripods, I don’t use them very often. Maybe I should.

A Tripod Eliminates Camera Shake

I mostly use them for low-light situations when I absolutely must have a tripod. After all, a tripod’s main purpose is to hold the camera steady to take the shot. When used with a cable release (or similar device) or the camera’s built-in timer, motion from external sources should be eliminated. The final image should be clearer. But that was low light. Surely on a bright sunny day — just about every day here in Arizona — a tripod wouldn’t be necessary.

I also put a lot of faith in my camera’s VR (vibration reduction) lenses. I have two of them now and I can clearly hear the VR motor kicking in when I prepare to take a shot. Surely that would help keep my camera steady for each shot.

Poppy Blanket

A blanket of poppies and other wildflowers cover a hillside in the Sonoran desert near my home. (Click for a larger image.)

But since that lecture, I’ve been giving my photography a lot of thought. For the past two years, I’ve noticed a serious decline in the clarity of my photos. I was beginning to think it was the camera (a Nikon D80, now 3-1/2 years old) or my preferred lens (a Nikon 16mm-85mm zoom). Perhaps one or both of them needed adjustment or cleaning. I even went so far as to print out warranty repair authorizations for both of them in preparation for sending them back to Nikon for inspection, cleaning, and possible repair.

Perhaps the problem wasn’t my equipment. Perhaps it was me. Maybe I think I’m holding the camera steady for each shot or that there’s enough light to get the image, but maybe I’m moving the camera when I “snap” the photo by pressing down on the shutter release. Maybe I’m ruining my own photos. Or at least preventing them from being as good as they could be.

I decided to experiment by using my tripods and cable release more often. By ensuring that there’s no camera shake when images are being captured, I can eliminate camera shake as a cause of my problem. If the problem persists, I know it’s either bad focusing on my part or the camera’s. Since I don’t have the best vision, I trust my camera’s autofocus feature to get the focus right. So either I’m not telling the camera to focus on the right thing (my fault) or the camera can’t focus properly (the camera’s fault). Using a tripod would help me troubleshoot the source of the problem.

Using a Tripod Forces You to Slow Down and Compose Properly

Vulture Peak Poppies

This is my secret poppy place on the east side of Vulture Peak near Wickenburg, AZ. (Click for a larger image.)

I went on a photo shoot the other day out in the desert near my home. The poppies were blooming and I knew exactly where to find a lot of them. (Hint: Getting there requires a Jeep, ATV, or horse.) We took the Jeep out and found the poppies right where I expected them. We also found lupines, chicory, and a bunch of other flowers I didn’t even know existed.

The big problem with the site is that the flowers covered a steep hillside. Setting up a tripod was a royal pain in the butt. I admit that I cheated and took quite a few shots the lazy way. But then I remembered my mission and went through the bother of setting up my tripod and cable release and framing the photos. It slowed me down considerably. But I reminded myself that I wasn’t in a race. The best light was already gone for most of the day and the flowers weren’t going anywhere.

And that’s when I realized that using a tripod had yet another benefit: it forced me to slow down and pay close attention to what I was doing. It forced me to try harder to make every shot count. Because of all the extra time and effort required to make each photograph, I was motivated to put more effort into composition.

Could that be what Jeff meant?

The Jury is Still Out

The few photos on this post are among those I made that day. In general, I’m more pleased with the quality of the images. But I’m not done testing to see if the problem is with me or my camera. It’ll take more photo shoots with the tripod to convince me.

In the meantime, it’ll be interesting to see if I can shoot better photos just because I’m using a tripod.

Any thoughts on this? I’d really like to get some feedback from other photographers.

A Great Photographer Takes a Great Photo

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Some more good comes from a bunch of bad.

Back in October 2008, I embarked on one of Flying M Air‘s Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventures. But rather than paying passengers along for the six-day/five-night trip, I had a video team and a writer from Arizona Highways magazine. The trip itself went great. Good weather, great flying conditions, most accommodations right in line with my usual offerings.

It wasn’t until months afterwards that I realized what a mistake I’d made.

The video company, which I’d contracted to produce three television quality documentaries with footage taken, in part, during the trip, was in way over its head. A visit to the video editing guy’s “state of the art studio” — a partially refinished garage right off his kitchen — was the wake-up call. He’d never bothered to catalog any of the hours of video he and his companion had shot on my dime, using equipment I’d probably purchased with my prepayment. He was attempting to create a “trailer” video with footage shot solely with the POV camera that had been attached, at an off angle, to my helicopter’s nose. His “audio recording facility” picked up the noise from his fan-cooled computers and barking dogs. He didn’t understand the concept of matching music changes to scene changes. In other words, he had no clue.

I won’t go into more details than that. My lawyers are dealing with it. Let’s just say I got ripped off badly and have nothing to show for it but a hard disk full of mediocre video in about a dozen different formats, none of which is organized or cataloged to make scenes easy to find.

But often it takes a bunch of crap (think fertilizer) to make something good grow (think flowers). And the good thing that came from the outrageous expense of the trip was the article written by Keridwen Cornelius, the Arizona Highways writer who came along and sat taking notes for most of the trip.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Before the article came out in the May 2009 issue of Arizona Highways, I was contacted by Jeff Kida, Photography Editor at Arizona Highways. I was familiar with Jeff’s work from the magazine. If you’ve never seen Arizona Highways, you should pick up a copy. It is, by far, the most impressive look at Arizona that you’re likely to see. The photography is beautiful, beyond description, and each issue of the magazine provides an in-depth look at the state that simply isn’t available elsewhere. Landscape photographers — amateur or professional — should use it as a standard to achieve in their own work.

Jeff said they needed a portrait of me and my helicopter for the article. We tossed around some ideas. I mentioned that near sunset, the late afternoon light often made the Weaver Mountains north of Wickenburg turn copper colored. I suggested that we put my helicopter out on the ramp at Wickenburg Municipal Airport with those mountains as a backdrop and stick me in front of it. He seemed to like the idea and made a date to do the shoot.

Jeff arrived early that day. So early that I figured I’d take him up for a aerial shoot of Wickenburg. I still had hopes about at least one of my videos and my husband, Mike, would shoot some HD footage with our Sony Handycam to use as B-roll. I pulled another door off in back for Jeff. We flew around town. He seemed to enjoy the flight, but he didn’t take many photos. It wasn’t until later that I realized he was an on-the-ground kind of photographer who liked to get up-close-and-personal with his subject matter. Aerial photography — especially in less than perfect conditions — didn’t interest him much.

We went back to the airport and I landed on the spot I’d envisioned. We put the doors back on. I went into the restroom to fix my hair a bit. I’d already put on makeup and a Flying M Air shirt. The sun crept lower into the horizon. The light started getting good.

The airport was deserted, which is (1) nothing unusual and (2) a good thing. Jeff had me stand at least 50 feet in front of the helicopter while he set up his tripod at least 50 feet from me. He used a long lens to frame me and the helicopter.

This is the difference between a photographer who knows what he’s doing and one who doesn’t. Sure, I could have stood closer to the helicopter and Jeff could have stood right in front of me. But instead, he’d decided to take advantage of the distance-compressing capabilities of a telephoto lens. By lining up his two subjects (me and the helicopter) in front of a distant background (the mountains 10 miles away) and framing us in a telephoto lens, he made everything appear much closer together. At the same time, he was able to sharply focus on me and leave the helicopter and mountains in a much softer focus.

Maria LangerThe result, as you can see here, is likely the best portrait of me that I’ll ever see.

What I like about this photo — other than the simple fact that I look happy and alive and even a wee bit attractive in it — is that it tells a story about me. I’m the subject, the helicopter is the topic, and the desert mountains in the distance is the setting. It can be rewritten as a sentence: “Maria is a helicopter pilot who flies in the desert mountains.” And I think that’s what a good portrait should be. More than just a picture of a face. A description of that person.

Arizona HighwaysAnyway, I didn’t see the photo until the May 2009 issue of the magazine came out. I was thrilled with it. I wrote to Jeff to ask if I could have a copy to use elsewhere. I also asked a few other questions. He answered the other questions, but didn’t send the photo. I thought perhaps the magazine had said no, so I let it go.

The article did great things for my business. I sold more excursions last year than I had in all the years I’d been offering it. While I didn’t net enough to cover the cost of my huge mistake with the videographers, it was great to get out there and share the trip with other folks.

This month I started a new project and really needed a good “author photo” to go with it. I remembered the photo from the Arizona Highways article. I contacted Jeff again. He apologized, saying he’d meant to send it to me the last time I’d asked but had forgotten. And he sent a high resolution image with permission to use it anywhere I wanted to.

I’m thrilled.

So now I have a good portrait that I can use on my blog (you’ll find it formatted as you see here on my Bio page) and on Flying M Air’s Owner/Chief Pilot Background page. And I’m sure you’ll see it elsewhere, too.

So that’s two good things that came from the ill-fated trip: the great article by Keridwen Cornelius in Arizona Highways‘ May 2009 issue and the great photo taken by Jeff Kida for that article. Thanks again, both of you!