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.
The 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.
Anyway, 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!
But then we got the horses and decided we wanted to be able to go camping with them. So I bought a 35-foot horse trailer with living quarters. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept, the trailer has stalls for the horses in back — mine held three. It also had a sort of closet for storing saddles and other tack. The other half of its length was dedicated to living space for people. It had a queen sized bed, sofa, sink, two-burner stove, good-sized refrigerator, and full (although tiny) bathroom. All this stuff was crammed into a very small space. We added a screened-in room to expand our living space. This photo shows what it looked like parked on our Howard Mesa property with the screen room attached. I lived in this space every other week in the summer of 2004 when I flew at the Grand Canyon. Sadly, we rarely used the camper as it was designed — to take our horses camping with us.
In 2006, I sold the horse trailer and purchased a Starcraft Antiqua hybrid camper. To me, this was the best of both worlds: a hard-sided camper with the usual amenities (kitchen, bathroom, dining area, sitting area, bedroom) plus the outdoorsy feeling of tent camping. I bought this primarily because I thought we were going to go “on the road” with the helicopter in the summer of 2007. I’d do 
Floor plan. The layout of the RV is likely to determine what amenities it has. If you’ve never shopped for an RV — or haven’t done it lately — you will be amazed at what they can cram into a space. For example, the RV I selected is 36 feet long and 8 feet wide. Yet it has a private bedroom, private bathroom, kitchen, dining area, living area with sofa and recliners, and desk. In many cases, it does this with slide outs. You drive along, park, and push a button to expand your living space.
Being the picky person I am, certain elements of the floor plan were very important to me. I wanted to be able to access the refrigerator and bathroom without having to expand all the slides. For example, suppose I’m cruising down the road in the middle of nowhere and need/want a cold drink. I can pull over, climb into the RV, and grab one out of the fridge. And even take a leak in a bathroom I know is clean. I also wanted what’s called a “side aisle bath” — a bathroom with all components in the same little room. Other floor plans actually put the bathroom sink in the bedroom. I didn’t want that. And finally, I wanted working space that wasn’t the same place I ate. That means I needed a desk or space for a desk. An RV with a good desk is hard to find and I was perfectly willing to pull out a recliner or even a sofa to put in my own desk. But the model I wound up with actually had a good, usable desk and even had drawers (see photo below). So as far as floor plan is concerned, what I bought is pretty darn close to “perfect” — for me.
Features and Amenities. Every RV manufacturer and design has its own set of features and amenities. For example, a toy hauler includes a garage-like space in the back. A family model RV might include a separate bedroom — and even an additional half bathroom! — with bunks for the kids. Many luxury RVs have surround sound entertainment systems with wide screen televisions that rise out of a panel or fill an entire wall space. Some units have electric fireplaces. You can find kitchens with two refrigerators and bathrooms with bathtubs. Dining can be in a booth or table and chairs. Sofas can become second beds. Bedrooms can have televisions, closets can be cedar-lined, cabinets can have washer/dryer hookups. The list goes on and on. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you walk into an RV with yet another feature you didn’t think you’d ever see in an RV.
For us, less was more — on the inside, anyway. All the RV dealers in the world can assure us that an electric fireplace is a good feature because it gives off heat using the campground’s electricity rather than onboard propane. I can remind them all that we do a lot of off-the-grid camping where there is no campground electricity. A fireplace was a feature we simply didn’t want — yet it appeared in more than half the RVs we looked at! I was extremely pleased, therefore, when we found the unit I’d buy and saw that instead of a fireplace (see photo of typical configuration), there was an empty cabinet.
On the outside, however, I wanted some of the newer modern features that were not available in the 2009 model I almost bought. At the top of the list was an electric awning — something I could roll out or back in with the push of a button. (If you’d manually rolled in an awning in your pajamas in the middle of the night when the wind kicked up as many times as I have, you’d understand why.) A remote control to deploy the slide outs was also useful when setting up the RV by myself, as I’m likely to do this summer. Ditto for electric stabilizer jacks and “landing gear.” And it seemed to make a lot more sense to have all hookups (except electricity) and sewer dump/flush controls in one place rather than scattered all over the side of the RV. These features were the primary reason I went with the 2010 model rather than the 2009 (which actually had more cabinet space in the kitchen).
Quality and Price. Quality and price really do go hand in hand. You get what you pay for. A low-end fifth wheel that you might be able to pick up for $25K is simply not going to be as sturdy or well-built as a top-of-the-line fifth wheel that’ll cost you nearly $100K.
In my case, I wanted good quality but knew I couldn’t afford — or, more accurately, were not willing to spend enough for — the best. So the very first part of my search was to determine which brands were below my quality needs or above my budget. This should be the first step in anyone’s search for an RV; you can waste a huge amount of time looking at units that simply won’t work for you because of insufficient quality or expensive price. I also cut from the mix any manufacturer what was in bankruptcy or had gone out of the business. 2008/09 killed a lot of them. That limited us to about ten different brands by three different manufacturers. Mountaineer is a mid-range Keystone product. Montana by Keystone is one step above it and I could have made that step if I found one I liked. Heartland’s Big Horn and Big Country were also in the running.
The Mountaineer I bought won on all three factors:
I started calling some of the RV dealers I’d met with over the past few months — I kept all their cards — to see if they had the same model available. One, in Quartzsite, said he had a 2010. I told him I’d consider driving out to take a look if we could agree to a price over the phone. I told him about the 2009 I were prepared to buy. He asked me to make an offer. I did. He came back with a slightly higher offer that was still below retail. We were there by 2 pm and I had all the papers signed by 4:30 PM.
It was cloudy to the east when we arrived, so sunrise was pretty much a non-event. Although I did take some photos of the front of the building in first sun (or what we had of it), I detoured to a small shrine-like building on the west side of the main church building. My friend, photographer 
When the funeral ended, we paused as the blue coffin was loaded into the back of a Cadillac Escalade hearse — which I didn’t even know existed. As the mourners departed, the photographers swarmed into the church.
The main altar area, which is shown here, is a crazy ornate masterpiece of southwestern art. Having grown up Catholic, I can’t imagine sitting through a mass amid such decorations. Yet the church is active and has mass daily. (No photography allowed during church services.)
There are also candles all over the place. The sale of candles is probably the church’s biggest fund-raiser. They’re not expensive — only $3 each — and they’re quite beautiful when lined up in racks near statues. I bought one in memory of my grandmother. I’m not religious, but she was. She would have liked the place, so I bought a candle and put in in front of Saint Anthony (or “S. Antonio,” as the label at the bottom of the statue said). My grandmother used to have a Saint Anthony statue in the guest room — my mother has it now — so Saint Anthony statues remind me of her.
By the time we were finished inside, the sun was out and the sky was nearly clear. I shot this photo of the front of the mission, after waiting about 10 minutes for various tourists to meander in and out of my composition. This was shot at f/16 with a polarizer to enhance the color of the sky. There’s definitely some distortion in this shot, but I rather like it. It’ll probably end up in 
I also got a little creative, working with various elements inside and outside the main building. These two photos are examples. The first is of the backs of the church pews. They’re simple carved wood with this unusual scalloped edge. It was sad to see that more than a few people had carved words into the backs of them. 
This shot is a closeup of a scroll design in the stucco finish of a wall outside. I like textures and try to experiment with them in my photography. Although not very interesting, this is a good example.
This past week, I traveled with my sister as part of a convoy of vehicles moving her from New Jersey to Florida. The other vehicles included my dad in a Budget rental truck (see photo) containing the contents of my sister’s recently sold condo and my dad’s wife in an SUV. We buzzed down I-95 at highway speed, stopping only for food, fuel, and bladder demands.