An Eclectic Mind

Better late than never.

Back in the beginning of March, while my mother-in-law was visiting us from New York, I flew the three of us from Wickenburg to Las Vegas by helicopter.

I chose my favorite route for that flight: straight to Lake Havasu City and up the Colorado River all the way to Lake Mead, then west to McCarran Airport. The flight went well, but strong headwinds turned what should have been a 1.8 hour flight into a 2.5 hour flight. (It also made the flight a bit rough in some places.) Mike, sitting in the back, had my old PowerShot camera. Here are a few of the photos he took along the way. I chose the ones where you can see details within the cockpit to put the scenes in perspective. It’s also kind of cool (at least to me) to see the instruments and gauges in the panel.

Here’s Lake Havasu City. That’s London Bridge below us — the real thing, brought over from England in the 1970s. I always start my upriver flights with an overflight of the bridge.

 
Much farther up the river, we reached Hoover Dam and the bypass bridge, which is still under construction. Hoover Dam, in case you don’t know, holds in Lake Mead. The white line right above water level is about 60 feet tall and marks the high water line. (The water level is way down.) We would have gotten some better photos of the dam and bridge if the area weren’t so darn congested. There was a tour helicopter high over the dam and a pair of military helicopters that would be cutting right between us, less than 500 feet over my head. I didn’t waste much time there.

 
After crossing the southwest corner of Lake Mead, I headed west toward the city. Here’s a shot as we were getting ready to cross Lake Las Vegas. If you’ve got sharp eyes (or the full-sized photo) you can see the Las Vegas skyline on the horizon on the right side of the photo.

Air Traffic Control at McCarran instructed me to fly toward the Stratosphere when I was still 15 miles out. I wound up flying just south of it — my altitude was below the glassed-in restaurant/ amusement level of the tower. (At the time, I recall wondering what people looking out at us must have been thinking.) I’m particularly fond of this shot because it’s so damn surreal.

We made our approach to McCarran flying down I-15, then descending between Luxor and Mandalay Bay to land on the ramp. I have video of it from my POV.1, but I don’t think it’s all that good. I’ll have to do it again one of these days with the camera mounted in its new position. (More on that another time.)

Experimenting with a new camera.

I like to keep a camera in my purse. You never know when a photo opportunity might crop up. While some people would be perfectly satisfied using the camera on their phone, I’m a bit picky. So when my 7.1 megapixel Canon PowerShot became unreliable earlier this month, I replaced it with a 10 megapixel Nikon CoolPix.

[A side note here: I cannot believe how advanced and inexpensive digital cameras have become. This was the least expensive of all the digital cameras I've purchased, yet it has more capabilities than all of them except my Nikon D80 digital SLR. And the pictures speak for themselves.]

I took the camera along on my afternoon chores at the horse corral and snapped a few photos of what’s currently in bloom around my yard. It’s been warm out during the day — in the 80s — and although there was some rain to the north of Wickenburg today, it remains dry here. Still, there are more wildflowers this year than I’ve seen in a few years.

A close-up shot of some desert marigolds, including a flower bud. Unfortunately, the guy who takes care of our yard pulls these out as weeds.

Globe mallow. (Remember, I’m still playing with my camera, so I’m experimenting a bit more than usual.)

Brittlebush. These took seed in our yard, grew into bushes, and flower every year.

Just a few shots taken by a French photographer.

Back in January, I wrote a blog post called “Over Quartzsite.” In it, I told the story of a photo shoot over Quartzsite, AZ.

The post was remarkable in that it got a comment from someone who had heard about my overflight from one of the folks on the ground that day. It’s always rewarding when I write about one of my experiences and someone who was there from a different point of view comments on it.

Anyway, I didn’t hear anything from the photographer after the flight. Until today. He e-mailed me:

My story about QZ was published last week in France, six pages in a weekly.

I attached few of the aerial shots. Photos 1 & 2 were published.

For your private record you can post it but don’t give them away.

Also, I did again overnight park my camper outside a motel.
On Superbowl Sunday, I drove to Blythe and book a room to watch the game.

Good flights in your lovely state.

Attached to the message were five images that he took that day.

I asked his permission to reproduce low-res versions of the images here. He graciously said yes. If you read French, you can find his article at http://www.vsd.fr/contenu-editorial/photo-story/l-oeil-de-vsd/
58-arizona-les-papys-font-de-la-transhumance. All of the aerial photos were taken from my helicopter.

Here are the three I like best.

This photo shows a super wide angle view of Quartzsite from the south, right around sunset. No, we weren’t high enough to see the curvature of the earth — that’s the effect of the photographer’s wide-angle lens. (Apparently, I’m not the only one who likes fisheye lenses.) In the foreground is the big tent for the RV show. This is the biggest week in Quartzsite. This, by the way, is what he refers to as Photo 2. I think it’s the best of the bunch.

This shot was taken from the east side of town looking west, not long before sunset. The main road you see is I-10; it’s in the other shot, too. All those white specks are RVs — people dry camping out in the desert on BLM land.

I love this shot. It shows a typical area of RV campers. Makes you think of old westerns, doesn’t it? Circle the wagons, boys! We must have spent 20 minutes circling this huge parking lot — I think he took dozens of photos. I think I like this shot because it makes you feel as if the same pattern of circled RVs exists infinitely in this area.

A look out my window.

I spent just about all of yesterday in bed, fighting the flu. It didn’t matter much. The weather outside turned nasty at around noon, with low clouds, rain, wind, and hail. Temperatures were in the high 40s for most of that time.

As I suspected, while we were getting rain, the mountains north of us were getting snow. This morning dawned clear and bright with a view of the snow-dusted Weaver Mountains about 15 miles north.

This shot was taken from our upstairs front window with a 55mm lens.

Snow on the Weavers isn’t very unusual. I’d say it happens 5 to 10 times a year. In almost all cases, the snow is gone by midday. Once, earlier this year, it lasted 2 or 3 days.

Today remains cold — it’s only 40°F right now at 8:45 AM. But the sun is out and I expect the snow to be gone soon.

Three quick shots.

Today was a photography day. Not only did I finally get my POV.1 camera to produce some good and interesting aerial video, but I went out in the desert and photographed wildflowers and other desert things.

Here are three photos of poppies that I took today. I believe they’re California Poppies, although I’ve heard people refer to them as Mexican Gold Poppies. Whatever. They are so plentiful this year that I can actually see them from the air as I fly over the desert: yellow carpet on the south-facing hills around Wickenburg and Phoenix.

All of these shots were taken in the desert just east of Vulture Peak, south of Wickenburg.

I think this is my favorite photo from today’s shoot.
 

The blue flowers mixed in here are lupines. Absolutely gorgeous but there are far fewer of them than poppies.
 

This one just says it all: Welcome to an Arizona spring.

February 20, 2008

It was cloudy most of yesterday and the clouds kept thickening right through sunset. The lunar eclipse was supposed to start right around then in the Mountain Time zone we live in. It was getting good and dark outside when a thunderstorm with lots of bright lightning began rumbling to the north. Radar showed it moving west to east just north of our home.

But against all odds, the moon broke through the clouds around 7 PM. We saw it from the den, where we were watching the Colbert Report on DVR. I hurried downstairs to fetch my Nikon D80 camera, new Nikon 55-200 mm lens, and tripod and soon had them set up on our upstairs back patio.

This first photo was taken not long after 7 PM. The exposure was tricky. If I exposed for the light part, the dark part would be too dark. If I exposed for the dark part, the light part would be too light and the shutter speed would be so slow that the moon would move while the photo was being taken. (I have lots of blurry photos of the moon, so I know from experience.) I fiddled around with bracketing. This shot was taken at f5.6 with a 1-second exposure.

This second photo was taken at least a half hour later. The moon had disappeared behind the clouds and come out several times. Then it developed this reddish glow that was likely from the shadow of the earth’s atmosphere. (At least that’s how I remember these things working.) This shot was taken at f5.6 with a 1/4 second exposure. There’s pretty good detail on the face of the moon.

I closed up shop (so to speak) after this shot. It was just too darn windy and cold to keep at it. Besides, the clouds kept hiding and revealing the moon. Call me a fair-weather photographer and you wouldn’t be too far from the truth.

Next time I’m going to try to do one of those multiple exposure shots where you see the earth’s shadow creeping over the moon a bit more in each shot. For that, however, I’ll need a good, clear shot of the sky, reasonable weather, and a quicker lens.