An Eclectic Mind

This year’s experience with the race.

Best in the Desert’s Parker 425 off-road race is a huge event in Parker, AZ. Attended by thousands of people with hundreds of entries, the race begins just before dawn and ends — at least for some racers — after nightfall.

The course stretches about 30 miles across the open desert east of Parker, zig-zagging on existing dirt roads, including more than a few power line roads. The land out there is mostly old sand dunes like those shown in this photo. (This photo was taken from about 800 feet AGL; the dots are bushes about 3-5 feet tall.) The land here is remote and mostly barren. A bold pilot could fly 50 feet AGL without fear of hitting anything. Except, of course, the power lines.

This was my third year flying at the race and, by far, my busiest. I flew for three separate clients and even took a local couple for a quick ride so they could photograph their business and home from the air. I learned a bunch of things that I want to document here, for my own reference and for other pilots’ consideration.

Navigating

Finding your way around the course can be a challenge. If you don’t stay on the track, you can easily lose it in the vast empty desert. This is especially true if there’s been some rain and there’s no dust. If there’s dust, you can see the racers from miles away with just a few hundred feet of altitude.

Track locations are identified by mile number. There are no visible markers, though — that would make it too easy. Instead, if you’re lucky you have a copy of the course map and have secured it to something so you can consult it in flight. Remember, at least one door is off, so the wind is whipping around the cabin and loose paper is not an option. Although you could put all the mile markers in your GPS, that would make quite a mess. So I just have about 10 points in my GPS and I can use them to home in on the point I need to get to.

The Photographers

I flew a total of three professional videographers, one professional photographer, and three amateur photographers around the race course this year.

Let’s take a closer look at the video guys, since they’re the most interesting to me. We’ll call them A, B, and C.

• Two of the three videographers (A and B) were seasoned professionals with either prosumer or professional video equipment. They were a pleasure to work with. The third (c) was a young guy who was obviously very new to the game. He was doing video with a Canon DSLR hooked up to an awkward shoulder rig. His attitude was cocky and he didn’t seem able to either give or follow instructions. In fact, he didn’t seem very alert and I wonder whether his young mind is fully operational. (More on that in a moment.) After the flight, when we were settling up the bill (paid by his client), he told his companion that he was going to charge extra for the aerial work. (As if he’d paid for the helicopter.) I was so put off by his attitude and behavior that I will not fly him again — and that’s something I seldom say.
• One of the videographers (A) claimed he weighed 260 lbs. I added 10 pounds, as I usually do, for clothes and equipment. I then calculated my weight and balance several ways, hoping he’d choose a back seat location with his 190-lb still photography companion beside him. Earth to video professionals: If you want to do aerial photography from a helicopter, slim down. If you want OGE hovers and aggressive maneuvers, your pilot will need all the performance he can get.
• Only one of the three videographers (B) had ever shot video from a helicopter before. He understood the benefit of sitting behind the pilot so the pilot can see what he sees. He probably got a lot more and better video for his time because of the simple fact that he didn’t have to direct me. I could see the racer as well as he could. The other two videographers didn’t understand the importance of positioning. A insisted on sitting in the front, despite the fact that his heavy weight in such a forward position made us front-heavy (see W&B charts here), which, in turn, limited my maneuvers. The only reason C sat in the back was because he was accompanied by a still photographer and I had to put them both on the same side so they could shoot at the same thing at the same time.
• Because A sat up front, he shot at least 50% of his video through the front bubble window of the helicopter. I estimate that 75% of that video will be unusable because of glare.
• Only one of the videographers (B) had ever worn a harness before. I’d brought mine along and he was very happy to have it. He climbed right in and hooked up. I had to assist the other two with the harness. Tragically, C did not fasten the seatbelt behind him before sitting down and the buckle slipped out of the open door during flight. Dangling there in the slipstream, it did serious damage to the paint on the left side of the helicopter. I can’t imagine how he didn’t see or hear the metal buckle banging, but, as I said earlier, he wasn’t entirely there.

The Flying

The flying can be intense. I’ve written about it before, so I won’t go into very much detail here. Perhaps a more analytical look is in order. I can break the flying down into different phases or activities:

• Point-to-point travel. In most cases, the photographer(s) on board are interested in shooting just one or maybe a few specific vehicles. When they get on board, they often have a general idea of where those vehicles are. So if the photographer tells you the truck just passed mile marker 38 and you’re at the airport, you have to haul ass out to the middle of the desert to pick up the truck somewhere beyond mile marker 38. The best way to do that is to cruise at top doors-off speed — which is 100 knots for an R44 — in as straight a line as you can. Avoid the track to avoid other aircraft. Pick up the track somewhere around the mile marker where the truck was when you left the airport 20 or more minutes before and drop down into the next mode: search.
• Search mode. In search mode, you’re actively looking for a specific vehicle. You have the vehicle number and usually know what kind of vehicle it is (i.e., truck, buggy, jeep, etc.) and what color it [mostly] is. If you’re lucky, you have a photo of the vehicle — one of my videographers (B) had an excellent illustrated sheet that actually had photos of the four trucks we needed to find, all on one page. So in search mode, you drop down low enough to actually read the numbers on the roof or hood or side panel of each vehicle. The very best way to do this if you don’t know where the vehicles might be is to move backwards along the track so the vehicles are coming to you as you’re moving towards them. This way, you pass more vehicles more quickly. But if you’re playing catch-up, you’re coming up behind the vehicles. They’re doing 30 to 120 miles per hour, depending on the vehicle, driver, and road conditions, so there’s often up to four minutes between vehicles, especially after the first lap. The whole time, you’re watching out for other helicopters and obstacles while you and your spotter/photographer are trying to identify vehicles as you pass them. When you find the one you need, someone usually shouts out, “That’s it!” and you drop into the next mode: chase.
• Chase mode. In chase mode, you pair up with the vehicle, putting the photographer(s) in position to shoot. That often means dropping down to 50-100 feet over the desert floor. It almost always means matching the speed of the vehicle you’re chasing. On straight, smooth stretches of road — like one of the power line roads — the vehicle could be going over 100 miles per hour. On roads cutting through lava beds or through canyons or zig-zagging around high tension power line towers, the vehicle could be moving at just 30 miles per hour. The pilot’s job is to keep on the target, always watching out for obstacles and other aircraft, listening to the instructions of the photographer: higher, lower, faster, slower, right, left. It’s tricky when you don’t have brakes or 0-to-60-in-5-seconds acceleration capabilities. I prefer having the photographer sit behind me so I can see the action as well as he can, but that’s not always possible. With two photographers on the left side of the aircraft, I usually can’t see the vehicle — although I can often hear the sound of its engine and passing horn — through my noise canceling headsets and over the sound of the helicopter! — if I’m properly lined up with it. When the photographer has enough footage shot alongside the vehicle, he sometimes asks me to position myself for what I call photo mode.
• Photo mode. Let’s face it — minute after minute of footage shot alongside a racing vehicle can get dull after a while. A good videographer will vary his shots. So I might be asked to circle the vehicle or cross in front of it or behind it from a certain direction at a certain speed. Good videographers can envision the shots and I’ve done enough work with them to envision them, too. I also use photo mode in locations where the track bends and curves around itself. “The Python” at the Parker 425 is a perfect example. It’s supposedly 11 miles of track in an area roughly 1/2 mile by 1-1/2 miles in size, right next to the airport. The pits are in there, too. There are lots of banked curves, short straightaways, and huge humps in the road. Spectators all around, just ready to get hit by flying sand as they snap photos with their cell phones and feel the adrenaline surge with each roaring truck that passes. This is what the photographers want to capture — real action. And this is where an inexperienced pilot or an overweight aircraft is most likely to get in trouble. There’s hovering and tight turns at low altitude. Add a crosswind or tailwind and flying in photo mode is a recipe for disaster.

Conclusion

This was my best Parker 425 ever, in terms of work. It was also my most costly: between the ferry time, which was only partially compensated, two overnight stays with meals, and the damage to the side of my aircraft, I’ll likely net zero profits for the trip. But it was a good experience and a lot of fun.

I really do love this kind of flying.

Note to Readers: If you have any photos or videos of a bright red Robinson R44 in action over the Parker 425 for 2008, 2009, or 2010, please get in touch. I’d love to show it off on this blog or the Flying M Air Web site.

Flying aerial, charter, helicopters, photography, videos

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I had to try it.

This photo of San Xavier Mission is somewhat marred by three signs. (The third is very small and hard to see in this size.)

While at Saturday’s San Xavier Mission shoot, I commented to the other photographers about how unsightly some of the signs on the outside of the building were. (Whenever possible, I’d actually moved portable signs before pressing the shutter release.) All of the photographers I was with at the time agreed, but one of them went on to complain that they were a pain in the neck to remove in Photoshop. When I asked whether he actually did that, he replied that he always used Photoshop to remove signs he didn’t want in his photos.

Of course, I knew this was possible and, in all honesty, I’ve done my share of Photoshop editing. Still, I was amazed that someone would go to all that trouble to remove elements photograph of a photograph in post processing.

You see, I’m a bit of a “purist.” I believe that a photograph should be created in the camera. The photographer should photograph what’s there, carefully framing the shot to create his image of what’s in front of him. Creativity comes with exposure, depth of field, composition, choice of lens, point of view. What the camera records on digital media — or film, for that matter — is the photograph. Editing beyond the removal of specks and scratches or minor adjustments to exposure or color balance is — to me at least — not photography. It’s image editing.

You could argue that a real “purist” wouldn’t edit at all. I’d have to agree with you. I didn’t say I was an absolute purist — although I’d love to be one. My photos, unfortunately, sometimes need a little help. Like most other photographers these days, I turn to Photoshop or another image editing application to get that help.

I think the difference is how much help I get from Photoshop. I draw a line before a lot of other people do. Maybe it shows — for good or bad — in my photos. I don’t know. But I’d rather get it “right” in the camera than “fix it” in Photoshop.

After a little sign removal. The photo certainly looks cleaner, but is it a true representation of what I saw?

But after the shoot, when I went back to my camper to relax for the afternoon, I started wondering what kind of difference sign removal would make and how well I could pull it off. So starting with the photo you see above, I used the brush and clone tools to remove the three signs that were visible. You can see the end result here.

I’m not sure how this would hold up if printed as a large photo. I’m confident that the closest sign, which appeared on a stucco wall, was neatly removed. The far sign was too small to be noticeable in the first place. But that middle sign…well, who knows?

Would I do this all the time? No way. I’d rather find creative ways to keep the signs out of the shot in the first place.

What do you think? Use the Comments link or form to share your views.

About the Photos editing, opinion, photography, Photoshop

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A nice excuse to visit Tucson.

This past weekend, Mike and I took the camper down to Tucson, parked it at Gilbert Ray Campground (highly recommended) on the west side of the city, and joined the members of Arizona West Shutterbugs for a photo outing at the San Xavier del Bac Mission just off I-19 south of Tucson.

I’ll likely blog about the rest of the trip another time; for now I wanted to share some information about the photo shoot, as well as a few photos.

We were scheduled to meet the group at 7:30 AM at the mission. We’d spent the night nearby, so we were less than a half hour away when we started down there. We arrived at about 7:10; less than 15 minutes before sunrise.

The place was almost deserted. A few members of our group had arrived and were parked off to one side. We parked in the back of the parking lot so as not to block anyone else’s long shot of the mission.

It’s not my purpose to tell you about the mission. You can learn about it on the San Xavier del Bac Mission Web site or Wikipedia. So please don’t criticize me for being short on facts here. I’m typing this in a camper and have to literally dial-up (via my cell phone and Bluetooth) to go online and check facts.

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 Ann Torrence, had suggested this. I took a number of photos of the multitude of statues in candlelight before light started creeping in through the door behind me. The one here was shot with one of the 10mm lenses we rented from BorrowLenses.com.

Only a few minutes later, a pickup truck backed up to the front of the church gates. There was a blue coffin in the back. A man set up a coffin dolly and several others carried the coffin over to it. People started assembling in front of the church. Any photographer present stopped taking photos in respect for the family and friends of the deceased. A priest in traditional Catholic priest garb came out. He spoke with the family, then stood in the doorway of the church and began the service. The sound of his voice echoed in the building behind him and for a while, I thought it was a trick of the acoustics. I later discovered that he was wearing a wireless microphone. So much for construction design miracles.

The service lasted about an hour. During that time, the rest of the photographers arrived and we swarmed all around the outside of the church, snapping photos just about everywhere. There were about a dozen of us. Most of us had tripods and digital SLRs, but there were a few folks shooting without tripods or with less sophisticated camera equipment. I’d come fully prepared with a tripod, my Nikon D80, and four lenses: 10.5mm fisheye, 10-24mm, 16-85mm, and 70-300mm. I mostly used the 10-24mm rented lens and my usual 16-85mm lens.

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 mission is beautiful in a weird old Spanish/Native American way. It’s amazingly colorful and ornate, with dozens of statues of saints and angels. Spotlights are strategically placed to bring certain statues to life. Don’t get me wrong: you’ll need a tripod (recommended) or flash (not recommended) to get good photos in there — it’s mostly pretty dark. But with the right exposure, you can get some stunning images.

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 my photo blog.

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.

These are only a few of the 100 or so photos (not including bracketed exposures) I shot at the mission. I’d like to go back and try for a sunrise shoot again.

If you plan to go, here’s some advice:

• Bring a tripod. You’ll need one if you plan to shoot indoors.
• Leave your flash at home. All it will do is make ugly shadows behind the statues.
• Don’t plan on photographing any kind of church service inside the mission. It felt good when the priest came into the church a half hour after the funeral was over and thanked us for respecting the privacy of the mourners and waiting until they were gone before shooting. And there are signs outside that warn against any kind of photography during mass.
• Go early. The earlier you go, the fewer people will be there to wander through your shots. And with a good sunrise, the front of the mission building would likely glow in that early morning light.
• Go everywhere you can. There are lots of public areas. Explore them.
• Leave behind a donation — or buy a candle in memory of a loved one. Entrance to the mission is free, but it’s certainly worth your support.

About the Photos, Travels with Maria Arizona, photography, travel

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So far, so good.

Yesterday, the two lenses I rented from BorrowLenses.com arrived. This morning, Mike, @AnnTorrence, and I headed out for an early morning photo shoot to get a feel for them.

It might seem odd, but I rented two almost identical lenses: the Nikon 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G AF-S DX ED (shown here) and the Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM for Nikon. Lately, I’ve been enjoying the challenge of wide angle photography and want the ability to get up close and personal with my subject matter while still fitting much of it in the frame. I like the oddness introduced by a wide angle lens — the way a wide angle photo makes you look closer to see what’s not quite right. I’ve had a lot of fun over the past two years with my 10.5mm f/2.8G ED AF DX Fisheye Nikkor Lens, but that introduces too much distortion. The photos I take with that lens look downright weird. I want a lens without that much distortion that still has the ability to frame big landscape backdrops to my foreground subjects.

This could be just a stage I’m going through, but I feel a need to explore it fully to see where it takes me as a photographer.

I want to buy the Nikon 10-24mm lens. I wanted to buy it before I rented it. It has the kind of range I’m looking for to complement the 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G AF-S DX ED VR Nikkor lens I keep on my camera most of the time. But it’s a costly lens and it wasn’t readily available from my first choice supplier. With an upcoming photo shoot, I figured renting it was a good alternative. And since my husband would also be shooting with his Nikon, it made sense to rent the Sigma so we could compare that lower-cost alternative.

The photo shoot is in Tucson, at the San Xavier Mission. About 15 members of the Arizona West Shutterbugs “Meetup” Group will be gathering there on Saturday to shoot the mission and then head into Tucson for a museum with an Ansel Adams exhibit. I’m looking forward to trying the lenses at the mission, although I am a bit concerned that my up-front-and-personal approach might put me in front of the other shooter’s lenses. I hope not. If the group shoot turns out to be a bust but the location has potential, I’ll likely return on a weekday when there will be fewer people around.

This morning, we headed out before dawn to nearby Rancho de los Caballeros, a local guest ranch. At night, their horses — all 93 of them — are kept in a big fenced in area at the south end of the property. At about 7:30 AM, the wranglers herd them all into a smaller enclosure closer to the ranch’s main buildings. They return the horses to their nighttime enclosure at around 5 PM. This movement is referred to as the “running of the horses” (even though they don’t actually run the entire mile or so). I thought it would be interesting for Ann and she did seem to enjoy it, although I don’t think any of us got any good photos. (I’ll try again another morning, perhaps from a different vantage point.)

The east side of Vulture Peak, shot at 10mm with the Nikon 10-24mm lens.

Afterwards, I took us all by Jeep down a few of the more rugged Jeep roads on the east side of Vulture Peak. The light was still good, at least for a while. We all made lots of photos from the two or three places I stopped and we got out. Then the light got too harsh and we headed back to my house.

Mike and I each tried each of the 10-24mm lenses. Mike thinks the Nikon may be better, although we really don’t have a good test yet. He’s in love with the lens and it’s very likely that we’ll buy one. But not yet. We still have 6 days with these rentals and we plan to shoot a lot of photos.

About the Photos Arizona, cameras, photography

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When photographers get together, it’s time for show and tell.

One of my Twitter friends, @anntorrence, author of U.S. Highway 89: The Scenic Route to Seven Western National Parks, rolled into town yesterday on a book signing tour. Highway 89 runs right through Wickenburg and that’s where we first met, in person, about two years ago. Ann stayed overnight; later today she’ll visit a few local shops and then continue her trip down to Phoenix and beyond.

Last night, after dinner, we started pulling out our camera equipment and playing with each other’s cameras and lenses. Ann told us some things about our Nikons that we didn’t know. We played with her flash in “commander mode.” We discovered that she and I each had the same old 50mm autofocus lens and it worked on all our cameras: my lowly D80, my husband’s newer D90, and Ann’s far superior D700. We also played around a bit with the two lenses I’m renting for a week from BorrowLenses.com, both of which arrived yesterday afternoon.

I snapped this photo with my Nikon Coolpix point-and-shoot to document the mess of equipment on my kitchen table. Fun stuff!

Days in My Life cameras, friends, photography

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