Flying Blind in a Chopper, and a 15-Day Tuneup for Your Business
Yeah, they're not related, but they are both damn interesting.
Welcome to In the Frame. I am a photographer, writer, and designer and I am sharing my ideas, experiences, and things that fascinate me. I hope you come along and get inspired, or at least entertained. - Don
“You’re gonna love this gig!” The voice on the phone was excited.
I was immediately excited as well, since the caller was a well-known art director in town and I had worked with him a few times before.
“Tell me more”, I said.
“It’s a new resort at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and we are shooting their brochure. We shoot next Wednesday, and it will be a three-day shoot.”
Well, that was pretty exciting.
“Oh, one last thing”, he asked as we were finishing up, “you aren’t afraid of flying are you?”
Actually, I was not good with small planes. After having an incident in one a few years earlier, I had decided that they weren’t my cup of tea at all.
I hesitated a bit and he said, “well, for what they’re paying us, it should make up for it.”
I got home and told my wife I didn’t want to do the gig as I was not very happy with small aircraft.
She was very empathetic until I told her the fee.
The art director had made an offer my wife could not refuse… heh.
We pulled into the little airport and suddenly it dawned on me that we weren’t going into the canyon in a small plane, we were using helicopters.
My anxiety level rose to Defcon 4, and I began rocking back and forth and mumbling to myself.
As we got closer, I saw the big helicopters, the kind that can take 20 people, lined up on the tarmac and started to feel a lot better.
These were big machines. Two sets of rotors, seats and windows… OK, yeah, I can do this. I think.
We drove right by them to a little building with a tiny bubble-front Bell machine that looked like a toy.
That was my ride.
In fact, to make sure it was easier for me to shoot the other helicopters in the canyon, they had turned the seat sideways so my feet were outside the chopper on a little bar and I was sitting open-faced to the world.
Immediately after arriving, we went into a rush state as a storm was coming in from the west, and they wanted to make sure we got the shots.
My lighting gear was packed up and weighed.
No lighting gear - too heavy.
I had my Nikons, a speedlight, and four daylight bulbs I could use in sockets.
They strapped me in, double-checked it, and we were off.
I was sort of zoned out and trying not to think about what was going on as we headed off toward the Grand Canyon.
The pilot never said a word to me as we were flying about 10 feet above the treeline at about 60 mph.
And then the land dropped out from below me and we were 6000 feet above the canyon floor.
I immediately put the camera to my eye, searched for the bigger chopper and began making photographs.
Using hand signals I would ask to be closer or farther away, never even glancing at the canyon below me.
As long as I kept the camera to my face, I was in photographer mode.
36 clicks later, I had to change film.
DAMN!
I leaned into the chopper so I would not drop the film and concentrated all my attention to the task at hand. Forcing myself into a shallow depth of field as I worked that Kodachrome into the back of my trusty F3.
Then back up with camera to eye and more shots.
All in all, we were in the canyon for about 45 minutes. I do not have any memory of it at all. Nothing but the experience of flying over the rim. After that I just went into photographer mode and didn’t come out of it until we landed.
Except for the moment he brought us to within a few feet of a cliff dwelling high on the side wall. That was remarkable.
We landed in Havasupai and spent two days at the “resort” shooting a few guests, the rooms, and the surrounding area as well as we could in a monsoon. The first pickup was missed because of the storm, then the second. And third.
Did I mention there was no electricity, no radios, no TV, no newspapers? No phones either. (Way before cell phones, folks.)
I didn’t know that going in. Probably should have.
On the fourth scheduled pickup day I awakened to thick fog. I had all my gear packed for the last three days, so I just sat on the porch and tried to make out how beautiful that area would have been if I had been able to see much of it through the rain and now heavy fog.
The unmistakable sound of a helicopter perked up my ears, and in a few moments it was sitting there on the helipad and we were stowing gear and getting in.
Visibility was about 30 feet, but we were taking off into the nothingness.
I could not see a thing as we were rising higher and higher.
We were enveloped in a white cloud, with no indication of where the light was coming from at all.
I asked the pilot if he was using instruments to fly.
“Don’t have any instruments,” he said, “I’m flying on instinct.”
“Have you done this before?" I was kinda wanting to know.
“No, but I’m not all that worried.”
I was really, really sorry I asked.
In about 8 minutes, the cloud just dissipated and we were high above the canyon, heading for the airport. Seeing the entire canyon shrouded with fog while the sun shone on the rims was amazing.
Also amazing is that my camera was packed up in the back.
Sigh.
The brochure came out nice, my photos were about 3“x5” and we did another one a few years later. It was a job, and I completed it.
I had a few moments when I wondered if I had actually done it since most of that experience was simply dumped from my brain.
Today, I would welcome the opportunity to sit sideways on a little Bell helicopter and shoot the Grand Canyon.
But they have drones for that.
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