Line on the Horizon

A few weeks ago we went on vacation, to keep the family sane. While on vacation I had a great opportunity to take quick helicopter ride around Orlando. I was very excited to take the kids up and have them have that experience, specially the girls who have never been in a helicopter before.

After booking the flight, around 5pm, to take advantage of a softer light from the Sun. I started to quickly go thru every lesson I had learned about shooting from the air and in a helicopter. One great advise I got came from PhotoFocus.com, on an episode they answered a question about shooting from a helicopter. The one great piece on advise I remembered clearly was "watch the horizon". Boy was that some great advise, most of us have had experience taking pictures from a plane window, just do a search in Flickr and you'll see plenty of pictures taking from a plane. But shooting from a helicopter is a whole different experience all together.

First the view:
When you take a picture from a plane window is like taking a picture using a pin-hole camera, your frame is pretty much set by the size and angle of view from the plane window.

If you have ever sat in the front seat of a helicopter the first thing that hits you is the view, almost a full 180° view both vertical and horizontal.

Second the motion:
By the very nature of the way a plane moves thru the air the horizon will pretty much remain stable most of the time except for changes in direction and elevation. When you travel in a helicopter you will quickly notice the amount of tilt motion just getting off the ground. On a helicopter forward movement requires a certain pitch and angle.

Now to picture taking:
When you take all this information and add it to my Twitter bio line: "Trying to make it click while keeping focus". You need to keep repeating in your head "watch that horizon" over and over, because every second the craft is on a different tilt.
I have to say, just taking Aerial photographs is such a great experience and very exciting. By all means if you have an opportunity to go up and take photos go for it, you will be pleased with the photos and the view and angles that you normally don't get to see every day.



Delacruzdigital.com
@AharonD

The Attempt

Early this morning thru twitter trends I first heard the news of Eunice Kennedy Shriver's death. I have for a relative short time in my life come to admire and dearly love this woman for what she had started many years ago. Way before it was the norm she did something that we all do every day, she looked out for her sibling, (Rosemary Kennedy) who was disabled. As a person who lives with a close relative with a disability, I and many others related to her in a very personal way.

I know this is not in any way related to photography, even if I tried a convoluted way to make it about photography. But it is related to what I've committed this blog to be and that is about how I see and frame things, and having a family member with a disability will influence the way you see life much more than any other factors around you. To that end, I find her approach and actions were of great significance to the whole of society.

So today I sat down at my computer chair and looking at the news for the day came across this great article about Eunice Kennedy Shriver that put it all together for me. The attempt in it's self says it all doesn't it.

I hope this post gives a little more light to how I frame things in my life.

Never leave home without it (G9)

"Pack it and forget it!" would have been a great para phrasing of the popular infomercial line, for this post. This past weekend I had to shot a video event, since my partner was a guest and refused to work it. I normally don't shot video any more for a long list of reasons, least among them 24, or 30 frames a second is just too much for someone obsessed with "framing". I tried to do the photos, but too late the event planner already had a photographer. So I agreed to shoot the video. Packing gear for a video shoot is quite enough with in itself, but as I'm always thinking of that next-frame, I packed my Canon G9 and one of my Nikon SB-80DX flash.

And good thing I did, not only because you can always use stills in video to add a little extra to a scene, but you can never count on the photographer working the event to provide you with some shots to include in the video.

I captured enough shots using the camera's internal flash as a fill/trigger. By setting the internal flash output down by 1 3/4 to 2 Stops, just enough to trigger the built-in optical trigger on the Nikon flash which I usually bounce of a wall/ceiling or in this case a big glass lamp in the ceiling.

At the end of the day, this shot was worth the night of doing a video shot. I'm glad I got to (once again) use the Canon G9 the way I intended to, as my "pocket" camera and life-saver.

As you can tell it was a theme party (1920s)

Welcome

Welcome to the Delacruz Digital LLC blog. I hope to keep you updated on my projects, thoughts, and interesting things that relate to photography that may tickle my mind.