More beauty from the sky...

I hope you don't get tired from looking at these... our planet is beautiful and hovering over in some sort of an aircraft always brings me to seeing things differently. Kind of puts them the way they should be, you know what I mean?

 

Overall sense of humility.....

Lake George...

Most of us here in NYC area heard of Lake George. Very few saw it from the air. I would not say I know which way it's more beautiful. I think from the ground it is definitely breathtaking. From the air... well, it's still very far from all the seriousness of Lake Powell down south... but look how - ahhh!

 

Illustrating the power of the circular polarized filter... A little twist and a photograph looks completely different. What do you say?

 

No wonder so many spend their vacations there... huh? :)

I didn't practice any Norbekov today. The day was emotionally very draining and I barely made myself sit at the computer instead of curling up and falling asleep to recover. Here's to a better tomorrow!

Have a wonderful night~

Upstate New York from above...

my pilot friend and I...
...we took off that day with intention to travel up north and catch some of the last glimpses of fall 2010. I was after some aerial photos of colorful foliage and he needed company, so... long story short, we got into an airplane and went up.

The weather seemed perfect. There was very little turbulence and so clear out that I was amazed. The pictures coming out so good - that almost never happens. 

Our 1st stop at Glen Falls airport: very cute place.

Wide long runway, no tower, very quiet... You can tell you are in the country... As my friend announces over the radio to whoever is at the front desk that we are staying for breakfast and need fuel - a very energetic man comes out to meet us, shows where to park the airplane and even motion-directs to us, while we are at it. Then we proceed inside the warm building to check out amenities and see what they have in a cafeteria while he is pulling in with the fuel truck.

Two of the visiting airplanes are parked near the entrance - I imagine some business men taking a break on their flight somewhere farther away. They look snazzy and probably smell wonderfully leathery inside.

I have a delicious rhubarb/strawberry pie followed by some toast and egg and hot tea. My friend is on his phone - checking out the weather ahead. And I am writing this, after taking some calls to follow up with clients.

He is worried about the weather. There's lots of ice very low somewhere around the area where we are heading - Prattsburg NY.

We are planning to fly over lake George and lake Champlain. Gorgeous places.

We don't get too far and have to turn around, it's amazing how quickly weather changes in November. But it was a nice and relaxing day. Perfect for a day-off.

This is just a few shots from that day, I hope you enjoy them:

Another airport where you can end up in the water :), heheh, I already have a good collection of those - coming together... :

This past week has been packed with lessons. Big and small, valuable and ... frustrating.
I want to write about one of them, as it directly relates to photography as a business, for my own sake and for all of you out there who are trying to make it, but probably not today. Today we have gorgeous weather, therefore I'm in a much lighter mood and have wonderful plans for the future.

So, instead, I'll share some pics from the night flight last week.

 
Unfortunately I couldn't photograph nightscapes themselves - not enough ISO on any of the cameras... but you can trust me that it was magical. Like winter holidays, only in September. Lights, lights, lights everywhere... cars running on highways... white on the left, red on the right...

Everything and everyone turned into lights. It all seemed so strange and different from up there.

And, of course, there was the sunset. Completely unobstructed, beautiful light show.

Imagine watching all of that for a few hours and then you start developing this feeling of alienation from the reality.. As if nothing else exists but this world of lights, sound of the engine, voices in the headset...

and when we landed and got into our car... we became one of them - lights. Just a light on the road - like everybody else. And it felt very peaceful.

Continuing about our flight to Cape May

...

You must've seen a post last week with all the photos from the flight my friend took me on board of. This is why you're back, right?
We went to Cape May. It was a very hazy day, hence a lot of post-production adjustments...

But here is the most exciting part (for me at least) - I've seen photos like this only in the book by my favorite aerial photographer, called "Earth from above" and was so envious! Oh, the life he must lead...

Going around the planet with wonderful team (who are all friends by now I bet), in helicopters and small airplanes - he must have a license or two himself by now.... *dreamily*

Ooops... what was I saying?

Ah, that's right. Well, just enjoy these, they're from all around Cape May and some Atlantic city.

The rest of them can be seen on my flickr page.

Fear of heights!

Well, not exactly, but...

My good friend is making his way through his commercial rating right now and he... he took me flying with him! And I see that there's no real difference for me - whether it's me who's piloting the airplane or him... the thrill if being up high in such a small pot like cessna is unique and unforgettable.

And I get to practice aerial photography as much as I like.

This time we flew to Cape May (wow! think about it... minutes of flight replaced hours of driving) and this is what I got...

Airplane that took us up:

In the cockpit... I was concentrating on getting both of us in the shot, and forgot to smile

Greg was very focused on doing all the talk with towers... looks very serious here. Was a busy day, despite all the haze too! Don't you love how people do their fields these days? Everyone's getting smarter, better, etc. I can't forget the phrase - laziness is the wheel of our progress :)

I can never catch clouds reflections in rivers. That's a challenge I'm taking on our next flights. I'll be looking out for clouds reflections in rivers and lakes.

And that's in Princeton I believe... one gorgeous town *sigh*... miss it

Highways are always fun to observe from above. But I'm bored photographing them in the daylight by now. Have quite an extensive collection of those. Gotta switch to a different time

There's a whole bunch more photos from that flight. And those that are coming are even more exciting, so keep coming back!

There's also a video coming up, but that might take me forever with all the work I need to do. So... if anybody really wants to see what I did, you better keep reminding me.

Until later... :)