The Aerial Horizon
Forget where your feet are and simply enjoy the view.
Racing Toward Dawn
As we race toward dawn, time does a funny thing…it stretches and compresses almost simultaneously before seemingly folding back on itself…The clouds flow past us in slowly streaming elongated forms while the streaming lights on earth count off the seconds before our eyes. In a moment we will experience the first light of day and our circadian rhythms will command fatigue…but then we land in the shadows to experience the last moments the night all over again.
Awake, Virginia
You sleep beneath an overcast morning sky that you have yet to see, the light that illuminates the thin veil of cloud still invisible to you. Shadows can be funny things, especially when they are on the scale of planets…In the shadows, what we fail to perceive is not unseen…just unknown. From our vantage point, seven miles above the earth, as we speed toward home and the event of sunrise at 8.8 miles per minute, we see it all unfold. A narrow ribbon of light emerges from the edge of earth’s shadow, trapped beneath a clearly defined cloud layer, the darkness of heaven still clear above…Earth is but another spot of reflected light in a vast dark universe…but darkness is just that…radiant light abounds, simply waiting for something or someone to step from the shadows and bask in the light celestial. In a moment, Virginia, it will be your turn. Awake and turn into the light…I’ve missed you.
Abstract Landscape: Sonora’s Mask
As we cruise over the desert of Sonora, Mexico, we observe the undulating waves of sand slowly drift across the landscape, their rippling motion indiscernible, but for the patterns that mark their gradual movement. The desert wears a mask of stasis that disguises the dynamic nature of a landscape moving freely over the earth, unfettered by obstruction or the weight of water.
Puzzle’s Edge
We cross the plains and wander into the high desert until we reach a great chasm that appears impassable…It is wide, long, and deep…There is no way around it, over it, or through it. It has divided the land and the land here can never be rejoined. We ponder the landscape on this side and that, marveling at the intricate textures and patterns…though the two sides are uniquely shaped by weather and time, their patterns and colors make them appear more alike than they are different…we look again at the divide and see it for what it is, a multifaceted puzzle’s edge that, while baring its soul, binds the two sides together and reminds them that they are similarly composed. If we look deeply into the divide, we may just come away with a better understanding of ourselves.
Earth Built a Wall
It’s an old and evolving story…One figurative day, the earth built a wall. It was a glorious wall…it was tremendous…At first it was to contain the sea, then it was to keep out the ocean…As the so called threat of water receded, the wall remained and it kept out the clouds and the rain. Inside its perimeter, the land was starved for water and the once lush native life withered and all became arid desert…finally the wall contained the desert while the land outside flourished in glorious rain.
Whitewash
We can whitewash a mine with snow and make it look clean and artful, but the top of the mountain has been destroyed. When the sun shines, the snow will melt away and the destruction of earth will again be revealed. Though we may have a need to harvest the bounteous resources that lie beneath the surface, we systematically destroy the environment with which we have been blessed. This earth will never again be as its Creator intended. No religious dogma, of which I am aware, includes man’s right to destroy God’s creation in order to line his pockets with wealth. Finding less destructive and more harmonious ways to extract resources might prove a more holy compromise…An understanding of science and a constant questioning of “why” and “how” are essential to preserving the earth and fulfilling our responsibility (whether a religious or secular notion) to be good stewards of this garden. To deny science that would enable us to better live in this world, or to make this world a better place to live, is tantamount to sin. Worse still, to deny others’ access to information or the ability to share what they have learned is to condemn us all to the ignorance of a few. In the broad scheme of environmental science there are many elements that are out of our control, but there is one that is not…we are that variable and it is up to us to apply discipline and respect to the demands we place on our planet in order to ensure our survival. If the pursuit of wealth trumps the pursuit of survival, the voices of the enlightened will continue to be stifled. Ultimately, our once heavenly garden will become a living hell and we will be forced to accept the “alternative truth” that the boiling earth around us is simply the sign that summer has arrived.
A Quiet Sunday Afternoon
Warm and wordless, Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl volcanoes bask in the sunshine of a Sunday afternoon…all is quiet and calm as we drift into the Mexican landscape.
Dreams Beneath the Day
Witnessing the soft edges of a dream before the sun touches the clouds and washes the last vestiges of indigo from the billowing waves of night…we cruise along the terminator, just beneath the day.
Wander
As dawn creeps over the Blue Ridge Mountains, we begin our wandering…seemingly endless, our travels round the planet in a constant pursuit of favorable winds…light paints the landscape as we watch the visible earth shift from black and white to color…though our destinations may never change, each journey is unique and in each moment a new sense of earth and sky is revealed in its singularity.
Sun on Sea
In the white hot hazy glare of obscured light, we search for identity…that of the landscape or a place upon the sea, but we are blinded by the light. At last a singular ray of sunlight beams through the visual noise and spotlights an isolated place on the earth beneath…all is illuminated. In a moment, the light seems to burn away the shroud of vapor to reveal he details of the surf and the evening colors along the Carolina coast.
Rendering Hope
Now that summer weather is becoming a normal aspect of winter flying, I’m taking the opportunity to look back on warmer times… A moment caught in the midst of a field of growing storms in the midwestern United States…Light streams through the rapidly rising columns of water vapor and paints the sky in vertical stripes of shadow; where it touches the ground, it sticks to the surface and renders false sunsets trapped in water borne reflections. These pools of heaven are the embodiment of hope along the dark edges of the storm.
Clinging to the Ridgeline
Not far from Saltillo, clouds cling to a ridge line in the Sierra Madre Orientales as though tendrils of vines digging in for life as the clouded foliage hangs in the wind, blooming and growing into a dense field of misted life in the warm evening sun.
Twilight on Blue
Twilight falls on the Blue Ridge Mountains as the blue mist and purple shadows of the soft Virginia hills echo in the rolling contours of the stratiform clouds that hang in the air above…the heavens mirroring earth, we slip softly into night with visions of our deep blue countryside rolling through our dreams.
Abstract Landscape: Winter Sealine
Along Florida’s Atlantic coastline, the evening light has a stark quality that casts winter to the sea in long cold shadows of skyline impressed on a golden canvas of the sea.
Abstract Landscape: Juxtaposition
Entering the valley at the northern end of Massanutten mountain, the juxtaposition of the graceful meanders of the Shenandoah’s north fork and the long gentle rolls of the Blue Ridge Mountains gives us a sense of motion along two axes…Their behavior governed by tectonics, fluid dynamics, and the force of gravity, their natural rhythm creates a sort of physical poetry in the landscape…This poetry is at its most beautiful when admired in its natural form without human embellishment or encumbrance.
Favorite Shots of 2016
Another year of capturing “A Year in Flight” has passed and I continue to publish The Aerial Horizon blog. The exercise of choosing ones best photos of the year is a daunting editing challenge but the introspection gained through the process is worth the effort. There are many photos that I shoot that capture electric moments that so engage my imagination when I look at the photographs that I relive the moment. That said, I have context. The real challenge is drawing you into the scene so you can share these moments with me. I have selected these as favorites from 2016 that convey my feelings as I shot them. Some draw me back because of the detail, while others have some element in the air itself that speaks to me. I hope you will enjoy this look back and take a deeper look at my past postings and images and share what you like with friends and family….and encourage everyone to “forget where your feet are and simply enjoy the view.” Happy New Year!
~ The Aerial Horizon
Unrestrained Light
Watching dark skies struggle to restrain the last light of a winter’s day, we observe rays of light fall effortlessly to earth as rain falls impotently from the swirling gloom, never reaching the ground. In the celestial game of rock-paper-scissors, light trumps all…In the year ahead, as we face trying times where memories of past events taint our perspective with a sense of gloom, may we break our fixation and look ahead with eyes cast upon the horizon looking for the light…remembering that, even in the darkest of nights, we are surrounded by light just beyond the aerial horizon.
Blue Ridge Dawning
A new day dawns over the Blue Ridge Mountains and bare fields come alive with the silver reflections of dew as the early morning light, trapped beneath a broken cloud layer, animates a fallow season. All this reminds us of the need to rest, both the earth and our souls…to prepare for a growing season, a new year. We must be, eternally, good stewards to ensure the future of a healthy planet and thereby ensure our own wellbeing… whether we know it based on science, feel it based on intuition, or accept it based on dogma, it is our divine responsibility.
Abstract Landscape: Stepping Up the Uinta
The Uinta Range steps up out of the valley where the geologic forces of rivers and plates collide into the rhythmic chaos of Dinosaur, creating a different sense of rhythm with each step and exposed layer of colored stone.
Abstract Landscape: Streaming into Adeii Eechii
We dream as Earth streams into our consciousness. Things beyond our imagination often appear as abstractions to our reality…our simplified view of the world that makes us feel as though everything is logical and explicable. These abstractions are the gifts of time, winds, and tides and are a window onto a greater understanding of the life of our planet.
The Aerial Horizon – Photography
The Aerial Horizon 