The Aerial Horizon
Forget where your feet are and simply enjoy the view.
Autumn is Coming
It’s slowly creeping over the Appalachians…As the morning clouds peel back from the mountaintops, the colors of autumn color the mountainsides along the border of Virginia and West Virginia.
The Shortening
We all have to go to work…sometimes traveling long distances…sometimes crossing so many timezones that we feel more like time travelers than commuters…We cannot conquer time and distance by speed alone, rather we must use our minds and imaginations to shorten our journeys. That shortening is best begun by taking in the sights along the way…our minds begin to wander as we engage with the landscape and look for the next landmark or spectacle…before we know it, we have arrived…another small victory over time and space.
Surrounded
Canyon de Chelly spreads out in all directions in the northeast corner of Arizona. From the air, its fanning flow is apparent and we trace its sprawling path along the high desert landscape…but moving in for a closer look, we get lost in the details, surrounded by stone faces that seem to spread in all directions without a point of origin. This is a place that one could wander for a lifetime and always discover something new, surrounded by its splendor.
Color and Contour Emerge
In the depths of night, the mountainous terrain along the coastline of the Great Salt Lake appears one dimensional, flat and colorless…but in the moments following sunrise, the terrain’s rigid contours emerge from the shadows and the lake begins to reveal it’s aqua, pink and deep red hues.
Venturing into the Desert
As we leave the comfort of the coastal plain, crossing the mountains, we venture into the desert beyond. Its ripples of shifting earth create designs that echo the underlying features of stone and lava flows and we revel in the heat soaked abstract art of the desert landscape.
Iridescent Beauty
Sunrise over the Great Salt Lake…An iridescent beauty emerges from the shadows of night and color saturates the aerial horizon, gradually filling the cockpit with light as the lake glows and radiates the essence of the colors embedded in its waters.
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Flowing into Dinosaur
The Yampa River flows gently along a meandering path into Dinosaur National Monument…Its path etched into the landscape revealing ribbons of colorful earth and fossil remains.
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Resolute
Resolute in its course, stone faced and clearly defined; today, my favorite part of The Canyon is the Havasupai Canyon. It clutches at the plateau as it spreads into the high desert, yet it does so without a sense of chaos and in its definition, we gain a sense of greatness and a majestic solitude. Breathing deeply, we feel its presence beneath us.
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SOCAL Network
Amid the chaos of traffic on the freeways of Southern California, it is difficult to imagine a profound sense of order…heat, noise, stop-and-go, construction, on ramps, and off ramps are our experience and our senses of time and distance become warped. But we are too close to the problem. As we rise above the din, our situational awareness grows and we see the whole picture…a vast series of densely packed, geometrically arranged villages interconnected by vast bundles of roadways and railbeds. The plan view spreads out beneath us and the network begins to make sense.
Abstract Landscape: Shadows on Kansas
Making our way across Kansas, the air imitates the farmscape below as contrails align in wide furrows and cast their shadows upon the earth in homage to the landscape…but deep in the shadows, veins of light are revealed as the older contrails expand and sublimate, transmitting a magical quality to their long shadows like luminous ripples of water reflecting midday sun on the surface of a shallow stream.
Earthen Temples
Elevated earthen temples stand against an invisible tide of time that washes eternally through the Grand Canyon, lapping at its walls to reveal the abstracted rings of an aging planet.
Up There
As I sit on the ground on this raindrenched morning in Newark, waiting an inbound jet, I am lost in the thought of how much I loathe being stuck down here…on the receiving end of the weather and gloom…when in my mind, I am already up there…above the weather…marveling in the brilliant play of light on water as we hang together, suspended in the morning light.
Catan Morning Light
The sun rises gently over Laguna Del Catan on the east coast of Mexico. Light brushes the cloud tops while contours of the coastline and lagoon remain bathed in shadows as the daytime color slowly fills in the pictures from top to bottom.
Take Me Home
It is often my job to carry people from far off places to their homes. Nothing is so wonderful as to see one’s own home over the horizon, or just beneath it. That moment of recognition, of a single site, of some recognizable landmark, is enough to chill out skin and electrify us with excitement. The mist covered rivers of West Virginia shine in the morning light, capturing it, making it look magical, and each streaking path of vapor is a path that follows the landscape and leads us home.
Abstract Landscape -In Deep
Deep in the Canyon…no words, just wonder.
Autumn’s First Dawn
It is no wonder that the changes of season connect to our lives with power and emotion of celestial events. Following the solstice, nimbus clouds absorb the morning light and cast their shadows upward, giving them the appearance of titanic columns upon which the heavens are supported. From our perch above Tampico, Mexico, we watch the morning’s drama unfold above the Gulf of Mexico.
Looking at One’s Own Spectre
Escaping the dawn, we begin to penetrate the thickly clouded boundary that appears to separate night and day as we descend back into twilight…Illuminated by the sun, we cast a definite shadow upon the clouds and with it our brocken spectre reflects back at us in rings of spectral light.
Empedrado
The Empedrado Wilderness, a planar vision, a raised level expanse of wilderness, flattening our perception of a spherical planet as it spreads across New Mexico. Along with other areas of wilderness, it frames our view of volcanic cinder cones.
Evening Light on Hetch Hetchy
A warm glow consumes Hetch Hetchy Canyon as distinct beams of warm summer evening light stream down the hillsides and slopes of Yosemite National Park.
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Driving to Rainier
There are times along the highway when we just need to breath deeply and enjoy the view. Basking in the morning light, reflecting its radiance, and appreciating the magnificence of a living planet…As we experience this moment, we realize that for all of our advancements and delusions of grandeur, we are but a drops of dew in a vast forest… this is the art of becoming part of the scene.
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The Aerial Horizon – Photography
The Aerial Horizon 