The Aerial Horizon
Forget where your feet are and simply enjoy the view.
Dissipation
As the sun dips low on the horizon, even the greatest of afternoon storms begins to run out of energy and dissipate, cooling and casting the last of its vapor to earth in the form of rain showers.
Ducking Under
We avoid the weather by venturing out to sea, but we must always return to land…so we engage with the weather. Out of the darkness and sensory void of the clouds, we drop out of the clouds, ducking under the weather, and the brilliance of illuminated evening showers are revealed on the horizon.
Skywalking
Drawn into the multi-tonal layers of the western Grand Canyon, the lines and colors have an almost hypnotic effect. As the canyon passes through the Hulapai Reservation, its views are spectacular. While we experience the view through our windows above the earth, earthbound tourists may experience the canyon from the Hulapai Tribe’s Skywalk and share its dizzying sense of grandeur.
In the Moments Before Dawn
Lake Powell captures the light in the gloaming, a dull bronze shimmer twisting through the desert leading us to the dawn.
Rendering Dreams in the Desert
Clutching, climbing, sprawling, fragments of earth spreading an array of pigment across the landscape of the Painted Desert, rendering a dream with each soft breath of desert wind.
Running Across the Desert
Stone flows running across the desert from the cliffs of the mesa above as if the desert were a molten mass of earth…south of Standing Rock on the Navajo Reservation.
White on Blue
In the contrast of white on blue, the cool curving recession along the base of Glacier Peak adds a sense of depth and wraps into the maze as we pick our way through the Cascades toward Mount Rainier. Ironically, the snow covered peaks convey a sense of warmth as each crag and each shear face of ice along the mountains’ aging ice flows captures the light, defining each ridge line and the depth of our field of view.
Light Show on the Dashboard
Everyone enjoys a good light show, but they are usually best viewed from a respectable distance…but in the moment we realize that we are part of the show, static discharges streaming from every glint of exposed metal inches from our faces, we feel the electricity…we are in the flow of weather and electrons as we tentatively touch the energy of the clouds.
Apogee
Though you have vanished over the horizon, you will never be forgotten…Your contrails forever drift upon the heavens and your spirits animate our memories and inspire our hope for a better world. September 11, 2001.
The Force of Light
In tangled waves of rain streaming down on the mangroves of Charlotte Harbor Preserve State Park, morning sunlight penetrates to form a rainbow as forceful as the depth of showers on which it is painted. Weaving our way through the field of storms, the force of light in this singular rainbow provides a hopeful sign that this may be summer’s last hurrah.
Transcendence
Sometimes when we look at the earth through our small windows, we perceive that we are miles above it, it is untouchable, and it is vast…Sometimes when we look upon the earth from our vantage point on its surface, we perceive that it is within our reach and it is not quite so vast. The beauty of our perception is that both views are correct in that instant but neither can account for the sensation that we feel as our minds engage with the colors and textures of the landscape…in that moment the physical limits of distance do not exist, tangibility ceases to involve the physical touch, and vastness becomes an abstract concept for we are one with the world as our minds caress the curves of the rock, feel the warmth of the colors, and compress every detail into a permanent and sensational memory free from the limits of our conscious thoughts.
Progression
Following a misty river’s flow through the Cascades, our view progresses from the jagged peaks of new mountains along the range to the softer ridges broken by the flow of coulees as the they seek the path of least resistance toward the sea…the mist massages the earth and smooths the transitions between the varied textures, making them appear as if symbiotic elements of a single living thing.
Milky Way and the Southern Sky
It’s not an easy thing to capture the Milky Way from the air, but sometimes you can get close enough that it makes you believe that it’s worth trying. A humble shot of the Milky Way from overhead western Tennessee.
Rising into Sunset
In the final moments of the day, when the waning light is layered upon the increasing depths of darkness, light strikes the nimbus cloud tops and shows us that there is beauty amid the shadows.
Settling into the Shadows
The sun sinks below the aerial horizon and settles into the shadows above northern Louisiana, darkness distilling the blurred radiance into crisp fragments of light.
Skyscraping
The daily ritual of erecting ephemeral skyscrapers is repeated before our eyes as evening storms rise above the coastal plain of central Florida. The towers part to allow the sun to stream through and light our way into the evening sky.
Tallyho
We acknowledge one another on sight and quickly go our separate ways into the clouds… In the blink of an eye we transition from solitude to momentary communion and back again as our paths cross over Colorado.
Flying into the Sun
There is a reward for flying into the sun…Shortly after the brilliant white light has burned through the windscreen and left its spotted red impression indelibly in the back of our eyes, a thin veil of cloud screens the earth from the sun, softening the light. And upon that screen a vibrant sundog scribes a wide arc of colorful refracted light while strands of cloud and growing contrails below are cast in hues of gold and silver…in that moment we find our reward as we help to illustrate the scene and become a part of the sky.
Storming Above Kelly’s Point
Storms build above Kelly’s Point and rain showers fall over the desert greens of the plateau, seemingly avoiding the surrounding canyon.
Beautiful Chaos
West of the Painted Desert and the Adeii Eichii Cliffs, beautiful chaos reigns in the desert…glorious and understated yet a wonder to observe.
The Aerial Horizon – Photography
The Aerial Horizon 