The Aerial Horizon
Forget where your feet are and simply enjoy the view.
Painting with Sunset
We do this every evening, like children with finger paints…we drag our contrails through the generous pools of aerial light and paint the darkening skies with sunset. I witnessed the phenomenon this evening from the ground as several aircraft aligned their contrails on the route from Richmond to Charleston. Each contrail imitated the glow and hue of the stratus clouds lingering on the western horizon…a coral pink wash of finger paint across the sky. Watching this from the cockpit is even more inspiring as at that moment we know that we are also part of the scene painting with sunset.
Skulking Across the Plains
Like the twisted form of a dragon skulking across the plains, the mighty Missouri River bulges and contorts as it clutches the landscape north of Pierre, South Dakota. The question to ponder is whether the river is defined by the terrain through which it flows, or is the terrain defined by the flow of the river? Regardless, the twisted form presents us with the living embodiment of the spirit of water on earth…life-giving…defining…something to be revered.
The Absence of Light
This is not a notable photograph for its detail, but it provides a great demonstration of what is and is not important in a world of distractions…The lights are a distraction as they announce their presence with great visual intensity, yet tell us nothing. We waste a lot of time looking for, and being distracted by, bright shiny objects. We are constantly drawn toward the light, time and time again discovering peril in the void that exists beyond the blinding shroud of meaningless light…All the time failing to recognize that the absence of light often holds greater meaning. For a moment, in this moment, we respond to an abstract concept with muscle movements and disciplined procedures. We look to the space that is unpolluted by light and we find a course free of distractions where the distinct and meaningful patterns of lights come into view. In the void, we are undistracted by the meaconing lights and free to discern the signals from the right lights…The greatest moments of illumination can only come to us in the uncluttered clarity of utter darkness.
Forgetting the Clock
As we contemplate setting our clocks back and the promise of gaining an extra hour of sleep, I have a different perspective…we wander around the proximate heavens under the influence of sunlight, forgetting the human belief that we can control time…With our feet solidly on earth, we attempt to control time and productivity by moving the hands of our clocks forward and backward. We have created an abstract concept of time and related rules to govern our lives, but for all this engineering we cannot control the amount of sunlight cast on our hemisphere or the rate at which our shadow moves across the earth. As we cross through the twilight and descend into night, this moment has more meaning than the time on our watches…the moment when we cross between worlds of light and darkness and our circadian rhythms ignore the clock, aligning our energy levels and activities with the movement of celestial bodies. Light defines our vision, drives our moods, and keeps the time perpetually.
Texture of the Season
The snow line is distorted by the deep vertical grooves along the dramatic slopes of the Rocky Mountains within the Gallatin National Forest. Winter seems so interminable at their peaks that the presence of snow fails to signal the season…instead we judge the change of season by the depth of these grooves…deep and dark snow filled crevices in Summer, smoothly spackled ridges of glossy snow in Winter…The texture tells the season in these young hills while below we wait for the snow line to advance across the plains.
Stumbling Toward the California Coast
As we stumble across desert peaks and valleys toward the California coast, the landscape stretches beneath us and joins in a harmonious flow toward the sea…Looking to our right, Apple Valley and its airport rest unassumingly on the desert floor…Looking ahead, Lucerne Valley occupies the end of the ridge line and marks the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains. High above the valley, a shroud of mist covers Bear Mountain Lake and marks the transition from desert on the western face of the mountains to the coastal plain on the eastern face.
Singularity in a Sea of Cloud
Slipping over the tops of a rippled layer of stratiform clouds, their edges catch the light from behind us as we check our six before taking the plunge into the sea of clouds. Each cloud rolls through the sunset in a singular manner. This singularity reminds us that, no matter how uniform any collection of living things may appear, they each will respond to their shared conditions with a spirit that is unique.
Gateways
The thinly snow-covered Sacagawea and Saddle Peaks gracefully arch around the eastern boundary of the valley, forming a visual gateway to the Gallatin Mountain Range and Yellowstone to the south. Bozeman, Montana lies at the end of their sweeping arch, barely visible as it recesses into the relatively smooth lowland terrain. On this October afternoon, there is a hidden reassurance in this scene…beyond the perpetually snowy mountaintops, the snow line is not yet apparent and with a little luck, we’ll continue to see the colored contours of bare earth for a few more weeks.
Into the Delta
We follow the shipping traffic as it makes its slow journey from New Orleans down the Mississippi River into the Delta. The shimmering line of the river tells the story of this shifting landscape as the force of its nature drives commerce perpetually toward the sea and back again. For a moment we stop to ponder our inverse relationship with these brown water sailors, as they slog along at about eight minutes a mile and we cruise comfortably at eight miles a minute.
The Magic Kingdom
Descending out of the cold crisp air aloft and into the warm misty evening air of central Florida, the landscape and low clouds are illuminated in irregular patches of light as if by a great alabaster lamp…A mystical scene is created by the secondary glow of a sundog as its light is trapped in the humid air. As pilots, we frequently fly people to Orlando to experience the magic of Disney World but don’t get to experience the parks ourselves…instead, we collect our scrapbook memories of this very different “magical kingdom” that our passengers never get to see.
Good Morning, Savannah
Golden reflections from the Atlantic Ocean at sunrise flow into the rivers and creeks that ornament Georia’s coastline as if filigree work on the edge of a great shield. The backlit squall line off the coast drifts further out to sea creating a mood of apparent serenity. Good morning, Savannah.
An Oasis of Rock
Amid Montana’s umber Autumn scene, a rocky oasis of green and white emerges from the high plain and provides a striking contrast of topography…Much of the level(ish) terrain surrounding this oasis rests at over 5000 feet above sea level while many of the mountain tops are over 9000 feet. This cluster of peaks is where the Gallatin National Forest (to the southwest) and the Lewis & Clark National Forest (to the northeast) abut one another.
Chicago’s Recovery
Flying through Chicago everyday this week…I’m happy to report that things are back to normal in the world of air traffic control…They have some of the best controllers anywhere and they have persevered through a tough couple of weeks, keeping our airways safe and orderly throughout. Thanks Chicago, we’re glad you are back on line.
Echoing the Sun
You might think you know what you are seeing, but I doubt many people have ever seen this…perhaps you have seen one…perhaps you have seen a pair…but this is something that I had never seen before this evening. As we travelled south of Talahassee, the light of the receding sun penetrated the cloud layer above us and two halos of refracted light formed in the clouds. The first halo ringed the sun and created a sundog on either side. Meanwhile, the sun cast a sunbeam into the misty cloud layer below and a second halo ringed the sunbeam creating another pair of sun dogs on either side of the sunbeam. The sun, an intense sunbeam, two halos, and four sundogs stacked in a tight array…a beautiful surprise at the end of a long day in the air…a moment of wonder and awe.
[In this photograph, we see the left half of the scene and the sunbeam]
Scattered Trails
When the air that once buoyed us into the sky has sunken into the cold shadow of the approaching night, the breadcrumb trails of our memories scatter and diffuse. In the light of day they were crystalline and permanent, but in the dim light of this moment they are a whirl of vapor falling off into darkness leaving our dreams to animate the heavens and the path ahead.
Blood Moon: Three Shots from the Troposphere
The total lunar eclipse that results in a “Blood Moon” commences as we climb out on our westward journey…From our seats in the troposphere, we are able to watch the entire event as the the single sliver of light vanishes leaving the moon awash in an orange-red glow.
As the shadow falls away with the sunrise, our attention shifts to watching the layers of purple and indigo light layer and divide as our cross-section of the terminator advances toward the moon. The moon apparently rises through the twilight before its illuminated phase returns to full view in the morning light. At 38,000 feet, the show was spectacular and well worth the price of admission.
Above and Below
Turning toward the coastline of South Carolina as the sun sinks toward the horizon, a sunbeam illuminates the thin cloud deck while rays penetrate a hole in the deck and reflect back to us in golden tones on the surface of the Atlantic beneath.
Flames on the Horizon
The horizon is painted with a broad swath of flames as the lingering sun sets the atmosphere ablaze over Southwest Virginia and Tennessee. The upside of spending a month flying at night is that we experience more hours of sunset than most people experience in a year…In a complex equation of relative motion and circadian rhythms, time seems to slow down as we travel west, racing the earth’s shadow. We appreciate these long peaceful moments as we bask in the light and avoid looking at our watches.
This is a small flat cut of the light on the horizon, shot with my 85mm, 1.8G lens.
BOO!
Lightning flashes over the ongoing midwestern candy corn harvest and the weather takes on the appearance of an ominous face…It’s early October, but I thought you might like to share this one before Halloween is upon us.
ps. “You’ve been Boo’d”
While You Slept…
While you slept in utter darkness…we descended through the sunrise and skimmed the tops of silver trimmed clouds, only to plunge beneath the cloud deck and await another dawn. This quiet contoured moment above the weather is frozen in my memory…We touch the clouds and are exhilarated as they scream past, giving us a tangible sensation of our speed before consuming us and casting us back into darkness.
The Aerial Horizon – Photography
The Aerial Horizon 