They're finally here! Our 2012 Utah by Air scenic wall calendars have arrived and they look fantastic! 28 pages, full-color with a heavy weight glossy cover and smooth, bright stock on the inside featuring 13 of our scenic Utah aerial photographs. Each months photo was hand-picked and matched to the color of the calendar page for that month. At 9"x12" (18"x12" opened), this calendar is a perfect way to remind yourself and others of the natural beauty the State of Utah has to offer year round. They make perfect Christmas gifts for friends, family and business acquaintances. Order on for the home and office online on our website now!  Free shipping in the United States!

Fall is finally here in Utah, and the leaves are changing color. Last week would have been a great time to get out and shoot some great colors, but the weather was not co-operating for flying. So a few days ago Stan and I loaded up the plane and took off on a quest to find any left over color. We were surprised! While in some areas the aspen trees had already lost their leaves, in other places the trees were still green! It's another weird season in Utah. Actually, it would be weird if we had a normal season here.

We flew South over the Skyline Drive in Sanpete and Emory counties. There was a lot of snow in the higher elevations, and lots of green trees in the lower elevations. While we didn't find the colors we expected, we found lots of great fall scenes with the aspen leaves in many stages of color change. Check out our stock photo page here for all the images. Here are a few samples:



We followed the Skyline Drive South for while, then detoured off the east and flew over to the Hidden Splendor Airstrip. Hidden Splendor is an airstrip left over from the days of uranium mining in Southern Utah. It's a beautiful spot on a plateau with the Muddy River winding around a few hundred feet below. The approach to landing from the South goes through a winding canyon - not for the faint of heart! Check out the video here on our Facebook page.
After walking around for a while, we took off and headed for the airstrip at Mexican Mountain, and then on to Cedar Mountain.  All in all, it was a great day for flying and taking photos!

Our airport, Springville-Spanish Fork (U77), held it's annual open house this last Saturday, September 9th. It was a great success. Lots of people showed up for the breakfast and to view the static airplane displays, remote-control airplane show & get helicopter rides from one of the local FBO's.



After the breakfast and remote control airplane show, it was time for the good stuff - the flour bombing and spot landing contests. Flour bombing is great fun, and while we're more accustomed to dropping pumpkins and boxes of ice cream bars with a parachute attached, watching a small bag of flour explode on the runway leaving a big white cloud in the air is a lot of fun too.

Stan acted as pilot and I was bombardier. The flour bags where small, about the size of a 6-inch subway sandwich, wrapped in brown paper with orange plastic trailing tape about two feet long. The target this year was a 4x8 piece of plywood with a target painted on it, propped up to 45 degrees for easy spotting. On our first of four runs, I dropped the flour bomb much too early and was a good 100ft short of the target. A rookie mistake - we were only 50ft above ground, and I'm used to dropping pumpkins and ice cream from about 1,000ft. On our second and third runs I was much closer. The second drop was within 20 ft, and the third run missed the top of the target by inches and went on behind. On the fourth run we were dialed in. We were lined up perfectly, I dropped the flour and watched as it hit the ground just in front of the target and splattered the board with flour. A pretty decent shot! I thought we were in first place as I couldn't see any flour on the board before us. Alas, we came in third. Two of the planes following us hit the target dead on. Still a pretty good showing.

Next was the spot landing contest. Stan and I switched seats (I land better from the left side) and we were off. The "spot" was an imaginary line between the PAPI lights on the 12 end of the runway. On my first attempt, there was a about a 8mph headwind and I brought the plane in with just a bit of power and tried to hold it off the runway until the right time. The stall buzzer was buzzing, and about 20 feet before the line the wind died and I touched down too early. Oh well. On the second attempt, I did the same thing but added just a few feet of altitude in case the wind decided to drop again. It didn't. I put down just after the line and thought I was too long. One of the super cubs in the competition looked like he just about hit the line. After we got down, I found out that I had won! We have a taildragger and I three-pointed the landing. I thought I was long, but the tail wheel hit just a foot from the line giving me the win! Not too bad.

Next year I'd like to also do a short take-off and landing competition as well. We won't win against some of the super cub type planes, but maybe in the Cessna category.... We'll see. Thanks to the airport board of directors for a great event!

Clearly, I am not a web designer, nor am I fluent in html. I know enough to get some things done and get myself in trouble. Without the help forums for Dreamweaver, this website would never happen! That being said, what do you think of the new website? I know, I should stick to something I'm good at, like hanging out of airplanes taking pictures. Why didn't I hire someone to do it for me? For the same reason I fix my own cars, maintain my own bikes, and dis-assemble our cameras instead of sending them in to the shop. I like the control I have to be able to change or fix something without having to depend on someone else.I know it's not perfect, but it's mine!
Check out some of our new features like our Site Locator and 3D Imaging. Take some time to get to know Utah better by browsing through our stock images. Download our custom computer wallpaper and style up your workspace!
Any suggestions and thoughts are appreciated - as well as delicious snacks. They are always appreciated. Thanks!

On the weekend of May 6 & 7, I flew with my wife, Noreen, to a dry lake bed in the West desert of Utah called Ibex. The lake lies in the Tule valley which is about 40 miles long and 15 miles wide. The landing area on the dry lake itself is about 3 miles long and 1 mile wide.  Formerly part of Lake Bonneville, Ibex is a dry salt flat left behind when Bonneville dried up. Because of the salinity of the soil and the occasional flooding there is very little vegetation on the lake bottom. It's not as salty as the salt flats to the North near Wendover, in fact it looks and feels more like dried mud than salt. It's a great place to fly into as you can land just about anywhere.



The Utah Back Country Pilots had a fly-in scheduled for the previous week, but it was rained out. The following weekend was the un-official, re-scheduled fly-in. There were three planes there on Friday night, with four more flying in on Saturday morning. The weather was a great, although it was a little hazy for aerial photography. I did get some great texture images of the lake bottom and some of the volcanic rock on the island near the north end.

At the end of March, we flew across the Great Salt Lake to photograph the Spiral Jetty. This earthwork sculpture was created by Robert Smithson in 1970. It's 1500 feet long and 15 feet wide. When the lake is full, you can't see it. The lake is far from full now and the jetty really shows up against the pinkish algae-filled water of the North end of the lake.

The flight up was uneventful and smooth, but the air was a little bumpy when we got there. We circled several times at different altitudes and got some great shots of the jetty and the lakeshore.

In our ongoing quest for stock photography from around the state of Utah, I flew down to the San Rafael Swell area of central Utah over the weekend.  There is a little dirt airstrip in the northern part of the swell called Mexican Mountain. I decided to use the airstrip as my base camp. Also, on Saturday morning, the Utah Back Country Pilots Association was having an airstrip clean-up party that I wanted in on.

I packed up my camping gear, grabbed the camera and a few of my favorite lenses, and headed down to the airport. I was the only one going, so loading the airplane was easy and gave me lots of extra space. We had fueled up the plane earlier that day after an aerial photo shoot in Salt Lake City so there was no need to waste time at the fuel pump. I departed the Spanish Fork Airport on runway 30 and turned around to head up Spanish Fork Canyon. The weather was clear and calm, so I cut the corner over Scofield Reservoir and headed straight to the Mexican Mountain airstrip.

After flying over the airstrip and determining the wind direction from the wind sock, I landed on the short, dirt strip to the South East. I pulled the plane into my camping area about half way down the strip and unloaded the camping gear. There was one other guy there from Colorado who flew in for the clean-up in the morning. He came over to say hi, and after a short introduction I told him I was off to shoot some pictures. The light was almost right, and by the time I took off and flew to where I wanted to start shooting, the sun was low, the color was warm, and the red rock cliffs looked amazing!

I followed the cliffs to the South shooting as I went. There was so much to see, and all of it was breath-taking. If you haven't ever been to the San Rafael Swell, you need to go. If you can't, don't worry, you can look at the pictures! I flew over the spot where I-70 goes through the canyon walls, turned and flew over the swell to see the back or eastern most side of the swell. The formations varied so much from the layerd red-rock on the other side. The tops are wind and water worn sandstone that are smooth and rugged at the same time. I flew through another canyon and headed back towards the strip since the light was dying and landing in the bottom of a canyon on a dirt strip in the dark is not recommended.



I intended to get up early and shoot more pictures in the sunrise light, but I slept in instead. I stayed up to late talking over dinner and then watching Flying Wild Alaska on my Ipod. Four more planes flew in in the morning bringing members of the Utah Back Country Pilots Association ready to clean up the runway. The strip is in pretty good shape and it didn't take long to remove some of the larger rocks and brush from the sides. We then replaced the windsock. I then took a quick hike and found some of the petroglyphs nearby. They are amazingly well preserved considering the harsh climate. After a quick lunch, I departed to the south east and headed home.

I have posted some of the best shots from this trip on our stock photography section of our website. Please take a minute to look through them and let me know what you think.

We just returned from the Professional Aerial Photographers Association, International (PAPA) conference in Houston, Texas. We had a great time, learned a lot, and came home with an impressive collection of awards! But before I get to that, I'd like to mention a few things that we did while we were there. Both Stan and I were asked to give presentations to the attendees. Stan's presentation was on Air-to-Air photography and was well attended - standing room only! I gave a presentation on Construction Progress Aerial photography - not as glamorous as Air-to-Air, but a large portion of our aerial business. It went well and during the presentation I shared the results of on online survey I had conducted about general construction progress aerial photography practices by members of PAPA. Interesting results.

This year, like last year, I was asked to be one of the judges for the print competition. Always a popular event at the conventions, this years show was no disappointment. I didn't enter any prints this year as I wanted to avoid any perceived unfairness of judging my own prints (which doesn't happen anyway because we have alternate judges that step in when a judges print comes up). I did step aside when Stan's prints were judged as well. I'll get to the results in a second. Pat Belanger, who has been the print competition chairman for the past few years, was elected to be the president of PAPA at the convention. As a result, he resigned his position over the print competition and asked me to step in and take his place. I am honored to serve in that capacity. PAPA has been great for us and I'm happy to give back to the organization.

On to the awards! Stan cleaned up with his entrys. He entered the Air-to-Air, Commercial, Scenic and Artistic categories with photographs we took over the last year. I've put low res images of them after this paragraph. Each catagory offers two chance to win top honors - the peoples choice (every attendee votes on their favorites) and the judges choice. In the Commercial catagory, Stan won the Best Air-to-Air Judges Choice with his shot of a Top Cub in front of a snow covered mountain. His night aerial of Temple Square at Christmas time won not only the Best Commercial Photograph Peoples Choice, but the Judges Choice as well. However, it was his sunset photograph of Delicate Arch in Arches National Park that took the cake - it won the Best Scenic Photograph Judges Choice award and also the Aerial Photograph of the Year award for being the highest overall scoring print in the competition! It was amazing, and the awards ceremony turned into the Stan Macbean Show!



As one of the judges, I was honored to pick my personal favorite image and award the photographer with a with a plaque stating the same. I picked a panoramic aerial of a misty mountain scene shot by Todd Quam of Digital Sky Aerial Imaging in Sacramento, CA.

Towards the end of the awards ceremony, I was surprised to learn that I had earned my PAPA International Master Photographer Award for Aerial Photography Excellence. To achieve this award is a major milestone for me and I am grateful for the recognition of my peers in the aerial photography industry.

All in all, it was a great conference! We re-united with some great friends and fellow photographers and came away with some great awards and a renewed spirit to improve our aerial photography business any way we can. To see the images that won in greater detail, just follow this link: http://tr.im/R69S You can even buy you're own print of your favorite image! I would do that if I were you... ;)

Apparently, either last month's contest was too hard, or we just need more people to actually read our newsletter and blog! We didn't get any guesses, but to be honest, it was a tough one. This one is much easier I promise!

Ok, here are the rules -

1.  Be one of the first three people to correctly identify where the following picture is. BE SPECIFIC! For example, if the image is Liberty Park, you can't just say "Salt Lake City" or "Downtown Salt Lake", you would have to say "Liberty Park in Salt Lake City".

2.  Email me the correct answer - I'll take the first three correct emails! Email me here: allen@utahbyair.com

3.  You can use any method* to find the correct location, it doesn't matter how you find it!

That's it! The first three CORRECT answers will receive one free 11x14 ready to frame print of any image in our stock library, your choice. Good luck!

Here's the image - click on it for a larger version:

I can't believe it's June already! May was an interesting month for us. I have decided that I need to start keeping a weather journal so I can compare from year to year how horrible the weather is. We had some great stock aerial photography trips planned for May, but every time we were ready to go we were either rained or stormed out. Even most of our local and monthly aerial shoots last month consisted of some serious storm dodging or weather delays. We've moved the stock shoots into June, and if it ever stops raining, we'll get some more great shots of our beautiful state.

Because of the weather grounding us so often this month, we have made serious progress on our custom aerial video mount. We have two different versions in the works - a gyro stabilized mount and a completely electronically controlled mount. We're testing both versions to see which will give us the best results and we should have a demo reel ready by next month. Don't worry, I'll post samples in next months newsletter and on our blog.

The economy is a little slow, but some of our customers realize that this is a perfect time to expand their advertising. Consequently, May was a busy month for us in food photography. A couple of our good clients decided that now is the time to repackage and rebrand their food product lines. Look for samples coming on our newly redesigned website, www.photographicsolutions.cc, which will be updated in the next few weeks.

We shot a aerial human logo of a local youth conference early last week. These kinds of shots are a lot of fun for everyone involved, and the kids on the ground really got a kick out of it. A colleague of ours in Montreal does these for corporations and small companies all the time. He lands the helicopter right on the field, gives the instructions and then takes off and shoots the picture. Everyone gets a copy for themselves, and then prints are made for the office and company newsletter. It's a great way to celebrate an event or company anniversary. Plus it's pretty cool!

Also coming in the next month or so is our own line of greeting cards featuring our stock photography of Utah, and new additions to our stock library, including Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. Don't forget to check out our monthly photo contest here.

See you in July!