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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!

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... ;)

Our latest aerial stock shoot took us to Monument Valley, Utah. After finally getting a break in the weather, Stan and I took off on a Tuesday afternoon and headed south over the eastern slopes of Mount Nebo and over the Manti valley. We turned east at I-70 east then headed south to Capitol Reef National Park. Utah has some amazing geological features and one of best is Waterpocket Fold in Capitol Reef. You don't get the whole effect from the ground, but from the air it is spectacular!

We then continued over to Escalante Canyon and followed it down until it merged with the main channel in Lake Powell. Don't tell anyone, but spring is a great time to head to Lake Powell - the lake is gorgeous, the weather is perfect and no one is there! I think we saw three boats on the lake. We followed the channel upstream to Hall's Crossing then headed over to Cal Black Memorial Airport for fuel. After filling up we headed directly to Goulding's airstrip at Monument Valley. After checking into the hotel, we headed back up into the sky to get some sunset shots of Monument Valley. Our timing was perfect, but the low clouds on the horizon interfered with what was otherwise a gorgeous sunset.

In the morning we were up and in the air before the sun, and we had great shooting conditions in Monument Valley. The air was perfectly smooth, and the formations looked awesome in the warm morning light. We then flew up to the San Juan arm of Lake Powell and followed it down to the main channel. After a few circles around Rainbow Bridge National Monument, we continued down the lake to Wahweap bay and Glenn Canyon Dam.

Paria canyon was next on the list, and the geology of the area makes some of the eroding hills look like sherbet ice cream! Paria is a ghost town with almost nothing left after a fire a few years ago, but it was the location set of several western movies. Continuing on, we flew North to Bryce Canyon. Most people never get to see the canyons and hoodoos from the air looking west - spectacular! We topped of the tanks at Bryce Canyon airport and flew over Otter Creek Reservoir on our way to Wayne Wonderland airport, near Loa, for lunch.

It was a great couple of days flying over Utah and taking in some of the most spectacular scenery our state has to offer. For more shots from the flight, click on the "Stock" tab above, go to our stock site, and then search for "monument", "lake powell", "escalante", etc. or you can click this link: http://tr.im/kdDv - you get the idea!

We were recently down in Las Vegas for five days on a ground based assignment for a client and I had the chance one evening to get some stock aerial shots of the strip. Since we weren't able to fly our plane down due to bad weather, I rented a small helicopter from 702 Helicopters located at the North Las Vegas airport. The pilot was great and pre-filed a flight plan with ATC. I got there a little later than I had hoped - it seems like Las Vegas is always under construction on the major highways - and it was already getting dark. It was pretty windy, about 15-20 knots with 30 knot gusts occasionally, but it was fairly smooth in the air. Here are a few samples from the shoot:



Despite the low light, the bumpy ride around the strip and avoiding the other air traffic things turned out really well. I was amazed to see how green the MGM Grand was in comparison to everything else from the air. It really stands out!

To view these and more images from our trip to Las Vegas, go to our stock photography library by clicking here or on the "Stock" tab on top of this page and search for Las Vegas.

Recently we began compiling many images we have taken over the years and organizing them in to a stock library.  These stock images include picturesque images of our great state, as well as many other locations we have traveled to over the years.  At the end of December, Allen and Brian flew down to Bryce Canyon and Zion's National Parks for the specific purpose of adding to our stock library.

In conjunction with our stock library, we have also created this new website. This website focuses on our aerial and architectural techniques and provides an online venue for our stock library.  We are currently in the process of making all our stock photography available for purchase online through our new website.

For the last few years we have been flying a 1946 Cessna 140 for many of our aerial photography flights.  Last year we purchased a newer and larger plane to allow us to better serve our client's needs.  Just last week, Stan made his last flight in the 140 all the way to Nebraska to deliver it to its new owner.  Leaving Spanish Fork airport at dawn, Stan arrived at Scott's Bluff airport in Nebraska after about 4 hours of flying.   Stan said his last goodbyes to the little plane as he watched the new owner fly off into the distance.

 

1947 Cessna 140
Ibex Hardpan, Utah
Fall of 2007

We have had quite a bit of snow lately, even in the usually warmer southern part of the state. I have wanted to get some stock photography of Bryce Canyon and Zions National Park for  a while now, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Once we shoveled all the snow away from the front of our hanger, we took off for southern Utah. Bryce Canyon was first on our list, and our timing was perfect for the lighting: