This project was part of Bob Gordon's on-going series of commercials. The story dealt with two guys who load their old Jeep into an even older cargo plane, fall out at 10,000 feet and parachute safely to the desert floor where they drive away in search of even more adventure. All skeptical looks by readers can easily be explained by three words ... foreign cigarette ad. (Someday soon I will approach this topic.)
The key shots to this shoot were all done from either plane to plane, or helicopter to plane and some amazing technology was used to for the motion picture photography. Of course, being "the still guy" on a commercial shoot, Space Cams and Snake Heads are not available to me. All of my key shots were taken while strapped into the back seat of a helicopter. (The flight crew thoughtfully provided paper-tape to make sure that the seatbelt stayed closed.) Once strapped in, I was a on a ride that both changed my perspective and made me a part of the action in a very immediate way. The logistics of these sequences were detailed and there is a lifetime of pilot experience that goes into getting a cargo plane, which stalls out just under 100 mph to fly alongside a helicopter that maxes out just over 100 mph. And there is a lot of trust in paper tape by any photographer who sticks his head and camera out into a hundred mile an hour head wind and squints through the viewfinder. I have to thank Craig Hosking for getting me into some incredible camera positions. And for the paper-tape that kept me in the helicopter.
The view from that high above the desert is amazing and in a lot of ways it reminded me of underwater photography. Looking down on all of that neutral negative space, a silver plane literally popped off the page in the similar way to a freediver in the blue or a dolphin on the bank. And the dark horizontal line of the distant mountains reminded me of a still day in the Gulf Strem. The scales were entirely different, but the connected and inspired feeling was the same. I think I could have spent the entire shoot looking at the abstract possibilities presented by the desert far below.
Anyway, it was a tough shoot in many ways, but I came away with some great photography. Orlando Noa and David Dominick of Digital Decaf were a great addition to the still department. And as always, Bob's crew was great to work with. New stop is Hawaii. I am already shopping for a climbing harness to save on paper-tape!
