Photographing Big Sur From A Heli
Lesson 11 from: The Essential Aerial Photography WorkshopChris Burkard
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Photographing Big Sur From A Heli
Lesson 11 from: The Essential Aerial Photography WorkshopChris Burkard
Lesson Info
11. Photographing Big Sur From A Heli
Lessons
Workshop Introduction
04:42 2Aerial Photography Theory
14:18 3Aerial Composition
18:51 4Route Planning
11:51 5Clothing & Safety Gear
17:18 6Camera Gear
21:49 7Drones
07:15 8Cessna Walkthrough
09:10Lesson Info
Photographing Big Sur From A Heli
(inspiring music) All right, so we're at the heli. The heli's going to get fueled up. I have got my harness on right now and my whole bag, my whole kit is here. Basically what I've done, which I'll go over once we get inside the heli with you, is I found a couple structural points where I felt safe being able to basically put a daisy chain, which I'm gonna be able to hook into my harness right here, right? And what that's gonna allow me to do is just feel the security of, yes, I'll have a seatbelt on but I also have this kind of daisy chain. So I know when it's tensioned, I've got X amount of play and I feel comfortable leaning outta the helicopter this much. In the helicopter, I also have two pairs of gloves, my thin gloves, my thick gloves. I have my camera set up in the front right by my feet because that's actually an enclosed area, right. So my camera bag's right there. My camera's also lashed off with a carabiner and it's been attached to a small little piece of structural supp...
ort in the front of the heli. So basically, anything that could fly off is attached to something, right? My gloves will be inside my jacket, tucked away, zipped up, everything, all these little cords and cables, all this stuff, I really want all this tucked in because you don't wanna be trying to get outta the heli and getting caught on something or vice versa. And last thing any pilot wants to do is scratch the helicopter as well. So again, I'm daisy chained in with my own harness. So I feel this comfort and security. I know that I can undo my harness with one hand. My camera gear has also been daisy chained in and I've got my gloves and everything on me. Pretty much last thing I'm gonna do is throw on a balaclava, right, put on the headset, and it's gonna be door off, so I'm gonna be a lot colder. Right now it's probably about 59 degrees. But up there in the air, flying, it's probably gonna be like 30 degrees, 32 degrees, something like that. So I'm really psyched. Tonight should be rad. We're gonna fly up to the Big Sur coast. We're gonna go explore that area. I've been there before. I'm using 24 to 70, 16 to 35. In this case, I'll probably be shooting 16 to 35 more because I know that I'm gonna have no real obstruction in front of me. And I can really dive in there and just open up the lens and shoot everything. So this is gonna be sick. Join me. It's gonna be fun. Yeah. Hold onto your hats. (inspiring music) I'm Chris. This is Thomas, our pilot. Nice to meet you. He is Norwegian, yeah? Italian. Italian! Perfect. Some of the best pilots in the world. That's what they say. Sick. Well, we are in central California. We're gonna be heading up to an area I know really well, I think Thomas knows really well, the Big Sur coast. So basically, he told us how much fuel we have, how much time we have. So I gave him a pinpoint that we're gonna head to. We're gonna go up the coast past San Simeon, Cambria, we'll kind of ride so that we're a little bit inland, so the ocean's on my side. And then basically what we'll do is, we'll round Cone Peak, plot by Plaskett, we'll come on back and hopefully we'll circle that a couple times. I'll judge the fuel and then basically we'll just buzz back and try to get sunset on these peaks as we come in. Yep! Sounds like a good plan. (static noise) (gentle music) Flight 2772, free to leave. Good day to you too. A good hundred miles per hour all the way, so... When we get up there, what I wanna do is maybe just do a couple circles. Big circles. What we'll do is, maybe as we circle we'll elevate. So we're gonna do one at this elevation and one at a higher elevation. It's that one? Yeah, that's the peak out there. I think that's actually the highest peak of Big Sur. I think it is. The nice thing is there's not as many residents on this side as there is on the other side of Big Sur. Yeah, that's also something I learned. It's divided in two, correct? Yeah. As you go closer to Monterey, people just get more, there's more people. There's more people. Yeah, here it's pretty empty. Pretty empty. (gentle music) Up here, you realize how big Big Sur is and how vast it is. It's one of the only coastal mountain ranges, actually, I think the only that gets this big. So crazy. Besides, like, in Canada or something like that. It's crazy. Nothing in Oregon or Washington gets like this. (pilot speaking indistinctly) I know. You know what's wild, is one of these peaks is 5,280 feet. Can you believe that? It's a mile above the ground. Straight up. It's like, that's next level. Well, that's an elevation. (gentle music continuing) It's cool how that kind of... See that bay over there? Maybe we can crest around and then come around that bay. That's Plaskett Creek. Sure. (gentle music resuming) (gentle music continuing) All right, you guys. Here we are. We had a full day of flying. It was incredible. We got to go up the wild, windy Big Sur coast with an amazing helicopter pilot. This morning, we flew some plane-to-plane Cessna by-plane. We flew all around the central coast. I'm so grateful to call this place my backyard. But as many times as I do this and as much gear and as prepped as I am, I always forget a couple things. And I wanted to mention just a few things. First of all, never scratch the plane or the heli. (chuckles) It makes 'em unhappy. And a big part of why you bring all these things is because you wanna always tie something off. You wanna tie off your bag. You wanna tie off your gloves. Everything should have a spot where it's attached to either you or the craft itself. So just make sure you have enough places to tie things off or pockets where you can zip them up and close them. This flight, I was sweating on the ground, super hot. I got up in the air and I was chilly. So I'm really grateful I brought the layers. Always wear a few more layers than you think. And one very, very important thing. I know that flying with a door off, in any situation, it's a specialty. It's something you have to request ahead of time. Oftentimes it might even cost more money. On your first flight, the chances are, if you're in a heli or you're in a plane, the door is not gonna be off. The window might not even be able to open all the way. One of the most important things to think about is that when you go up in the air, if you're shooting through the glass, which can happen and it's totally fine, you wanna wear dark layers. You wanna not only wear dark layers but layers that don't have a high sheen to them. So a flat black jacket, or even a hoodie-like sweatshirt that's just matte black, right. Balaclava, everything, the darker the colors, the better. I was having a little bit of shine off my carabiners and that was reflecting in the window. And other than that, I couldn't see a single reflection in the window. It actually looked great. So shooting out of the window of any of these crafts is totally fine. Just take the time to clean 'em beforehand and really just think about and be cognizant about what you're wearing. Now, you guys, being able to document this entire day within my own backyard was incredibly special. And to be honest, I can only hope and pray that this workshop gives you the expertise, the headstart, the kickstart that you need to go out and just create amazing images in your own backyard. So please shoot them, ask us some more questions. We'll be happy to do a follow-up episode and more than anything, share with me some of the work you get, 'cause I cannot wait to see it. Cheers.
Ratings and Reviews
lorenzo p
Great intro class from one of the masters of adventure photography
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