Lessons

Lesson Info

Route Planning

(opening music) So I wanna touch base on kind of the process of how you might plan, build, and orchestrate a route that can hopefully bring you the success that you wanna find creating the very best shot possible. Now, a big part of that is just that big R word that we all hate to do, which is research. We just gotta do our research. We gotta spend the time. I want to kind of brief you on what I do in my process for how I would hopefully create something really unique and engaging. And the first and foremost that the reality is you have to decide work backwards, right? What's your, what's your goal here? Do you want to just kind of go up and have a a sight seeing tour where you're just checking stuff out. If you see something cool you're gonna take a picture of it excellent. No real need to plan something. I think in that regard, a big part of this is just talking to your pilot. That's the first place I would go, you know always try to have a debrief with your pilot even if you're li...

ke, Hey I'm gonna meet that person at the airport that morning. Never met him before. Try to get 'em on the phone before try to spend a little bit of time show up early. If you, if you can't get 'em on the phone and just say, where should we fly? Where should we go? You know, put your trust in them. If you do trust this person to be a potential, you know creative outlet for you, and they have maybe taken up other photographers before you could lean on them say, where's the most engaging place I can go or where am I gonna get the most bang for my buck? But if you do have a plan in mind, where does that come from? Well, it might come from social media. That's probably maybe the first place that you might wanna rely upon to gather some Intel on this location that you're going. Now, you can utilize social media and just simply even just scrolling Instagram maybe you've seen a photograph from Iceland or a place that you want to go. And you're like, man, that place looks awesome. So what would my next step be? Well, you might wanna message the photographer. You might wanna look at some other websites of where it's posted. See if there's any caption details read through that. You know if you're going to again, Montana and you wanna shoot in Yellowstone national park, above you know, above the geyser there, like what's the best scenario you can do? Well, just try to research and look up places where you could potentially get as much information as how that shot was created. What was the height that they shot it at? Where did they shoot it? What time of year? Right? So again, taking the time to kind of research your location where you are right now we're in beautiful Pismo beach. We're actually at the Oceano airport. And so we're gonna fly over a stretch of coast that I'm very familiar with. So I have an advantage here being that I've flown here before, but given that I've flown here before, it doesn't really necessarily mean that I've flown here during this exact day this exact year, it just rained this morning. So it could be super clear. There could be some clouds out. I've kind of built a route based upon my interest and the things I wanna see. Okay. So first things first how much time do I have,I have a two hour window. So tonight we're gonna be shooting a couple different things, but one of the the more challenging scenarios is plane to plane. So we're gonna be shooting with a Cessna as well which a 172, which I'm very familiar with. The window opens up. You can kind of put your whole hand out of there as well as the, biplane behind me. So the biplane will be my subject here. I'm also gonna be just shooting some general landscapes right? General kind of, you know landscape photography from the plane. So these are gonna be two differently orchestrated efforts. The plane to plane stuff is really where I don't just wanna be flying over like the coastal cities or, you know like some dry brown mountains. I wanna be flying over something interesting. Cause I'm trying to place that subject into my frame similar to how I would compose a landscape. Right. And in doing so I want to have an idea in mind and I, and an idea and kind kind of come to the table with a thoughtful process. And what you'll realize that when you bring these ideas to your pilot or you bring these concepts to your pilot they're gonna have a much easier time understanding because general sort of formation flying which is like two planes flying in formation, much much different than trying to get up and shoot sort of plane to plane where you're you're composing the image like a landscape. And you're sort of using the plane as a subject within that landscape or whatever it might be. Maybe it's an animal you're putting in that landscape. Maybe it's a paraglider or something along those lines. Right? What I'm trying to evoke is more of a feeling of wanderlust travel, you know kind of emoting these, this desire to fly and and experience the world in this remote unique way. So I'm kind of trying to put my subject into the most beautiful landscape I can. And that's what really leads me to composing a flight path on google earth that I feel like is the most interesting. I have two hours. I, again, I've got, you know couple hundred dollars in the rental of the cessna. I've got a couple hundred dollars in the rental of the biplane and I wanna make the most of those two hours. So me taking the time to communicate with my pilot build out a route plan, have an idea in mind these are all gonna add steps towards a successful flight and creating successful images. But again, keep in mind, I've done this a lot. It takes time to build these things out. It takes time to have a plan. It can also be really hard if you've never been to the place that you're flying. So therefore, maybe your first flight like my first flight in Hawaii, I just went up in the air just to explore, show me everything show me the most beautiful stuff you can. I trust you right? Talking to my pilot. And then the next day I went up and I, I actually orchestrated the shoot and I planned everything out. So right now I'm utilizing two different tools. One is Google maps and one is Google Earth. Google Earth is a really powerful tool. If you want to get a very very detailed kind of view of the landscape. I think it sometimes just gives you a much different perspective than Google maps might do but ultimately it's, it's nice. You know, Google Earth can move a little slow Sometimes it can be a little more challenging. Both of them are, are just great tools for building a route. I think with Google maps, you can actually kind of build a route, you know, from the air. If you wanted to Google Earth is going to. Google Maps is more of like, you have to kind of be on roads or something along those lines. There's a lot of other tools that can help you build a route. And why would you build a route where you might be like okay, I wanna see this area. And then maybe we fly over here and then we're gonna fly over these coastal mountains. So for us, what I have us doing is we're gonna start in Oceano which is right where the airport is. We're gonna jump outta Oceano. There's a big stretch of dunes. And why do I wanna go to that stretch of dunes? Because obviously from my experience dunes from above they have all these beautiful shapes and they they create all these beautiful shadows. So that's gonna be interesting first and foremost. And plus it's literally a quarter mile from here so we're gonna jump outta the airport. We're gonna fly up and down the dunes here. And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna go out towards Avila beach , kind of cut around Montana de Oro, Montana de Oro's a state park. So I'm gonna want to know and be aware of what are the state restrictions there. Usually in state parks, national parks you have to stay a certain height above the ground. We're gonna go check out some of the reefs in that area. It's a lot more rugged stretch of the coast kind of reminds me of Big Sur as well. So we're gonna fly along that stretch of the coast. And then what we're gonna do is on the other side of Montana De Oro where you have all these cool reef patterns and everything. There's another huge stretch of sand dunes, right? Which is Morro bay, state park. So another state park and that kind of extends into the Los Osos area. So I'm familiar with this zone because I've shot there before. But again, as I said before, I've never shot there after a rain never shot there in November never shot there with another plane. So the conditions can be different. But what I'm trying to do is set myself up for success. So we're gonna go along this Moro Bay state park. And this is where I'm hoping to shoot some kind of cool plane to plane because this dune kind of leads you in a really focused singular path. It's really beautiful, right? And what I'd love to get a shot of is the biplane kind of leading out on this stretch of dunes, where you have the ocean you have these dramatic dunes, more rocks in the distance. So they're gonna be kind of following that path. And then our plane, the Cessna where I'm gonna be in the passenger side, right side pilot's gonna be on the left side. I'm gonna explain to him I don't want you flying in formation because I won't be able to photograph him straight forward. I need you to weave back and forth as the other plane flies across this stretch to get the shot that I want. So I'm trying to show you right now, my process of how I would kind of conceive this idea and what I would hopefully explain it and how I would hopefully explain it to the pilot, right? Which when I have the pilot debrief, you'll understand. So we're gonna fly across this big stretch of dunes here. And then Mauro rock we'll probably circle around Mauro Rock. We will head into the Moro Bay State Marine Reserve. which has a lot of birds. It is an area where you cannot fly that low but there are some beautiful beautiful patterns in the estuary. Now, one of the things about the estuary I've shot there a lot and I've shot in a lot of estuaries is that different tides. It can have really beautiful weaving patterns when it's you know, sadly when it's high tide it's not as interesting because all those cool like little patterns that are in the shallow parts they kind of become covered with water. So we're just gonna cruise by there. See if there's anything interesting there. And then my hope is that near sunset, right around 5:00 PM we're gonna be kind of getting the last light on the peaks or all those mountains in San Louis Obispo. So again, I've, I've flown in this area a lot being able to see all these kind of peaks stack up and maybe compress them in that's when I might be busting out the 70 to or 24 to 70 and kind of compressing those peaks together. And then hopefully we'll be rounding it off coming back into San Louis landing there and or coming back into Oceano airport and landing back there. So that's kind of the flight path that I have. I have built for us. Now, this is a flight path that I could just verbalize to my pilot, or I could actually print this out print out the page and literally show them here's a marker. I'm gonna draw it myself. Or you could build it in even a you know some sort of a cycling app right with GPS, Gaia App commute something along those lines. Or you can even do that in Google earth by making kind of pin to pin markers. What I do like to do is I like to kind of memorize these routes, the places that I'm hoping to go the images that I'm able to shoot because what it'll do is it'll allow me to kind of prep myself to be like, well this area is gonna be great with a wide angle. This area might be great with the long lens. This area might be good with this. This is where I hope to get for sunset. And ultimately it helps keep you on track. One of the hardest things is that when you get up there in the air, you have no idea kind of what you're doing and you're just, everything's exciting. And you're just shooting out you're spraying and praying right. But, and that's great, nothing wrong with that at all. But at a certain point when you want to bring a little more intelligence into the craft and maybe a little more thoughtfulness into the craft, you're gonna wanna be thinking about which side of the plane am I on? Where am I starting out? Where are my subjects? Where is the mountain? How am I compressing this, this object into that landscape? Right. And trying to create something more than just kind of, you know, these, these hopeful these hopeful happen, chances of beautiful images. So this is kind of my go-to again, it's a mixture of studying kind of what I find on social media reaching out to people there. You really want to have a keen understanding of ultimately especially if you're shooting something specific like a glacial river that only happens for a couple months, a year, when is the best time to go? What is the best elevation to shoot that at? What kind of seasonality am I looking for that will help to tell you what lens you might need? You know, who you might need to talk to? Is it better for a heli or is it better for a Sessna? All of these things kind of boil down to the shots that you're trying to create and what you're hoping to execute, but I find that some of the best ways to simply understand what you're looking at in Google earth is simply just to, you know just to play around on it, look around if you've if you've never kind of looked into, you know, sort of the you know, maybe the Big Sur Coast and you wanna fly through it just spend some time kind of messing around on that, on that tool. You know, looking at it in a three dimensional way it gives you a great perspective for what you could potentially see in the air. And I think that is maybe one of the best exercises just kind of getting lost in some of these tools and really trying to study as much as you possibly can.