Helicopter photo shoot with Mr. Coca Cola

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photorecon
AFFILIATED MEMBER
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue 30 Dec 2008 02:22

Helicopter photo shoot with Mr. Coca Cola

Post by photorecon »

(NOTE: I'm a professional at aviation photography. I strongly suggest what
is written below be not partaken by others without such said experience.)

I'm in the midst of making a super-unique panorama image of a large group
of people for an airline. This will mark my third year in a row of making such
a group-pano, which is of the airline's maintenance workers, their significant
others, and their children - while at the airline's annual Aircraft Maintenance
Worker's Children's Christmas Party. As my made image each year has been
vastly different than that of the previous year, for this year, I'm placing over
200 people on the aircraft wing of a Boeing 737 - which will be flying.

So, I was in need of an image of the airline's aircraft maintenance hangar,
from above, as if seen from the happening party being conducted on this
flying aircraft wing. John Woodruff, of the Coca Cola family offered to take
me up, in exchange that I air-to-air photo his "machine."

Our photo shoot of the AirTran Airways maintenance hangar was flawless.
We were given full access to enter the large Atlanta Airport's airspace and
we circled a number of times around the subject aircraft hangar - at various
altitudes, during which time I was standing outside the helicopter, on its
landing skid, for an unobstructed view of the ground below. For one pass,
for example, we flew ever so slowly in front of the hangar's open doors -
well below the door height -that an entire line of AirTran employees and
managers were waving to us. In every essence, our low & slow pass was
a Classic One!

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After having circled the aircraft hangar several times, John flew Olga and
me into the downtown area of the City of Atlanta. Olga was my assistant:

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You've never had a tour of a city like that Olga & I were given by John, who's
family basically "owns" the City of Atlanta & everything it has become. Over
the years, his family has donated hundreds & hundreds of millions of dollars
to various projects or educational institutions throughout the city.

As I was still out on the helicopter's landing skid (I wear a full body harness
and had the right leg loop attached to a rear seat's seat belt system via two
rock climbing carabineers. Further, the right side rear door of the helicopter
had been removed for me.) We zig-zagged throughout the entire city. We
flew quite low at times, well below the roof tops. And sometimes, we flew
really slow.

It must have been something like one would see in a James Bond movie - a
helicopter flying sporadically through a big city, with me clinging onto its
skid. People looked out their building windows, from where they were working;
stopped on the sidewalks, from where they were walking; and even strained
their heads out their car windows & upwards, from where they were driving.

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It was kind-of cool to land on a building, especially as I was still standing
on the skid:

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We continued to tour the downtown & midtown portions of our city for a
while longer. But it was then that I began to realize just how cold my hands
& fingers had become. The ground temperature was near freezing that day,
and here we were, 200 to 300 meters above the ground, and often traveling
quite fast - for now about an hour. My fingers had become so incredibly cold,
they were now pretty much frozen to the camera & the large gyroscopic
stabilizer mounted under it.

At one point, John quickly accelerated the helicopter from around 60-80 km
/hr to basically twice that speed. As I turned around on the skid to try to
climb back into the machine, both of my legs were blown out from under-
neath me. They were now dangling in the hard wind, and so was I. My basic
thought: trying to prevent from being spun upside down.

My right hand was still clamped onto the 6.5 kilos of camera, and my worthless
left hand was reaching for the helicopter's open doorway - which 1) I could no
longer reach, as I had been blown away from it, and 2) like my right hand,
my left one would not work. It was too frozen.

For a period of time, I was in mess of a situation. My whole body was waving
in the wind like a flag. Finally, I was able to grab onto the open doorway with
my wrist and pull my entire body weight & that of the camera against the
hard wind - just enough that my right foot was able to hook the support bar,
which attaches the skid to the helicopter's fuselage. And after a struggle, I
was able to pull my body forward enough that I was again able to place my
weight onto the skid.

I could now see Olga.

Olga was mostly keeled-over with her head down to her knees, as if preparing
for a plane crash. I had given her my fleece coat to wear (because she was
cold even before the flight). But now, she had the fleece coat wrapped in
front of her upper body and had her head buried deep into the coat. I could
not directly speak with Olga because of the loud rotor noise, the fast wind,
and because she was wearing an aviation headset (as I wasn't).

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Once we made it back to John's huge estate, where he keeps his helicopter
in his "Toy Box," there beside his house, and after I was able to manage
being disconnected from the machine, I made a B-line straight for the
warm office inside John's Toy Box. And for a solid 25-minutes, I too was
keeled-over, with my hands tucked tightly under my armpits.

Later that afternoon, once Olga & I had warmed-up, gotten something
warm inside our stomachs, and ventured-out to purchase some winter
gloves, we headed back over to John's estate, that we could conduct some
air-to-air sunset photography work of John's helicopter. John's close buddy,
Greg, supplied Olga and me with his own, personal helicopter to use as a
photo ship. Below are some of the images we had made during that *more
successful* photo shoot over Atlanta.

But before we took-off from John's estate, I made sure to make a portrait
of Greg's Robinson R-44 helicopter.

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Our photo shoot, that I could return the kind favor John had given to me
earlier that day:

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The Georgia Dome is where the Atlanta Falcons football team plays its
games, as well as were large concerts & other such events are held.

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It's kind-of cool seeing a pretty sunset from outside a flying helicopter...

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A couple days later, it snowed here in Atlanta - an increasingly RARE event.
So, I went down to the large Atlanta airport to take some pretty pictures
of AirTran and perhaps some of their workers or pilots dealing with the
unusual snow (to Atlanta).

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The End.

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marc st. pierre
http://www.marcstpierrephotography.com
Vincent De Vos
AFFILIATED MEMBER
Posts: 144
Joined: Mon 27 Oct 2008 21:46

Outstanding aviation photography!

Post by Vincent De Vos »

Congratulations.
I really enjoyed watching your pictures and reading the story.
Passioned by beautiful pictures, not a very active photographer though...
Regards,
Vincent

PS I use google translate a lot to write better English. So, if mistake, I's google, not me. ;)
photorecon
AFFILIATED MEMBER
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue 30 Dec 2008 02:22

Re: Helicopter photo shoot with Mr. Coca Cola

Post by photorecon »

Thanks Vincent.

Cheers to you,
marc
pam.meier
moderator
Posts: 421
Joined: Thu 28 Aug 2008 18:54

Re: Helicopter photo shoot with Mr. Coca Cola

Post by pam.meier »

Wow, what a series! I love the images of the helicopter in flight.
And - nice assistant ;) Keep up the good work.
photorecon
AFFILIATED MEMBER
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue 30 Dec 2008 02:22

Re: Helicopter photo shoot with Mr. Coca Cola

Post by photorecon »

Well Pam,

Let's do this then: to meet half way, we'll do
some super-cool work in Greenland. You can
assist me one day and I'll assist you on the
next day. And in between those day, we'll
have some fun staying warm... :-)

marc
ChrisBergstrom
AFFILIATED MEMBER
Posts: 80
Joined: Sat 18 Apr 2009 15:41

Re: Helicopter photo shoot with Mr. Coca Cola

Post by ChrisBergstrom »

Photorecon, you are crazy, in a good way! How do you get shots like this? Do they hire you or are you just along for the ride or do you pay to get up there? It's me mayonaka from dpreview. Anyway, your shots are awesome and I wish I could fly that often and get those spectacular shots that you are so fortunate to grab!

Chris
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