From
not high enough – say from a tall office building or from the
Eiffel Tower or the Campanile in Venice's Piazza San Marco –
the view will be spellbinding, but will not extend much beyond
your immediate, earthbound, neighborhood.
To do it just right, I think, one has to follow the path of
Cameron Davidson, a corporate, editorial and fine art
photographer who is as comfortable in a tiny Bell Jet Ranger
helicopter as he is with his Nikons and his gyro-stabilizer.
Davidson's gorgeous aerial work has been seen in any number
of national magazines, books, annual reports, brochures and
assorted other corporate and editorial venues. [In fact, he's
featured prominently in this month's Washingtonian Magazine.]
Given the number of days he spends on the road, Frequent
Flier probably doesn't do Cameron justice. Constant flier,
maybe. Compulsive Flier, better. Obsessive Compulsive Flier? A
little too harsh. But just a little.
Part of the reason is that Cameron loves to fly – and lives
to fly. And not only as a passenger going to and from a job.
He's a licensed pilot himself and early on discovered that he is
most at peace when he is in the air.
"Early...in my career, I had an assignment to photograph
great blue herons in southern Maryland for the magazine with the
yellow border" Davidson recalled after last week's opening
of an exhibition of his beautiful aerial photography. "I
was driving down a country road and I saw a yellow Piper Cub
next to a barn on a hill. I drove up to the house and spoke to
the man who owned the farm and airplane. He agreed to take me up
for expenses."
"We took off down this little dog-legged runway and flew
over the lower Patuxent River and Black Marsh Swamp. The heronry
sits at the back end of the marsh and we circled low and slow as
I shot away with my little Nikon FM. After a while we flew
upriver to the marshes at Jug Bay and I shot images of the marsh
as we circled it."
"I loved the feeling of being able to compose graphic
images from natural patterns. It really brought together my two
early loves in photography – shooting patterns and shooting
landscapes. Plus, I just really feel happy and comfortable in
the air. To me sitting in the back of a Jet Ranger with the door
off and watching the world go by from low altitude is just
amazing. I love that feeling."
It shows in the images now on display at the Botanic Garden
East Gallery Conservatory through June 22. This is a small,
almost intimate, show of colorful and comparatively vast spaces
– from the Gulf of Mexico, to San Francisco Bay, to the
Palouse Hills in Washington State to the Grand Canyon and the
Colorado River. [Cameron recalled that he made his dramatic
aerial view of the Canyon "after I shot the Grand Canyon
airport for a client. The pilot and I took the door off his
A-Star (helicopter) and flew the official tour route. Flying
over the Grand Canyon without a door is a trip and a
half!!"]
These are, for most of us, perspectives we never have seen
and they fascinate because of that. But they fascinate too
because they are beautiful photographs that can stand alone as
richly saturated abstracts of a natural world we hardly ever
see.
Though he has flown in well over a dozen different kinds of
aircraft (often many different times in the same type of plane
or chopper) Cameron really prefers helicopters when making
pictures from he air. "I really like helicopters because I
can spend more time composing and (being) above the
subject," he notes. "With airplanes, you use a lot of
your time setting up for a shot."
His favorite helicopter is a Bell Jet Ranger or a Hughes 500
"with a great pilot who understands photography" and
whose skills Cameron respects. The 500, Cameron says, "is
the sports car of helicopters – a great machine," though
he also has made pictures from a Bell 47, "the ancient
beast of burden featured in the TV show M*A*S*H."
As for fixed wing aircraft, "the Piper Cub is great –
slow and fun to fly and just a pretty little airplane. I've
flown quite a bit in Cessna 172s...and a modified Cessna 177,
which does not have wing struts [and] with windows that fold
in."
In addition, he says, "I've flown in a couple of
ultra-lights, including a powered parachute – which I thought
about buying last year. But after flying it [I] realized that
they are not as safe as people claim, and the set-up time plus
wind limitations really [do] not make it very useful for the
type of aerial shooting I do."
As for more mundane equipment – his cameras and film –
Cameron works with Nikons and did most of his aerials on
Fujichrome Velvia for its tight grain and almost supernatural
color saturation. Another must is a gyro-stabilizer – a gismo
that attaches to a camera tripod socket and uses an internal
gyroscope to hold the camera steady even against the vibrations
of a helicopter.
At Cameron's opening last week, friends and colleagues
gathered to wish him well and to drink his wine. (At least
that's what I did.) But another friend, graphic designer Doug
Keeffe, had an additional plan for his girlfriend and
soon-to-be-fiance, Tana Rhodes, a marketing director and
realtor.
"Doug called me on Friday," Cameron recalled,
"and asked if it was OK with me if he proposed to Tana in
the botanical gardens."
"Being better with images than with words," Doug
recalled, "I asked Cameron for permission to modify one of
his images."
After some discussion to choose the right picture, Cameron
sent Doug a file of the James River Marsh and Doug played
digital wizard in PhotoShop to change the course of the stream
to say "Marry Me Tana."
Keefe then e-mailed Cameron the altered file, and Cameron
printed it out and framed it.
The surprise was set.
Doug and the unsuspecting Tana came to the opening,
congratulated Cameron, explored the Gardens and then, as planned
by Doug and Cameron, bade Cameron farewell.
"Hey, hang on," Cameron said, "I have a print
for you."
"I then pulled the print from underneath the serving
table and handed it to Doug [who] then gave it to Tana,"
Cameron said. "[She] looked at it for a second or two as
Doug got onto his knee and pulled out a ring. She saw the
writing in the photograph and it all came together."
"She said yes, [the] ring was placed on her finger, and
I introduced them to the crowd."
Way to go, Cameron: photographer, artist, frequent flier –
and matchmaker.
Low and Slow – 300 Feet Over the American Landscape.
Photographs by Cameron Davidson. US Botanic Garden, East Gallery
Conservatory, through June 22. (at the foot of Capitol Hill on
Maryland Avenue SW)
Show moves to the NIH Clinical Center Galleries, July 4-Sept.
6.
Frank Van Riper is a Washington-based commercial and
documentary photographer and author. His latest book is
Talking Photography (Allworth Press), a collection of his
Washington Post columns and other photography writing over the
past decade. He can be reached through his website www.GVRphoto.com.
©Cameron
Davidson
©Cameron
Davidson
©Cameron
Davidson
Photo
manipulation of Davidson photo by Doug Keeffe.
