A while back, I was flying to a conference in Chicago. Leaving Salt Lake City and climbing out over the Wasatch Front, I was sitting in the window seat I usually prefer and fondling my little newly purchased Nikon 1 v2. As we traversed the eastern Rockies in late afternoon, I wondered how the camera would "perceive" the fabulous landscape sliding by slowly below. Would it be sharp enough, even though shooting through the plane's windows? Could I adjust for haze without a filter? Would the compositions even be interesting? Undaunted, I started shooting with a 10-100 mm zoom, the equivalent of 27-270 mm given the crop factor of 2.7x.

Yesterday, almost five years later (!), I was experimenting with these aerial shots in Lightroom and Photoshop. Being retired is great! Anyway, I was quite pleased to see some interesting possibilities emerge and wanted to share the results with you. So, the next time you are on an airplane with nothing to do, dig out your camera; you never know!

Enjoy!

Eastern Utah

Flaming Gorge Reservoir

Chipped Flint

This last one reminded me of an Indian arrowhead, which is why I chose the title. The late afternoon light from a setting sun aided and abetted the contrast and texture of what might have been an otherwise ordinary formation. Recalling floating somewhere over the Rockies, I think of how many times I have flown above this land and basically ignored the wonders over which I sailed. Seeing. That's the beginning of photography. Without it there is no vision. And without a vision, people perish.

Afterthought: I have tried taking photos with my phone. From an airplane, I have yet to achieve success with this strategy although I have made others image that I found satisfying. Part of it is the lenses of the phone cameras and part of it is being able to shoot in RAW format because, I think, the post processing can be somewhat extreme. Of course, without trying, who knows?