I had another defining moment for my career yesterday.  They let me go up and do some ariel photography.  Most people would find the subject matter of dams to be somewhat boring but I don't care what I am taking pictures of as long as I am taking pictures.  This is a little narrative about my day.

This is the little cessna we commissioned to fly us over, intially 4, but ended up to be 7 or 8 features.  

This is semi-retired Larry Caldwell.  He is the "Old Dam Man".  He told us he was going to retire but his office is still open for business nearly every day.  He's the biggest so we stuffed him in the back seat.  Actually, you can't shoot good pictures from back there since only the front window opens while you are flying.  (That's right, open window picture shooting at 5000 feet.)

Naturally we had to have a pilot.  This man was an excellent pilot.  If I hadn't been wearing the seat belt I would have only fell out of the plane twice.  He was impressed that I didn't ralph.  Most people who shoot out of planes get queasy even when they normally wouldn't.  Has to do with the limited information your eye gets from your surroundings when you close one and force the other into the viewfinder.

This is part of the reason we do what we do at the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).  It is hard to get a good idea of the true scope of erosion unless you can see this.  Water is a powerful earth mover.  People underestimate this power all the time.

In the end we landed with over 1000 pictures, many of them just versions of others.  I had my camera set to rapid fire to make sure I got the shots we needed.  Next time we take off I will have a better idea of what I need to do.  I will probably take fewer pictures but I don't think I am quite up to eliminating the rapid fire just yet.  That will come with experience.  I may get lots of practice as everyone agrees we should do this more often.

Drummond Flat Wetland Area

Cimarron River