13 March 2010

OK, I am going to immediately apologise to my non-American readers for the Awesome LOL, but honestly I had no other way to express how amazing this trip was.

I spent last week at the WPPI convention in Las Vegas. While there I decided last minute to book a helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon. I used the company recommended by the concierge at the MGM Grand (where I was staying), Maverick Tours (I took the Silver Cloud tour). The company exuded professionalism and my pilot was informative and fun (to give an example, as we were taxi’ing up the runway, the theme tune to Top Gun came through our headphones … I knew we were in for a fun time !). I had never been in a helicopter before, so before I show you some photos from the trip, let me share a few thoughts with you …

I will NEVER complain about turbulence on a plane ever again …
Taking photos from a helictopter is hard (that’s my excuse for any wonky skylines haha) …
I have an all new respect and admiration for Yann Arthus-Bertrand (check out The Earth from the Air books to see what I mean) …

With all that said … here are a few shots from the air … it is really difficult to convey the scale of this landscape and, actually, seeing it with your own eyes doesn’t make that any easier, it’s a lot for the brain to take in !

Thanks to Jerry Ghionis for lending me a proper camera (5DII) with 70-200 and 17-40, these made my job a little easier !

Additional thanks to Jeff Ascough for his amazing Silver Actions which were used to process these images !

All images Copyright 2024 Gill Taylor Photographer ... please don’t steal them, it’s not nice !