Thursday, April 05, 2012

California: Flying photographer doesn't 'work' for living

Pilot Ron Smeets, left, and photographer and pilot Fred Emmert pause at John Wayne Airport after a recent aerial photography mission in his Emmert's Cessna 182 which is more than 30 years old.


For more than three decades Fred Emmert has been flying and photographing over Southern California. 

Aiming his Cannon digital camera, Fred Emmert photographs a warehouse for a real estate client as his Cessna circles above the city of El Monte.

Photographer Fred Emmert, left, and pilot Ron Smeets discuss the location of their next aerial photography mission as they prepare to take off from John Wayne Airport. 



Pilots have their own language. When all heck breaks out, they say, "Now, it's interesting."
 
On this day, flying with Air Force veteran and commercial aerial photographer Fred Emmert, the worst it gets is "ugly."

With Ron Smeets as pilot, the single-engine Cessna drops down and banks sharply. Its red and white fuselage is at such an angle that when I look out my side window there is only ground – and the feeling of spinning straight down.

In the rear of a four-seat craft more than three decades old, I tighten my seatbelt. In front, Emmert does just the opposite. Camera in hand, he opens his window and leans out.

There are few things that prevent Emmert from getting the perfect photograph.

Not even "ugly" – or "interesting."

• • •

I first came across Emmert several weeks ago when I was in Africa. Thinking I might be homesick, he kindly e-mailed me a crystal clear photograph of Orange County from the ocean to Saddleback Mountain.

When I got home, I looked him up figuring he'd found the prefect work.
Wrong.

"I do this because I don't want to work for a living," Emmert jokes, driving us through a security checkpoint at John Wayne Airport and pulling up under the wing of his Cessna Skylane.

As we remove the wood blocks securing the plane's tires, Smeets agrees, his sentence partly lost in the roar of a giant commercial jet taking off.

We are 29 feet long with a 36-foot wingspan. Empty, we weigh less than 2,000 pounds. On the runway, we are a mouse on a football field of linebackers.

We climb into the air. Upper Newport Bay glistens below. But there are planes in the area. As if hearing my thoughts, Emmert offers, "Fifteen percent of the aviation in the U.S. is within 100 miles of here."

Flying may not be work. But it's the kind of thing in which a lack of focus can get you killed.

But there is no fear in this cabin – at least not in the front seats.

Yes, Emmert and Smeets have "the right stuff."

• • •

Flying in a private plane is different from flying commercial. You don't go through pat-down security. You don't have to turn off your phone. And you go wherever you want.

"Let's check out Saddleback," Emmert says. Smeets confirms our flight plan with the tower and in the time it takes to make it through a freeway onramp during rush hour we are circling the twin peaks of Modjeska and Santiago.

At 5,500 feet, the ocean is gray-blue. The long stretch of sandy beach looks like a muddy river, the dark sea and the green coastal range its banks.
Orange County spreads below like a Google Earth display in real time 3D. To the northwest, the San Gabriel mountain range is covered in snow.

For any photographer, this is great weather. For an aerial photographer on 1-10 scale, the snow-capped mountains make this day a nine.

As we head toward Riverside County and several assignments for clients, Emmert, 69, shares his journey from growing up in Huntington Beach to becoming a modern-day "Sky King" with a camera.

He enlisted in the Air Force in 1966. He ran computer systems before being sent to the Panama Canal Zone. There, he found himself with a little spare time and an accommodating flight instructor at an off-duty flying club at Albrook Air Force Base.

After being discharged in 1970, he figured he'd become a commercial pilot. But he disliked the idea of flying the same routes and ended up in real estate appraisal.

Soon, he earned his flight instructor's license and on weekends he combined his passion with his real estate job shooting real estate photos, often for a company called Air Views.

By 1988, Emmert had saved enough money to buy Lloyd DeMers' Air Views. Today, the company has a library of 350,000 images.

As we talk over headsets, we descend toward Emmert's first assignment. He pulls out a $3,000 Canon camera, similar to the one he got by trading $30,000 worth of dated film technology for 21st Century digital technology.

He pops the window. A blast of cool air sweeps our little cabin.

• • •

Emmert reels off a series of instructions to Smeets. With a faded yellow cap on Smeets and Emmert in jeans and a polo shirt, it would be wrong to liken them to dancing partners. But the analogy holds as Emmert uses the plane like a flying tripod.

Emmert leads, saying such things as "descend to 3,000 feet." Smeets follows without missing a beat. And the plane dances.

We swoop down toward a series of buildings, climb into the cloudless sky, slide one way, soar another.

"You've got a smooth day," Smeets tells me while glancing up, down and sideways for air traffic. "When we need to fly low on days with weather, it gets rough."

Unschooled on the significance of Smeets' comment, I reply, "Rough sounds like fun."

Minutes later my churning stomach educates me. For nearly two hours, my internal gyroscope's been going up, down, turning, twisting. Now, it gives up.
I notice an opening in the plane's belly near my feet. It's nine inches across. 

The bird's-eye view dazzles.

But for the first time in my life, I wish for an airsickness bag.

Already, Smeets has declared timing is everything. And he's right. At this moment, Emmert declares it's time to head to Corona Municipal Airport for fuel and for what Smeets calls "terra firma."

• • •

As we head toward Corona's runway, Emmert says, "The rules out here are see and be seen."

I wonder why. Emmert explains there's no control tower. His comment jars my memory.

Four years ago, two Cessnas collided within a mile of the Corona airport. One plane was a two-seater, the other matched the one we're flying.

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