By Ted Grussing
… it was a beautiful day in Sedona when I took off this afternoon, but by the time I got half way to the peaks I was dodging snow showers. It was a place of intense beauty up there and further to the right of this image the ground was covered pretty much by low level clouds with volcanic cinder cones popping up through the low clouds. Most of the plateau all the way to the Grand Canyon was blanketed by the clouds on the west side of northbound US 89. The north rim was bathed in sunlight and the view in that direction was nice; ditto to the east with the Painted Desert illuminated by the sun and providing great color and contrast to the scudding clouds.
I was well to the ENE of the San Francisco peaks when I took this shot looking to the WSW from an altitude of around 10,000’; I took this shot for a very specific reason, and that is that I captured about three million years of history in this shot. From the left side of the image there is Mt. Elden, the San Francisco Peaks, Bill Williams Mountain, Sitgreaves Mountain and Kendrick Peak. Bill Williams mountain was the first volcano to emerge in what is now called the San Francisco Volcanic Field and it boasts over 600 volcanic cones. The kind of well defined horizontal path cutting across the lower portion of the image is a power transmission line that originates in Page and goes down to Phoenix. I had been over 12,000’ as I was going to check my vertical speed climb rate going higher, but clouds got in the way … still at 12,200’ I had a sustained climb rate of 720 fpm.
Friends flying up from Carefree tomorrow late morning, lunch and then probably it will be back up north and shoot more of the Painted Desert if there is sufficient light on it … otherwise? Maybe just enjoy a flight to somewhere and back.
Into the weekend for me and back Monday morning … at least that is the plan. Have a beautiful day wherever you are … you are surrounded by beauty and by nice people too.
Cheers
Ted
Your first duty is to learn to live in the world, for to this you are born.
But, meantime, make for yourself a secret room in the inner house
of consciousness, where you may rest from the strain of the world,
and disentangle yourself from that which is unworthy of your soul.
Into this room let no unsympathetic person enter, for he would laugh
at you in the temple of your better self.
Yet, in a long time, perhaps some one who understands will pass the door.
And who shall say what your life may be from that hour!
— Max Ehrmann
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The easiest way to reach Mr. Grussing is by email: ted@tedgrussing.com
In addition to sales of photographs already taken Ted does special shoots for patrons on request and also does air-to-air photography for those who want photographs of their airplanes in flight. All special photographic sessions are billed on an hourly basis.
Ted also does one-on-one workshops for those interested in learning the techniques he uses. By special arrangement Ted will do one-on-one aerial photography workshops which will include actual photo sessions in the air.
