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Flight of Fancy Turns Into Magic Carpet Ride

ADRIEL HEISEY CAN turn a routine airplane flight into a magic-carpet ride. He's a photographer with wings, roaming Arizona skies with one eye on the altimeter and the other on the magical interplay of landscape and light unfolding below. Clutching his medium-format camera in both hands, control stick strapped to his leg and both feet on the rudder pedals, he simultaneously functions as photographer, navigator, flight engineer and chief mechanic of his homebuilt airplane. Multitasking comes with the territory. “While I’m shooting, the man/machine interface is so smooth that I usually don’t even think about it. The plane just moves naturally where I need it to be,” Heisey says.

Hold the jokes about flying lawnmowers. His is a serious aircraft. “The airplane is not an ultralight by the FAA’s definition,” Heisey says. “It produces 100 horsepower at full throttle, and has taken me over Hawaii’s, Arizona’s and Colorado’s highest mountains.” For Heisey, photography and aviation intertwine. Wings provide him a lofty perspective from which to observe our world. “I am drawn to see the Earth from above because in doing so I often have an experience I can only describe as communion with the connectedness of all things,” he says. “I feel how everything exists simultaneously because I can see all at once so many things which, when encountered at ground level, seem disparate and singular.” For a guy who spends so much time in the air, Heisey remains deeply connected to the land. He’s especially drawn to the sculptured landscapes of the Navajo Indian Reservation in northeastern Arizona. So strong is his attraction to its monolithic landforms that Heisey and his wife, Holly, lived on the reservation for many years. They recently relocated to Montrose, Colorado. “The chaotic geometry fascinates my eye, and the mysteries of their formation tantalize my mind,” Heisey says. “These otherworldly wilds are the perfect antidote to the monotony of modern civilization. For that reason, I am a passionate advocate for their protection, and regard my photography as part of the larger mission of awareness and care for them.” Even with all his preflight planning, Heisey never knows what he might encounter when he leaves terra firma. It’s not called the wild blue yonder for nothing. Rapidly changing conditions aloft can create conflict between his dual roles as photographer and pilot. The photographer’s craving for drama can test the pilot’s nerve.

“I normally avoid thunderstorms in my plane because they’re just too dangerous,” Heisey says. On one flight, he’d kept his eye on the summer storm clouds gathering over the ArizonaMexico border. Showers were imminent, but the cells were scattered. Confident of safe zones between thunderheads if he needed to retreat, he took off from the Nogales airport as evening approached.

“I knew it was a thunderstorm because I could see the lightning, so I kept a respectful distance,” he recalls. “I watched its dark clouds roil and glower. I wondered how close was too close, and thought darkly that if I sustained a direct hit by lightning I’d probably never know it.” A terrestrial photographer could have only watched as the storm moved away. But in the air, Heisey stayed with his quarry, maneuvering and photographing until sunset. “As the storm was losing vigor, the red ball of the sun flared behind the shifting veil of rain,” he said. “The scene was so short-lived that I abandoned my chase and just shot the amazing tableau before me. I was exhilarated to share airspace with this modest behemoth.” Heisey landed in the fading light at the Nogales airport, and taxied back to his waiting trailer. He still remembers the smell of the air, perfumed with the fragrance of desert creosote. “Warmth enveloped me as I rolled to a stop, and I wasted no time stepping out of my flight suit,” he says. “I was down from the sky. A magic-carpet ride had returned to Earth. All