AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY

by Fred Steiger

At the January 11th meeting, aerial photographer and pilot Owen Kanzler captivated a record number of listeners with a description of his experiences in recording virtually all portions of the state of New Jersey as well as some segments of the adjacent states. Owen started as a professional photographer doing weddings in 1969 and, after learning to fly his own plane in the mid 1970s, started in 1978 to specialize in aerial photography. Interestingly, in 1990 there were only 450 aerial photographers in all of the United States. Today Owen's services are regularly sought by commercial, industrial, real estate, advertising, corporate and agricultural clients.

Owen started the meeting by showing 20 inch by 24 inch prints of his commercial work. This included views of factories, farms, and homes. He takes his pictures at all hours of the day by bracing his Bronica medium format camera against his shoulder as he points the camera out the open window of his plane which he is piloting at 70 miles per hour at a height of 500 feet. It should be noted that the speed at which the plane will stall is in the vicinity of 50 miles per hour. The camera is equipped with a 200 mm lens (the approximate equivalent of a 100 mm lens on a 35mm camera). To minimize blur, pictures are taken at the camera's top speed of 1/500 second. Owen uses his own experience to adjust the f-stop to control the exposure.

As a bonus, we were privileged to see a six minute video tape of a segment which the New Jersey Network program State of the Arts had prepared on Owen's method of working. As he flys around doing his commercial work, Owen keeps an eye out for subject matter which appeals to him. This is his personal passion and the second half of his lecture was devoted to such artistic examples. He showed pictures which encompassed studies in color, social commentary, humor, patterns, unique viewpoints and changes of the landscape over a period of time.

A few years ago Owen was privileged to have a museum show of his personal work. The show caught the attention of an agent which led to a commission for Owen to produce his choice of aerial views for publication in a calendar. (A photographer's dream - to be paid for his own artistic expression!) This led to an invitation for Owen to prepare 800 hand-signed prints for distribution as gifts to affiliates of the sponsoring company. Owen capped his lecture by distributing to each attendee a postcard with an aerial view he had taken of the Navesink Twin Lights. Neil Larsen and Ginny Santora were responsible for arranging to have Owen Kanzler lecture to us. Our thanks go out to all three for an informative and enjoyable evening.