Aerial Photography From a Powered Parachute

Back in August, after messing around for about 2 years, I finally got my sport pilot license to allow me to fly powered parachutes. Besides just going up in the sky to mess around and have a good time (which is a blast!), I wanted to take my photography to the next level (so to speak)... several hundred feet high! I have started a project to fly around my county (Shelby County, Indiana) and photograph the cities, towns and other targets of opportunity that present themselves. The powered parachute is, in my opinion, the perfect platform for aerial photography. It has an open cockpit, which means there are no nasty windows to shoot through. I steer with my feet, which means that I can use both hands to handle the camera. It is slow (about 32mph), which means I have plenty of time to loiter over a subject and get many shots from many angles. I also can fly very low and get unusual angles on subjects. My weapon of choice is the Canon 1D Mk IV with the 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II lens, although I will be purchasing the 100-400mm Mk II lens sometime early next year. I also sometimes do some frame grabs from the GoPro flight video to get some wide shots. For a good view of how I take photos in flight, go to about the 40:00 mark in this video of my flight to Flat Rock, Indiana.

Below are a few of my favorite photos. There are many more photos on my web site under the "Aviation" category. Most of the posts contain a map of my flight path, flight video and still photos. There are also additional videos on my YouTube channel as well.

Sunset behind the Indianapolis, Indiana skyline (Indianapolis International Airport control tower directly in front of the sun):

Awesome and sounds like a lot of fun as well.

I love the combines with dust trails. Looks like you are having a ball.