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| © Michael Collier |
| Meanders on the Green River, WY. Click photo for more images. |
Michael Collier was making his way as a freelance photographer, a geology student, and a summer river guide in the mid-1970s when a magazine asked the impossible. The editor needed photos of the Colorado Plateau, a spectacular 130,000-square-mile region of the southwest United States that includes parts of four states. "He wanted pictures in a week, and I said no way," recalls Collier.
But then he realized a way -- by airplane. He convinced Chris Condit, a pilot for the U.S. Geological Survey and a fellow geology student, to take him. They spent three days flying and shooting over desert peaks, plateaus, and deep canyons, and it was a revelation. "This was a new way to see what we'd been studying," he says. Viewing geology from the air "adds a dimension, a perspective that's priceless."
The two continued working together. "We learned a different way of photography, or a different way of flying, because in flying for photographs, you go where the light leads you," says Collier.
"You have a sense of what you're trying to accomplish, and you're given this remarkable freedom to follow the light."
By 1979, he had his own pilot's license, and has been flying and shooting ever since -- through thousands of photos, a half-million air miles, and a dozen books on geology.
But Collier's 57 years haven't been a straight-line narrative. Beside his passions for flying, photography, and geology, he is a doctor, working alternate weeks as a family physician in tiny Williams, AZ. (Don't assume that the white coat alone buys fuel for his 1955 Cessna 180. For a number of years photography has subsidized his medical practice.)
While he does much of his photographing in the American west, where the air is clear and the geology exposed, he and his Cessna have gone shooting as far as Maine, Honduras, and Alaska. He's now on the second of a five-book series from Mikaya Press, and hopes to do a book on climate change in Alaska.
And the flying is still exciting. "Chasing the light," particularly at the end of the day, means that when Collier takes off, he's often not sure where he'll land -- a runway isn't mandatory. His Cessna is a tripod fully movable in three dimensions, and those flying with him report white-knuckle moments as he seeks the perfect angle before the perfect light fades for his medium-format Pentax 645 and Fujichrome Velvia film.
But what excites Collier most is coming back with an image that's both beautiful and tells a story.
He cites a shot of Wyoming's Sheep Mountain: "I like it because it's engaging; it's got nice lines to it. But what I'm really trying to do with the picture is say, ‘Rock bends.' Even if you come away with just one idea -- ‘rock bends' -- then you've got what I was trying to say."
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