Sydney: Unfiltered

Okay, so as I mentioned on Facebook earlier this week, all my posts from July are gone. Bummer! But, since this week is uber busy with work, I’m taking the very rare spare time I have to recreate these posts. First, I’ve got the ever important interview with the lovely Sydney!

So clearly you can see why I love her….she compliments me! Ha, obviously it goes way beyond just that. She’s a badass skydive chick, what’s not to love, right?! Be sure to check out her blog over at Sydney: Unfiltered. What, you didn’t think I came up with that catchy title all on my own, did you?

And as a little update since the last time I posted this interview, Syd and some of her pals from CSC will be headed out  for Jump for Diabetes weekend, in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS! Woot!

In case you hadn’t heard, we’re planning high altitude jumps from the King Air that will be coming in to support that weekend. It’s going to be EPIC .

Love and Blue Skies!

Ashley

An Interview with Norman Kent – Part 1

In keeping with my semi-weekly column of Hear it from the Expert, I am proud to say we have quite the expert here to inspire us today.

Last week I was blessed with the opportunity to sit down and chat with renowned photographer Norman Kent. He allowed me to pick his brain for a couple hours and he enlightened me with some of the incredible stories of his life as a skydiver and photographer.

*NormanKent.com

This interview really only scratches the surface of our discussion, which I’m sure only minutely touches on the life that he’s led, but I wanted to share with everyone some of the amazing things that were shared with me through the eyes of this accomplished individual.

Below is part 1 of the interview with Norman Kent. As I mentioned above, we chatted for quite some time and I wanted to capture as much as I could – after all, it’s not often that opportunities like this one come around!

SDC: Thanks for taking the time to do this interview, Norman. After having chatted with you briefly at the Work Stinks Boogie this year I remember saying to myself, “I’d love to sit down and pick that guy’s brain some day,” so this is a great opportunity to do that.

NK: Yeah, that’s awesome. It’s my pleasure to do this for you.

SDC: So let’s start out with the obvious question, when and how did you get your start in skydiving?

NK: I did my first jump on Aug 24, 1975. It was a static line jump. I think this is a very common story. It was meant to be a birthday gift to myself, and I was going to do it only once. Well, I was offered a 5 jump package for pretty cheap, and I refused. Like anything else the first jump was the most expensive, like two-thirds of the cost, and the other four were fairly inexpensive, but I refused because I figured I was only going to do it once. Then I jumped and it was instant love and I knew it was something I was going to do forever. The first thing I said to my friends when I landed was that I was going to do this for the rest of my life. And that’s how it all started.

SDC: Yeah, that seems to be a pretty typical story. Not many people go into their first jump already saying “this is something I’ll be doing for the rest of my life.” It’s a cool feeling when you get back on the ground and all you want is to do it again. So with all the traveling you do, where do you consider to be your home dropzone?

NK: My home dropzone is Earth, that’s the way I look at it. Though technically my home dropzone is Skydive Deland.  Because I had seen other DZs going for records and things like that, I realized that I didn’t want to be in one place only and get involved in the politics in that once place. As you stay in one place long enough you see and get involved in the politics of that place. So I thought, every place I go could be a new place and you always see all the good stuff from the outside and experience the awesome place for these short periods of time. I figured that’s sort of the world I wanted to live in, I really get to see all the good things about all the places I jump. That’s not really how I planned it, but that’s sort of how it played itself out, so that’s when I decided that my home dropzone was Earth.

SDC: I’ve noticed you do a lot of freefly photography for world records and stuff, do you consider that your favorite discipline?

NK: No. And let me clarify that.

When I first started skydiving I was already a photographer. I fell in love with photography the same way I fell in love with skydiving, with a specific event that inspired me. With no training and no schooling, I knew what I wanted, and I wanted to communicate the things I saw and experienced in life.

With skydiving, photography really became the priority for me. I always said if I had to choose one for some reason, if someone said to me, “you can’t have so much fun” and I had to choose [between skydiving and photography], I would pick photography.

With that said, my motivation in skydiving is photography. It’s the visual capturing of the sport. I also feel that it’s a sport that I love so much that provides very unique visuals. I feel very blessed to be able to see and capture light the way that I understand it. And I feel in a lot of ways that skydivers and non skydivers alike miss out on it and that’s what my motivation is, to communicate it. Meaning that skydivers are so focused on the jump, the grips, the formation, the skydiving elements of it, even though they’re enjoying and they understand what an amazing thing they’re doing, which is part of the turn on of it, they’re really missing out on how we look as far as people playing in the playground, Earth.

The second element is that the non-skydiver doesn’t really get to understand that unless they skydive, and then again they only get to understand it from a skydivers point of view. So to me the motivation is to show the world of skydiving to a non-skydiving audience in the form of beauty which they can understand – rather than in the form of “how many points did we have,” well they don’t really care, but they just want to look at it as “wow that’s amazing, that’s a lot of people, and wow look at the clouds, and wow where were you?” and that’s what they care about.

Because of that, I want to shoot everything in the sport - freeflying just happens to be one of the dynamic new elements of the sport, and it actually represents a problem for me in the sense that the sport has diversified and branched off in so many directions that it’s hard for me to keep up with all of it and that’s one of the biggest challenges for me. If I want to shoot all of it as far as the sport is concerned, then I need to do a little bit of all of it, and freefly is one of the most challenging things so I spend a little bit more time doing that. In fact I’m constantly training the in tunnels in order to get better and stay with the dynamics of the sport.

So yes, I do a lot of freefly because it is very dynamic and it’s challenging and I love it, but I love it just as much as any other part of the sport. I just spend more time doing it because I find belly flying really easy. I’ve done it for many years and also, physically speaking, it’s so much easier to do that I don’t need to spend so much time doing it and I can pick it up right away, even if I haven’t done it for a little bit. And the reason is because of the physics of it…for instance, in freeflying, you’re leading with your head, so any kind of head movement to point the camera in a different direction for composition, results in a change in direction in flight, or you must alter your body position drastically to continue your same direction. This is more of a challenge, and you’re also dealing with faster speeds and consequently a higher degree of difficulty and of risk. So that’s one of the reasons I spend more of my time freeflying. I love all of those challenges from that, so you could say it is one of my favorites. But really, a lot of the reasons why I do that is motivated by the photography. I want to do whatever it takes to not let freeflying pull away to where I can’t participate in the state of the art, cutting edge things that are happening like records and things like that.

SDC: That’s great! I was actually going to ask next which came first, skydiving or photography and you beat me to that. Tell us a little about how the two merged…

NK: Photography happened for me the same way skydiving did. I found myself in a situation where I said, “wow, this is what I want to do,” and I was a photographer instantly. It took a long time to really make it pay off in terms of money and all that, but the passion was there and I wasn’t turning back. Then of course when skydiving happened, it was a similar thing.

So there was this passion for shooting and passion for skydiving and I couldn’t wait to merge the two. I remember I wanted to jump a helmet with my static line jumps, and of course they wouldn’t let me. My first [camera] jump was jump 23, and with static line I didn’t have much freefall under my belt, but I was in a hurry because all I could think of was shooting this wonderful world. And that’s how it all started as far as putting the two of them together.

SDC: Who has inspired you as a skydiver?

NK: I’d have to say that I don’t have a specific person who acted as a mentor to me so much as I’m inspired by a specific type of person: anyone that’s willing to go the distance and go all out for their feelings and become a champion on a project or record. These people aren’t necessarily ego oriented, but are in search of a dream.  Of course, I look up to the pioneers in the sport – some of those whose names have gotten left behind in the sport, but people who have helped make it what it is today.

I do have my mentors and the people that made a huge difference for me in photography, but in skydiving it’s almost like I had so much support and I had so many experiences with so many cool people that it’s almost a breed of people [rather than specific mentors].

SDC: We talked a little about your experience with freefly, but tell us, what have your experiences been with other disciplines like wingsuiting.

NK: As I said before, I’m interested in every part of the sport. But I should define what really has worked for me and what hasn’t. Anything that has to do with regular belly flying, whether it’s competitions or large formations, it’s all sorta the same. I’m a certain quality of flyer. I’ve shot some style, but it hasn’t attracted me as much. I shot LOTS of freestyle because I was married to Deanna who was one of the pioneers who pretty much created that. Wingsuit I do also. I shot the 71 way record and if you go to my website you can see some amazing pictures of that. I’m not as current on that as I am on other disciplines, but it’s very dynamic and I love it.

*Photo by Norman Kent, NormanKent.com

One thing that I completely turn my back on for survival reasons is swooping. One of the reasons is because to shoot swooping, you don’t have to be a swooper, a lot of it happens near ground level. So I didn’t want to have to keep up with that. But because of the danger I didn’t want to go that route, especially when I’m not going to be approaching it as a specialization. Something that dangerous should be a specialization, not just as every once in a while visiting it.

And on top of that because my priority is in surviving the deployment with my big helmet, sometimes my helmet weights up to 32 pounds when I’m doing movie work, and so when that happens I need to have a specific parachute and a specific way it’s set up, and it’s completely not consistent with the kind of canopies you need for swooping. So slowly that’s left me behind and I’ve decided not to chase it; the parachute for me is a survival device. But most of the other disciplines I practice and love, both for photographing and participating in.

SDC: I remember thinking to myself at the Work Stinks Boogie, “how does he hold his head up with that camera helmet on, let alone skydive with it.” But I guess it’s something you get used to over time.

NK: Yeah that’s exactly how it is, you figure it out. If you really think about it, the analogy I use is one that most skydivers can relate to which is skydiving is looked at the same way by non skydivers, like “how can you do that.”

And then the skydiver goes “well what do you mean?” To us it’s pretty normal.

What you’ve done is turned something that wasn’t normal into something normal by simply understanding it, practicing it, getting comfortable with it. And at that point it becomes a normal part of your life and what you consider comfort level, and then, it’s really not that crazy at that point. And so the same things happen with a helmet. The reason why it’s considered crazier is just because it’s less common that people have on a huge helmet like that and the size appears to be not as necessary. But you have the same thing, you get used to it, you make it normal, you understand it, then you have a relationship with it that to you makes it not so crazy. That’s sort of the same with any sport and anything else.

To be honest with you, my theory is that that is the addiction in our sport and the addiction of anything like that. Meaning, the addiction is taking something that seems abnormal, you work it out physically and mentally so that it becomes normal, and now you’re living in this world that’s completely extraordinary, but you are in a comfort zone there to a certain extent. And when you do that, then you add something else and start tackling more disciplines to engage your mind.

…stay tuned on Friday for part 2 of my interview with Norman Kent and learn a little more about his career, the practices and techniques he recommends for skydivers, and one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard.

Blue Skies!

Ashley

Hear it from the Expert: Traventure Man

Happy Friday, y’all! You know what that means, it’s time to hear it from the expert.

To celebrate the first week back from the holidays, I asked a friend of mine who’s working on an incredible online adventure project to chat with me about what he’s got going on.

As you’ll see, I reversed the roles a bit and made him the interviewee. It’s a long one this week, but I recommend taking a break on this snowy day, curling up with your cup of joe and diving in head first. You won’t be disappointed.

So let’s get to it. Today we’re talking with John Jurko – the writer, producer and creator of Traventure Man (TM).

*Photo by Sandy Weltman

Hey John!

TM: Hey Ashley, first off I want to thank you for all of the support you have given me on your blog. I’ve been keeping up on your posts ever since we met, and you have a great thing going on here. I’m sure there are a lot of skydivers out there that appreciate your perspective, so keep up the good work!

SDC: Thanks John! I really admire what you’ve got going on over at Traventure Man. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about that.

TM: Where to start… Traventure Man in concept is an online interactive Travel and Adventure show. The finished web site will allow viewers to communicate with me through blog comments, Twitter and Live Ustream video casts. The audience will be able to participate in the making of episodes and the asking of questions in live interviews. Eventually I hope to be travelling around the world visiting cities and natural wonders while shooting episodes with a focus on adventure related sports and activities. I want to bring awareness to adventure lifestyles and world cultures. Using social media I want to make the process as real-time and interactive as possible for the viewer.

The three main goals of Traventure man are to inspire, educate and entertain its viewers and participants. I want to show people that anything is possible, and I want to educate them on how they can restructure their lives with a balance that includes the spirit of discovery and a connection with the world around them. Ambitious maybe, but it’s what keeps me plugging away into the unknown.

Traventure Man is still in its early stages, and most of my recent exploits have been more like experiments and test drives than the making of real episodes.

SDC: This is a great idea – clearly it’s something I’ve become a huge advocate for. What inspired you to start this venture?

TM: I came up with the concept of the web show this past summer as a way to combine my interests of adventure and filmmaking. I was inspired by a couple of blogs that I began following in late ’08 – Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV and Nick Campbell’s Grey Scale Gorilla. I realized that the format of a blog would give me the capability to start my own show and iron out things as I went along. I can produce my own content and put together my own web site, and as it becomes more popular I can seek out sponsors and advertisers to help kick it up a notch.

Right now I’m only a couple of months into making Traventure Man a reality. I have already learned a ton. One thing that I have realized is that it’s not a good idea to try and turn a vacation with family and friends into a Traventure Man episode. It never really works out, due to time constraints and the fact that everyone just wants to relax. I’ve also learned that my current equipment setup is not great for keeping things mobile. I’m planning on selling some of my gear and investing in a smaller video camera in the near future. I’ve also realize that I need other people to collaborate with. I originally got caught up in attempting to put together a website that was out of my league in terms of programming. But now I have a great designer who will be putting the full-featured web site together after the holidays.

Despite any setbacks I have had I am extremely excited for the future of Traventure Man. I have the mindset that there can be no failures in this process, only learning experiences. I’ve finally found a way to combine my passions and put them together in a format that I believe will eventually allow me to support myself and grow.

SDC: Can you tell us some of the things you’ve got your sites set on for future posts or is that top secret?

TM: No secrets here Right now I’m hoping to put together a 3 month tour of the United States this summer. I want to focus on adventure sports such as skydiving, BASE jumping, kayaking, rock climbing, surfing, and everything in between. My goal is to setup some great interviews with beginner, intermediate and professional athletes in each of these areas, and then go out with them into their environment and video tape the experience.

Until then I will probably do a lot of blog posts on climbing, which I recently got into, and general adventure news that I pick up as I research and learn. Once the new website is up I hope to keep up three posts per week. Once I’m on the road I hope to be posting new photos, videos and blog entries every day. Right now it’s just a battle between making enough money to survive, putting together the new web site, learning more about adventure sports, and learning how to get my own sponsors and advertisers.

SDC: So let’s ask the question that all the readers are dying to know (ha!), how did you meet me, Ashley, the Skydive Chick?

TM: Great Question! Our first encounter was through Twitter. My first real Traventure was to Bridge Day in West Virginia this past October – which also happened to have it’s own Twitter handle. So a couple of days before the event I Tweeted that I was looking for people that would be willing to do an interview. You agreed to participate and we met up near the Landing Zone on Bridge Day. You did an awesome job answering my questions, and I’m planning on finishing that little episode when I get home from the holidays.

SDC: On a side note, I’m super excited to see the final episode. What a great experience that was – both Bridge Day and meeting John in person. Here’s the link to a two minute teaser that was put together. The initial footage looks awesome! Okay, now back to the interrogation!

SDC: What first sparked your interest in skydiving?

TM: I lived a bit of a sheltered life growing up, but I loved walking through the woods and dreaming about adventure. I think that I always knew one day I would go skydiving, I just never set a date. After meeting at Bridge Day, I thought about your offer to jump with me at Canton Air Sports and that Rick would video it for my website and I realized, no time is better than now. I emailed you and called CAS to setup my first skydive! Wow, was it an amazing experience!!!

SDC: Is it something you plan to do again?

TM: Heck yeah! I definitely want to skydive again. I really want to get my license now, but I need to save up some cash for that. Maybe I will be able to convince some sponsors to put up for a 3 month Traventure Man show about me learning how to skydive I think it would be interesting to see someone go through the process and be able to ask them questions as they go. Your blog has been a great resource in that respect. I read your posts, get excited about jumping again, and learn a lot at the same time!

SDC: That was definitely one of the goals – glad to hear it’s working on converting someone into a skydiver . So of all the adventures you’ve done so far, what has been the most rewarding?

TM: Well, I don’t feel like I have gone on enough adventures yet, but my skydive was probably the most rewarding so far. There is nothing quite like flying up to 10,000 feet and then jumping out of an airplane into the big blue sky! I also had the pleasure of experiencing a cut-away when my primary chute malfunctioned. So I got two rides in one! The only complaint I have is that it went too fast. So yeah, I think I’m hooked. If you’re interested you can watch the whole jump on my Tumblr site.

*Photo by Sandy Weltman

SDC: Yeah, skydiving is addicting that way. There’s never enough freefall!

TM: I also had a great time bouldering in Chattanooga this past week with a good friend. It was my first time climbing on real rock, and what a difference. I had a blast and everyone in the South was super helpful and friendly! Hopefully one of these days I will be able to combine these two sports so I can climb a mountain and BASE jump back down!

SCD: Is that something you plan to stick with, or are you dabbling in everything at this point?

TM: Right now I’m dabbling in everything, but I think skydiving and climbing will be sports that I will stick with and concentrate on in the future.

SDC: What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t done yet that is on your list of to-dos?

TM: One thing… Hmm, there are so many! Right now making Traventure Man a success is at the top of my list. But if I had to pick an adventure, I would say summiting a big mountain. Of course I could say climb Everest or K2, but any reasonably hard mountain would be a great start. The reward of completing such a physical and mental challenge would alone be well worth the effort, but you also get to enjoy an amazing view at the top.

I recently saw video of Dean S. Potter wingsuit BASE jumping from Mt. Eiger in Switzerland for a 3 minute flight to the valley below. That would be an amazing experience! Maybe that’s the one thing, if I had to pick, that I would most want to do. I have a long way to go before I get there, but I’m up for the challenge!

I know you’re asking the questions in this interview, but I’m curious, what’s one thing that you want to do that you have yet to check off of your list?

SDC: Ah, you’re going to make this truly interactive, aren’t you? Well one sport I’ve always considered trying is snowboarding. As a decent skier it never made much sense for me to switch, but this winter my freefly partner, who also is an avid snowboarder, is insisting I get on a board. Hopefully this weekend will be my first experience with that.

Aside from that I’m excited to travel more and skydive everywhere I can. I’d love to BASE jump in Switzerland on day too.

TM: Thank you so much for this great interview, Ashley. Keep up the great work on your blog. I hope everyone will stop by and check out Traventure Man. Right now I’m at traventureman.tumblr.com, but by the end of January my full-featured site will be up at www.traventureman.com. Happy Traventuring!!!

No, thank you John! What a exciting venture you’ve got going. This is a great example of making your own dreams come true.

Hope everyone enjoys the weekend.

Blue skies and snowy mountains!

Ashley

Hear it from the expert: New Column

Given the recent weather changes here in the North, my typical “weekend happenings” post on Fridays is becoming less relevant. So, in this pseudo down time that is known as winter, I’ve decided to implement a new column.

Each week, I’ll interview an expert in the skydiving world and post the Q&A here for y’all to read, learn from, and hopefully be mildly entertained in the process. I’m calling it “Hear it from the expert.” Original, I know.

For the first installment of the column, I have interviewed someone from my home DZ, Canton Air Sports. He is someone we trust our lives with every time we board the airplane and prepare for our jumps – and honestly, he holds a position that doesn’t get nearly enough recognition in the skydiving world.

Today, we’re talking to our pilot, Ken Daidone.

SDC: So Ken, how long have you been a pilot?

Ken: All my adult life.

SDC: What types of aircraft have you flow over the years?

Ken: Most of the four seat piston single engine aircraft, Cessna Caravans, Super Twin Otters, King Airs, Twin Bonanzas, and a couple of hundred hours in aBoeing 707.

SDC: What got you into flying jump runs for skydivers?

Ken: Initially, it was a time builder for me, then it progressed into a much higher level of trying to be a jump pilot a jumper would love to have flying them with extreme precision focused on never missing the drop zone and in the event of a cutaway, their main and freebag to land on the dropzone. Not a perfect record there, but close.

SDC: Well I’ll definitely agree that you’re one of my favorite pilots! So on the rare occasion that the spot is off, do you hang out in the sky to see where the jumpers landed?

Ken: It’s been such a long time since that has happened. What I do look and spot for are mains and freebags that don’t make the airport. To answer your question, yes I do watch where they land if I am in a piston aircraft. If I am in a turbine, I will get a good location of where they were heading.

SDC: So we’ve gotta know, how cool is it to watch skydivers in freefall and under canopy from the air?

Ken: I love it! I always count the canopies to make sure they all opened and spot the cutaways to direct ground crew where to look. Especially in the turbines, landing before the tandems.

SDC: What’s the biggest challenge when it comes to flying a plane that skydivers are jumping from?

Ken: Coordinating with Air Traffic Control and at the same time calming the nervous first time jumper who is sitting next to me all the while making it look like any monkey could fly the airplane.

SDC: I bet you’ve seen your fair share of nervous students. Any one in particular stand out? What’s your strategy for helping calm nerves?

Ken: I can’t really think of any that particularly stand out, they all act about the same. Eventually they look at all the gages and dials and I usually tell the student that I have no idea what all that stuff does but I am supposed to look at the gages once in a while to make my job look difficult.

SDC: What’s your biggest pet peeve as a pilot for skydivers?

Ken: ARROGANCE, I despise it!

SDC: I’m with you on that one. What’s your strategy for putting the sky gods in their place?

Ken: I completely ignore them and avoid talking to them, because as you know, anything they say is only said to boost their already enormous ego.

SDC: What is the most rewarding part of piloting jump planes?

Ken: Landing with a load of jumpers and getting an applause.

SDC: What’s your favorite part of flying for Canton Air Sports?

Ken: Landing on the short runway and using less than half of it. I also really enjoy taking exit shots with my camera from the pilot’s seat.

(One of Ken’s shots before takeoff – Rick and I loading up for a freefly jump.)

SDC: This is definitely something us jumpers love too! What made you think to start photographing exits?

Ken: I used to shoot video for 4 way teams and have always been into photography so I thought that it would be nice to see a pilot’s view of the exits. I don’t know any pilots doing this but I’m sure they are out there somewhere.

SDC: What’s the scariest thing you witnessed, either as a pilot or just in your time in the skydiving community?

Ken: Death.

SDC: What’s one of the funniest things you’ve seen when flying skydivers?

Ken: The clothes of 23 jumpers landing between the pilot and copilot seat in a Super Twin Otter as they all left the aircraft “NAKED.”

Thanks Ken, for taking the time to talk about your experiences as a pilot. Next time you’re at the DZ, be sure to thank your pilot – they deserve it, after all.

Blue skies!

Ashley