It’s been 2 years since the crash that changed everything for me. These past 24 months have been full of peaks and valleys that tested me more than I ever could’ve imagined. Through hard work, a positive mindset and tons of support from my friends and family, I am finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. I am happy to share this quick glimpse of my journey to recovery.
I plan to make my first skydive since my crash this Saturday. I’m nervous, excited, scared and anxious all at the same time. My hopes are that my pelvis can handle the opening shock of deployment and my legs and feet can stay under me on landing. Wish me luck and hope to see you all in the sky somewhere soon!!
Turned this athlete into a flying cameraman
@jeffprovenzano@jondevore@mike___brewer@michaelclarkphoto
Big shoutout to @redbullusa and @redbullairforce for making this happen
This is a behind-the-scenes story from an extreme wingsuit photography shoot of the Northern Lights in Alaska, where a Nikon Z6 mirrorless camera was mounted onto professional wingsuit athlete Mike Brewer in an attempt to capture Jon DeVore and Jeff Provenzano celebrating Jeff’s 50th cross-country wingsuit jump, completing all 50 states. His dream shot was to wingsuit during the Aurora Borealis, which the team brought to life. For a first attempt, the entire team still cannot believe the first shot was nailed.
We mounted photographer Michael Clark’s camera and strobe to a helmet, while wingsuit athlete Mike Brewer used a custom bite trigger to fire both the shutter and flash mid-flight. From there, three wingsuit athletes exited a helicopter and attempted to capture a photo under the aurora borealis in pitch black, at 120 mph. The ground weather was 8 F degrees that night but in the sky the temperature was recorded near ~40 degrees F. Because of the conditions, this was always across the team to be a one-shot, one-take only. Three years of planning for 60 seconds of flight.
Because the aurora was faint, the shot relied on rear-curtain sync with a slow shutter speed to bring enough light into the frame to paint the aurora in the background, while the flash froze the movement of the two adjacent wingsuit athletes. The shoot was uniquely difficult because it required multiple high-level photography techniques, elite wingsuit flying, and Mike Brewer’s ability to frame the other athletes by eye while trusting the camera would line up with what he was seeing in real time.
@jondevore and @jeffprovenzano wingsuit skydiving along with @mike___brewer (capturing the air-to-air images) under the Aurora Borealis in Alaska. We also had the amazing @amychmelecki helping out with ground control in the frigid temps. To say the last few days have been epic is an understatement. Over the last three or four years this Aurora Borealis project has been in the works. I have been thinking about how to craft these images for a long, long time as this was technically one of the hardest-to-pull-off assignments that has ever come my way. It is extremely rare that the photographer and the athletes are doing a World’s first at the same time—but that is what you are seeing in these images.
The air-to-air images you see here were created by Mike Brewer who flew with Jon and Jeff to capture images. I dialed in the camera on the ground as close as we could—and there are a lot of details to explain about that later—but then it was Mike’s job as a very talented photographer himself to take the rig up and create the air-to-air images. The first three images are Mike’s and he made on the spot essential decisions to compose and craft the images so we had the biggest part of the Aurora in the background. He used a “bite trigger” to initiate the exposures in the air while flying right next to Jon and Jeff. And Mike absolutely nailed it.
When they got down and we looked at the images we were blown away how it all worked and that the motion blur of the red lights in their wingsuits looked like they were on fire while wingsuiting under the Aurora Borealis.
Much more to come from this project but I have to say this was a massive collaboration in every respect. It was a combination of elite athletes, Red Bull’s in house team bringing it all together, myself and @collinharrington on the video side of things as well. We are all still buzzing from this gig. The magic felt like it was flowing through the entire crew on this one—on both days for the stills and the video production. There is a lot more to come from this one so stay tuned.
@redbull@redbullairforce #alaska #auroraborealis #northernlights #wingsuit #wingsuitskydiving
Everything’s better with a friend, from hanging off helicopters to running for those who can’t.
Join me for the @wflworldrun . 100% of registrations go to spinal cord injury research.
Register before January 30 and get a free voucher to bring a friend.
#wingsforlife #runforthosewhocant
