The Magic Minute

With a co-pilot steering the helicopter, I sat belted into the open door with my camera ready. We were maybe 100 feet above the river, drifting sideways just fast enough to stay ahead of the rotor wash that could shatter the mirrored surface below. Dim haze cloaked the horizon below the distant mountain wall. The rarely visited place, on the shore of Lake George about 45 miles east of Anchorage, seemed primal and timeless. And then it happened—the disc of the sun broke the ridge, and I began shooting. There wasn’t much time. Everything about the scene was ephemeral—the colors, the mist, the glassy channels. In seconds, the sun would rise clear, changing the hue and warming the air, and this extraordinary view would be gone.