Wingsuit Flying
How Mike Brewer flew a wingsuit during a Total Solar Eclipse
Photographer Noah Wetzel and Red Bull Air Force athlete Mike Brewer spent nine months capturing a once-in-a-lifetime wingsuit flight during a total solar eclipse.
No one has ever seen a photograph like this before - a human body in dramatic flight during a rare total solar eclipse - because no one had ever even contemplated an image like this. That is until photographer Noah Wetzel and multitalented aviation athlete Mike Brewer met each other and realized they had long shared a common dream…and then spent nine months obsessing over the details to pull it off.
In the etherial photo, Brewer, a member of the Red Bull Air Force, is racing across a ridgeline, hovering close to the ground, his body framed by the otherworldly silhouette of the moon blocking the sun. “This might be one of the most complex photographs ever pursued,” Wetzel says without bluster. “Our goal all along was to freeze an unparalleled moment in time, revealing a juxtaposition of universal power and athletic finesse - human flight during a total solar eclipse.”
Mike Brewer flies beneath a total solar eclipse in Spain
© Noah Wetzel
Total solar eclipses are extremely uncommon, occurring an average of once every 18 months somewhere on the planet. This one was even more of unicorn, taking place over a brief 84 second window just minutes before sunset, which would lead to the most dramatic lighting imaginable. “Most people will never see a total eclipse and don’t realize how radical it is,” Wetzel says. “Even 99% eclipsed and a total eclipse is the difference between day and night. Instead of a flat crescent sliver of sun, you’re staring at a three-dimensional glowing ring in the sky.”
This particular eclipse could only be viewed in totality in a narrow band of land in Spain, Iceland and Greenland, so Wetzel and Brewer pinpointed a remote desert area north of Madrid that seemed ideal to stage this nearly impossible endeavor. To that end, Brewer got some valuable local support to understand the site’s nuances from Spanish Red Bull athlete Dani Román. Román also jumped during the eclipse to increase the odds of success.
Mike Brewer and Dani Román prepare for the eclipse wingsuit jump in Spain
© Noah Wetzel
The technical requirements to nail this extraordinary hero shot are almost beyond belief. Brewer was wingsuit flying only 15 feet above a mountainous plateau in nearly complete darkness at speeds topping 150 miles per hour. “As technical as the photography side was, the wingsuit job wasn’t exactly a breeze either,” says Brewer. “None of the variables were too far out of the ordinary individually, but together they made for a stimulating challenge.”
Meanwhile, Wetzel was photographing this high-speed flight from nearly a mile away, relying on radio communications, months of intense practice, and a sophisticated wireless flash set up on the plateau beneath the wingsuit flyers to freeze Brewer in flight with his body perfectly framed by the eclipse. Wetzel took the hero shot with two interconnected 600mm Canon lenses and set up three distinct wireless flash systems to reduce the odds of a technical failure.
Mike Brewer celebrates after completing the eclipse wingsuit flight
© Noah Wetzel
After months of sleepless nights and sore legs, I was so excited to be here for the eclipse to finally be upon us
This is not Wetzel’s first success combining the seldom seen drama of a total eclipse with extreme action sports. Back in 2017, he shot a remarkable image of a mountain biker in the air during a total eclipse that wound up winning a category in the prestigious Red Bull Illume photography contest, only one of 12 images out of 60,000 global submissions to earn that honor. But this audacious new shot, he acknowledges, was on another level - at the very edge of “a fine line of photographic impossibility.”
Though Wetzel and Brewer had only 84 seconds to nail the shot of a lifetime, together they invested 600 hours and nine months to identify and solve every potential challenge to get the once-in-a-lifetime shot. This included four test productions, including a predawn simulation in Moab, Utah that required they cross a river by raft and lug hundreds of pounds of gear up a mountain in the dark (and carry it out under the desert sun). “After months of sleepless nights and sore legs, I was so excited to be here for the eclipse to finally be upon us,” Brewer says. “This is something that had never been tried. There were infinite ways it could fail, and we only get one chance. But that’s what makes it so rewarding.”
Despite all the methodical planning, both Wetzel and Brewer are understandably emotional about what they’ve accomplished. All of those months of intense planning and the years of dreaming before that paid off with images that are unlike anything ever seen before, a moment frozen that is as magical and rare as a total eclipse.
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