Michael Yon Captures Beauty At One Of The Most Dangerous Places On Earth

Michael Yon relentlessly fights bureaucratic red tape from the battlefields of Afghanistan. But, even so, he has time to see the beauty in a perilous place.

Michael has captured a static electricity effect visible at night which is the result of dissimilar materials, in this case titanium/nickel helicopter blades moving through dusty air fast as the blades rotate. Yon, who made these shots with a Canon 5D Mark II with a 50 mm lens at an ISO of 800 mentions that longer time exposures reveal more colorful effects.

The Smithsonian writes that, "He was moved to create a name, the Kopp-Etchells Effect, for the rotor phenomenon to honor a pair of fallen soldiers, U.S. Army Corporal Benjamin Kopp and British Army Corporal Joseph Etchells, who died one day apart in July after fierce fighting in Helmand (Kopp had been evacuated to the U.S. before he died). “The tent in the foreground is a medical tent,” says Yon, “so that casualties can be kept in a tent until the last minute. A substantial number of British casualties in Helmand have been lifted off of this exact spot…because this is probably either the most dangerous place in Afghanistan, or nearly the most dangerous.”

Yon is currently cutting through bureaucratic red tape to enable medevac from other than Red Cross specific craft because they are unarmed. Lives are being lost while the wounded wait for Red Cross craft.