ARIZONA, USA — "We were technically the 8th furthest person from the Earth," Blair Bunting said from his home, quite a bit closer to the ground.
In April, Bunting was 13 miles away from Earth straight up into the sky. He was flying in the second seat of a U-2 spy plane. The only people higher up were the seven people on the International Space Station.
Exactly how high up, Bunting can't say because the information is classified. But he can safely say it was above 70,000 feet. A commercial airliner flies at around 35,000 feet.
The U-2 plane he was traveling in is almost 70 years old, but some of its capabilities and technology remain classified.
It was a project that Bunting spent years thinking about, and 8 months training for. He's a commercial photographer, shooting portraits of celebrities and sports stars, and advertising campaigns for major brands.
It was a magazine cover shoot for Billboard magazine that got him noticed by a public affairs officer at Luke Air Force Base, Bunting said. That led to an invite to fly with the USAF Thunderbirds, and then an invitation to photograph the SR-71 at Beale Air Force Base. After that, they asked if he'd like to fly in a U-2.
It took years to make it happen, but in 2022 he was back at Beale, being fitted for a spacesuit.
“I was so scared that I just didn't have it in me," Bunting said. "But at the same time, I felt I felt it needed to happen."
On April 14, 2023, after being fitted for a custom spacesuit, learning the ins and outs of the jet, how to survive if he had to eject, and the long list of things that could go wrong, Bunting was headed to the edge of space.
"We needed a photographer to go up there this whole time," he said. "And the people that work on the plane and fly it, they needed to see these images."
The images he captured are the first ever air-to-air professional photos of a U-2, taken from another U-2 at a high altitude. The colors that appear in the atmosphere are not added in Photoshop, they're actually there.
But in the entire series, posted on his website, there are no faces of any of the pilots. Bunting said he only knew his pilot by his call sign, Utah.
Instead, the faces you see are the support crew, the people who maintain the jets and keep them flying.
But his favorite shot was one showing the U-2's wing, four states, the ocean and the curvature of the earth.
"I made it with my dad's lens," Bunting said. "I took it up there as a way to thank him and my mom for supporting me."
And, Bunting said, it wasn't the thrill of being one of only a handful of civilians to ever fly in a U-2, or the thrill of the danger that made him want to take on this project. It wasn't the money either. Bunting said he did this for free, even turned down commercial jobs to make this happen.
His reason is personal. And six years old.
“I have autism," Bunting said. "And my daughter, who is now six, she knows it and she knows that dad has these things that might limit him in life and whatnot. But with doing this project, she knows nothing is limited now anymore."
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