The Photographer: First, or Last, Out of the Plane

Norman Kent, sky-diving photographer, believes in magic. The 26 pounds of photo equipment mounted on his helmet may capture the pictures, but it’s magic, he says, that forms the perfect image on film.

“When I’m shooting, I want the magic to take me,” he explains. “That’s the end of being cold, of being scared. Something tells me where to go, when to shoot. When it takes over, sometimes I don’t even remember firing my cameras.”

Whether Kent, 29, jumps first or follows a sky-diving team as it exits an aircraft, he faces problems of distance, acceleration and maneuvering. “You’re either too far from or too close to the group,” he says.

His solution is to become involved with the sky divers and their formations until he feels mental communication with the team: “Then I flow with them and feel things before they happen.” He photographs each jump with a Hasselblad, a 35-millimeter Olympus, a videotape and a 16-millimeter movie camera attached to a helmet of his own design. Wiring for a motor-drive unit tracks down his sleeve.

Today, Kent’s work appears on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,” on NBC’s “SportsWorld,” in overseas movies and in advertising campaigns. He also produces his own films, which combine, he says, sky diving, art and his magic.