S[kydiving has been a passion of mine since 1999. It all started after I went bungee jumping at the Utah State Fair. The bungee jump was scary, but fun, so I though skydiving must be that much more scary and fun. In '99 sport skydiving was just starting to really take off. The technology was changing rapidly, and the exposure to the sport was more mainstream. There are several disciplines to skydiving. These photos are examples of "swooping". Swooping is accomplished by putting your canopy in a steep dive, usually while making a corkscrewing turns of 90 degrees or more. The timing has to be perfect to recover from your dive, and transfer the downward velocity into forward speed.
The skydiving community is a very tight knit group. This sport is the only one I am aware of that brings together so many different types of people. In the skydiving community you become friends with people you would never had otherwise, both young and old.
Skydivers are recognized for different milestones. Here Bill Fridberg is recognized with gold wings and a certificate for making 1000 jumps. When I started skydiving, 100 jumps seemed like something that would take me forever. I now have over 2500 skydives, most of them made in the last 5 years. It's not uncommon for me to make 10-15 in one day while I am working as a tandem instructor or videographer.
Here Brian Wallace (DZO of Ogden Skydiving Center) receives his 96 hour freefall badge. To put it in perspective, each skydive accumulates 45-60 seconds of freefall time.