Every month we challenge our team of photographers from around the world with a mission. We assign a word or phrase and they show us their visual interpretation.
Aerial Photography is gaining more and more popularity with the use of quadcopters, flying cameras and drones, but getting that unique viewpoint or feeling of flying can be achieved in many traditional ways as well. So we challenged our team of photographers from around the world to show us their best “Aerial” photos.
Aerial: Jeff Bartlett
“I spend the majority of my spare time – and much of my work time – exploring the Canadian Rockies and wandering amongst its peaks. I’ve been lucky enough to photograph the mountains from a helicopter and I must say, the aerial views are the only way to put them into perspective. The scale is unbelievable.”
Aerial: Alessandra Meniconzi
“In the near future, the geographic map of Greenland will present more and more areas colored in brown and green and no longer just white snow fields. In the end, the kaleidoscope of historical, geographical recurrences will be like returning to the clear morning of that distant year 985. It will be like reliving the dream of an invincible, red-haired sea captain who, in his vessel, rocked by the crystalline waters of a welcoming fjord, showed his companions this “green” promised land.”
Aerial: Fabio Antenore
“In certain moments, we can almost forget how close we are to civilization. A starry night in the middle of the high mountains. Just silence; no other people, but our legacies are not to be overlooked. Surrounded by the mountain peaks, on the edge of the damn, the lights of the big antenna can already be seen from afar. It drenches the surrounding slopes and the lake in red light, but it appears almost small next to the mighty cliffs. A piece of civilization in nature attracts everyone’s attention…”
Aerial: Viktoria Haack
“Aerial Yoga”
Aerial: Florian Wagner
“Project Panorama 360 from the helicopter. You can see the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi. The project resulted from the cooperation with Her Highness Sheikha Alyazia Bint Sultan Al Nahyan during the shooting of Racing the Win, a book that documents the Royal Stables of Al Asayl.”
Aerial: Michael Hanson
“Shot on assignment for Outside Magazine from a tiny plane. Always love seeing the world from above.”
Aerial: Craig Pulsifer
“Like a game of ‘Snakes and Ladders on Crack’, a construction crew works on the 2nd floor of a luxury resort on the shores of Mara Lake, BC. As part of a multi-day assignment to create visuals for the developer, I took full advantage of the portable payload capacity of my Lowepro Trekker 400 AW to hop from crane to car, from dock to boat, and from beach to helicopter for a series of action lifestyle shots. This image was taken in relatively high winds from a camera securely mounted on the rail of a swaying, overhead crane.”
Aerial: Thilo Brunner
“We had been shooting a report on base jumping close to Berlin when Jojo picked up the telephone “…Wait I have to take this call, our next location is pretty safe”. Half an hour later we were sitting in the car driving east towards the countryside of Berlin. There we got the key for a special set up… Because the wind wasn’t blowing, no money was lost for the company. Cool Berlin!”
Aerial: Ryan Struck
“This image of the Chrysler building in Manhattan was made during a helicopter flight over the city. The coolest part about shooting aerial photography is having no doors on the ship and looking straight down!”
Aerial: Erwan Balança
“The by-the-wind sailor (or Velella) is a strange animal; it looks like a small jellyfish, but scientists classify it as a colony of specialized polyps. It lives an aquatic life at the ocean’s surface and moves thanks to a small sail it leaves out of the water. I photographed this invertebrate on the Brittany coast. The animal is only a few centimeters in size, but within my viewfinder, it made me think of a spaceship in space. With some small animals like this, we have the opportunity to fly to another world.”
Aerial: Michael Teague
“On a recent trip to Oceanside, California I spotted this pelican cruising the pier doing pelican stuff and i snapped a few photos… I managed to hit the shutter just as he spread his wings to take flight and this is what I got!”
Aerial: Hugo Pedel
“Being hung on a cliff edge sometimes looks really aerial! You feel the force of wind, enjoy the emptiness all around, and the sense of liberty can be quite exhilarating! Here I capture a technician climbing up on his ropes after a long day of work for a set-up of Via Ferrata.”
Aerial: Bruno Calendini
“To achieve this, I used a professional DSLR that I attached to the tip of the wing of a glider by a system of supports of my making. Then I locked my frame and I sat in the cockpit to trigger while flying with a radio remote control. After only a few photos, we had to descend and land; the unbalanced glider became too difficult to control.”
Aerial: Cole Beal
“Big messy surf with a clean air, and a San Diego sunset.”
Aerial: Jerm Cohen
Aerial: Joseph Roybal
“This past fall I was shooting in the Smoky Mountains and simply could not find higher ground for a vantage point overlooking the grand landscape I knew was out there. I found this lake and upon seeing the still water creating a glass-like reflection I thought, “let’s get the drone up and get that higher vantage point necessary.” Creating aerial images is quite complex and fun as you now incorporate maneuvering an aircraft into your thought process of a composition that has interest with leading lines, great light and is simple without too much clutter. For this image I loved the speckling of color the trees created in the ocean of green.”
Aerial: Alastair Lee
“Frenriskjeften Range, Queen Maud Land, Antarctic (I could write the book on this one!). A key aspect to my work is getting good aerial shots. The aerial shot sets the scene and tells the story like no other angle can. Here’s shot of the Frenriskjeften Range, Queen Maud Land, Antarctic with the mountain we’d just made a first ascent on: Ultvetanna in dominant view to the right; the images portrays the wild, remote and desolate beauty like no other perspective can.”
Aerial: Kylie Turley
“Aiguille du Midi is a mountain in the French Alps on the Mont Blanc mastiff. Accessed by cable car from Chamonix, a popular and perfectly quaint and French ski town, this is one of the sights every mountain lover or skier at heart needs to see and experience firsthand.”
Aerial: Kyriakos Kaziras
“Karibu Sana na bado mbali = Too close yet too far. A running cheetah is something aerial. Reaching 110 km / h at full speed, the cheetah relaxes completely and seems to fly over the ground. This female cheetah absolutely had to catch a prey to feed its three cubs. So close and so far at the same time, its claws hit the back of the antelope, but she finally escaped… the feast will have to wait for the next time.”
Aerial: Rachid Dahnoun
“Snowboarder Dave Trout launches into the sunrise on a perfect winter morning near Kirkwood, California”
Aerial: Glenn Bartley
“When I think of the term Aerial I immediately think of this incredible bird…the Peregrine Falcon.”
Aerial: Elisabeth Brentano
“An aerial view isn’t a luxury we are afforded every day, so I’m always grateful to see the earth from this perspective. In my next life, I’m coming back as a bird…”
Aerial: Elisa Detrez & Max Coquard
“Dubai from the air.”
Aerial: Gilles Reboisson
“Drone shot on a mission for Freeride World Tour: Riders on the way to the mountain top in Chamonix. By their own means. The elegant way to gain altitude.”
Aerial: Frank Lopez
“Aerial photography to me shed light to another way of seeing the world. With our feet planted to the ground, we are used to looking up or directly at what’s in plain sight. Now I’m blown away with the beauty the can only be seen from above. Even from your very own backyard, just a couple hundred feet up in the air, there are some amazing views yet to be seen. ”
Aerial: Matthias Fend
“Aerial photography offers me new perspectives to well-known areas. When I saw this river from above for the first time, it looked like the rocky mountains in Canada, but this spot was just a 10 minute drive from my hometown in Bavaria/Germany. This was a totally new experience.”
Aerial: Andreas Kieling
“On the Falkland Islands, in the South Pacific, there is a small population of King Penguins. After the moulting of their feathers, the young penguins go into the water for the first time to hunt in small groups. Even though penguins are excellent swimmers and divers, they have to get used to the water first. I could observe that a lot of young penguins took several hours until they finally plunged into the water.”
Aerial: Tom Bunning
“Aerial shot taken whilst flying across Canada on a recent trip to document the Yukon.”
Aerial: Luke Pearsall
“With the invention of affordable means to create aerial photography and video, our craft has seen a dramatic increase in new and incredible imagery from places we could have never imagined seeing before, and from a perspective that is so uniquely different than the one we see standing on the ground on our own two feet. As intriguing as this prospective is, I chose to share with you this month a more traditional perspective on an aerial shot from a vantage point that those same two feet and my Lowepro allowed me to get to. This photograph is an aerial shot taken from the Diamond Head Crater hike in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was taken as the sun was coming up across the Pacific Ocean and before the many tourist visiting Hawaii would soon follow the same hike up this path for its incredible views of Waikiki and the expanse of tropic paradise surrounding it. I have been increasingly interested in the idea of morning light and how it feels different than sunset light; and how the texturing that morning light gives, sculpts a landscape very differently. Had I not had this aerial perspective, I might not have noticed the difference in quality of light on those soft rolling waves, and that is why sometimes seeing things from up high makes all the difference in the world.”
Aerial: Shawn Talbot
“My favorite perspective”
Aerial: Glenn Fajota
“When Mother Nature shines light for you, there’s no time to waste. CLICK.”
